When the US was having actual discussions of single-payer health care (i.e. the “public option” during Obama’s first term), one major argument against it was “do you really want the government between you and your doctor?!”
Even though insurance companies are literally already between you and your doctor, and they exist purely to extract money from that interaction.
It’s never made sense.
The old arguments were “Look how long they (the socialists) wait to get appointments and get seen!” Yep, we’re there now. I have insurance, I still pay a bunch, and seeing specialists is a luxury at this point. If I have an issue, I don’t even consider calling specialists, because I know it’s weeks til I can get in.
Weeks lol, try months to years round these parts
And then the same party decided to get the government in there too anyways
Ahaha that’s a good point. Tbh despite the nickname “Obamacare” it had slipped my mind that the ACA was the bastardized, castrated version of that whole thing.
They chopped it down to Romneycare
I don’t trust the government, but I trust them a hell of a lot more than insurance companies of all people
You forgot that Clinton tried as well.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinton_health_care_plan_of_1993
during Obama’s first term
Lol this was just about the first thing Clinton tried to get done in 1993. It’s one of the things that led to the creation of Fox News.
It’s never made sense.
It makes perfect sense for the americans who have been conditioned for literal decades to react certain ways to certain things, while being kept ignorant of nice things that exist in the rest of the world.
For instance:
Government-run anything? It is mathematically and physically impossible for it to benefit society. It will, without fail, become a corrupt dumpster fire that furthers evil in our world.
Market-based solution that leans heavily on “personal responsibility?” Well that’s just great I tells ya! It lobs like the best, kindest, and most Christlike solution is to do nothing and let them fend for themselves! They will be stronger for it and will thank us!
You are the product
Look at finance! They don’t make anything of actual value, they just bet what’s going to happen to the people that do
If they did that, then they’d be contributing useful information about which ideas are good. But they don’t even do that anymore; the finance game has been rigged since the bailouts started.
Health insurers don’t contribute information. You don’t need to know what your odds of getting sick are because you’re going to want treatment either way. A choice where the alternative is death isn’t a choice.
“You know what the trouble is, Brucey? We used to make shit in this country, build shit. Now we just put our hand in the next guy’s pocket.”
Isn’t that investing though? Or is that entirely different?
Companies can do things without investors, but investors can’t do anything without companies.
If I invest in stock on my toilet at home I’m technically helping the company financially, but I’m not actually developing or making things of real economic value. I’m just betting they will and that their numbers will go up.
Oh shit I have a toilet too how do I invest
Remember pryimid schemes are illegal. Because they dont sell a product.
They’re not illegal because they don’t sell a product, they’re illegal because they’re impossible to maintain mathematically.
It’s not far off from a Ponzi scheme, honestly. A few people are going to make a lot of money early on and everybody else is going to get rapidly diminishing returns to nothing.
The US should adopt the Dutch healthcare system. You could have medical treatment as an average Joe and also not be bankrupt or up to your tits in debt.
I mean if they picked a random country it probably has a good chance to be twice as good as the US system
yeah, but, like the lines are long
/s
I’m still rooting for Danish healthcare! I don’t know anything about it, nor do I live in California but I’d welcome our new overlords
Please don‘t extrapolate from the US healthcare system to insurances in general. Insurances collect money from many so in the case something happens to an individual that individual doesn‘t need take the full financial loss. This makes a lot of sense, because it would very inefficient if everyone would save money in order to pay for a potential cancer treatment. Cancer is rare, but in aggregate it is just small amount each month.
The job of the insurance is to define that monthly amount (which is not trivial to do), collect it, store it and eventually pay it out.
On another note, unless an insurance is mandatory you can usually opt to pay yourself.
Anything critical to the life of an individual citizen, like health and home insurance, should be publicly run. It just doesn’t make sense for a private company to manage that because their profit motive is in direct opposition to the individual (i.e. they must fight claims and inflate premiums to increase revenue).
The state loses money anyway if the person is homeless or destitute so they might as well pay out. Yes there are still agents to manage funds and adjust claims and set rates but they’re now operating as impartial public servants instead of antagonists.
It’s all a scam and if it doesn’t feel like that yet just you wait!
I just bought a new car. Been driving over twenty years, not a single accident or ticket ever in my life. It was a fucking Toyota Corolla. THEY TRIED TO CHARGE ME MORE A MONTH FOR INSURANCE THAN THE FUCKING CAR PAYMENT!
I was on the phone and I said to geico, you think you deserve a car and a half every fucking month to insure my one car? They told me I would never find a lower rapt that’s what everyone is going to be paying soon.
I found a lower rate… like 10% of what they quoted. Fucking con artists. Every single person that works in insurance should know they are the enemy.
I‘ve heard that car insurance is too expensive in the US, but keep in mind that you are usually not insuring your own car, but everyone else‘s, so if you are causing an accidents the other party can buy a new car for example. An old car (due to the lack of safety systems) is often more likely to end up in car crash than a newer one. In Germany (where insurance prices are much saner) this applies as well. You either get an expensive car and pay less for insurance or an old one and pay more. Also in Germany fees are pooled by model, so if your car is used by a lot young people (who get into accidents more) you also pay more. The good thing is that you can inform yourself about it before you buy a car to factor it into a buying decision from the start.
You would think that. But most decent sized companies self insure. That means they figure out how much to hold in savings to cover potential costs. They probably pay someone for that number. The premium is just to pay the insurance company to manage billing. It is basically an administrative fee. That puts them in the position that employers will choose the insurance company that cost them the least, mainly by denying claims. It’s a system designed to extract as much money as possible from the people and pass it on to the largest shareholders (the board of directors).
Sounds like communism to me, son.
It’s wild how much this contrasts with Australia’s Medicare, like here you can literally just walk into the ER with any issue, show them your Medicare card and get your entire treatment covered for free unless you need any private healthcare, which even then there are rebates and private healthcare competes with public so it’s also moderately affordable.
There were 2 instances where my dad needed to be in hospital for multiple days at a time, once for a broken wrist after slipping at the boat ramp after a fishing trip, and the other was a stingray attack on his leg at that same boat ramp. Both instances didn’t require a single cent exchanged, we just walked in and described the issue, and boom, after a few days he was treated to the extent he could go home and not really worry at all anymore.
Your dad should stay away from that boat ramp…
I vote it be burnt.
Boat Ramps are typically concrete. And partially submerged. Good luck!
This is unironically Nixon’s fault.
Capitalism is basically about making as much money as possible with as few products/services as possible. Health insurance is one of the best ways to achieve that.
You forgot the most important part of capitalism which is exploiting labor.
ah that western bias again…
The first step for you would be to understand what an insurance is about 😃
Have you noticed a weird pattern where in your country, with insurance, the prices for non-insured individuals are through the roof? Even simple medications or procedures are so expensive you’re almost guaranteed to suffer financially from any medical procedure. Ever noticed that?
The issue with a snarky “learn what insurance is about” is that insurance companies, especially in the US, especially within healthcare, figured out a loop by which they can increase the prices so absurdly high that you need insurance and even with insurance, you’re likely going to suffer. So yes, your simplistic logic of “you pay insurance an affordable amount per month now, so that if you need something expensive later they cover you” is fundamentally destroyed by the reality where insurance companies can determine the final price, and therefore, it shifts from actual insurance into mafia.
But maybe nuance is not the strong suit of the average US citizen, so I guess a one liner snarky reply is all your working memory can afford to think through.
Also, their argument could be destroyed be simply looking at other countries, like most european ones, where healtcare is paid by taxes so everyone get low-cost healthcare and if they really want private healtcare they can still pay a company
Health insurance in sane is fine though, so the thing in the screenshot is bollocks. That’s the point of the comment.
“it’s easier to fool someone than it is to convince him that he’s been fooled”
Actually, if you ask about the non-insurance price, it is often significantly reduced. Places massively overbill, so that the insurance can claim they got you a discount. The real price is often even lower.
But yes, it’s a scam to make you believe you “need” insurance. Most probably only need like catastrophic insurance.
Taking your premiums and finding ways to deny your claim.
Done, what’s next?
Person: here’s some money
Company: oh cool thanks
Person: ok now give it back
Company: yeah about that
An insurance organization operated for the benefit of the insured gives value. An insurance organization run for the benefit of investors gives the barest minimum (or less) to the insured and takes lives in the name of profits.
It would make sense if health insurance just covered hospitalizations, catastrophic diseases, etc. But it’s required for any healthcare to be affordable and healthcare is a necessity.
Its like a subscription model, but worse because you don’t actually know what will be included (covered) or denied.
Imagine if 90% of the time, Spotify would only play an album if you asked to play it twice, unless it was an album in the billboard top ten, and sometimes it would decide to not play an album at all, and it had made deals with every record company that made physical media versions of albums cost $5,000. That’s what health insurance is like.
Dont give them ideas!
the first step for you would be shutting up and having your first neuron activation at last
Lmfao, it’s nerdy as hell but hilarious
Bet that’s not as revealing as understanding what good healthcare without insurance is about.
Understanding what can & what can’t be a free market is a step before that first step tho.
So what is it about?
You are the product. When your liability outpaces your premium is when they decide to stop covering you.
Here in Argentina that we have free healthcare, insurance is a signal of wealth so you get attended in the private hospital away from the common folk. And even in the private hospital everything is relatively cheap because they have to compete with the free option.
Health insurance is a decent solution to no universal healthcare…on paper. But the way the US executed it is poor
Health insurance is rent on your life. Healthcare should be provided by your government through taxes. It is the best interest of everyone to do it that way. That isn’t insurance. That’s just healthcare.
I agree with you. But I think you missed the point of my comment.
Yep! Japan (only other country I have experience with) has a government run health insurance. Since the interests aren’t profit, the prices remain reasonable even without it
waiting for a medical group to bypass them and collect premiums directly. if only to end insurance paperwork costs. it is a drag on everyone’s bottom line. aside from price distortions.
A couple of my doctors did that before I left the US in 2021. They stopped accepting insurance and started charging a monthly “membership fee” that would cover a certain number of visits per year.
My parents are part of a clinic exactly like this. I legit thought it might be a scam at first because “how have insurance companies not shut this down?”
It sorta works for kaiser - they administer the insurance and the hospitals. Very convenient for people who both have the insurance and access to their facilities.
Nowhere near as good as a single payer system of course.
I don’t love Kaiser - the prices still suck. But they sometimes suck less, and their system is far more streamlined than I’ve had with other insurance providers. Still ridiculous to be trapped in a system with no control over or transparency into costs.
It would convert nicely enough to a single payer. Granted costs might suck but if they were just absorbed into the system, I wouldn’t really care. I could at least believe they are trying to be efficient. As it is, I’m left believing I get charged as much as they think they can get away with. And wth else am I going to do? Kaiser is much cheaper than my employer’s other option (there are literally 2), and I’ve had the other before. It just sucks (slightly) differently.
I’ve seen it with dentists, they have a membership plan that covers cleanings and certain things which can be useful and affordable if you don’t have access to affordable dental insurance.
I have something like that, sorta. I work for a very tiny company (literally 4 people), and so we couldn’t get a good insurance plan that covered vision and dental because insurance companies suck ass.
So my dentist has a thing where I pay a single price once a year and get 2 cleanings out of the deal. Though anything beyond that is still out of pocket.
Horrible place for a conflict of interest
conflict with insurance interest in taking your money. nurse i know spends 2 hours of insurance documentation for every hour on actual nursing.
I’m not claiming that’s a good thing but I’m fine with my medical provider being incented to provide proper care and to get everything they deserve from my insurance. I would not be fine with them being incented to provide only the care I can afford right now or being incented to maximize how much I’m stuck paying
the calculation i try to do. total insurance payments for a year minus healthcare received equals profits wasted building bigger office buildings and yachts for insurance execs. i’ll bet you a hundred dollars a month your house won’t burn down. or the extended car warranty scams are also same deal. house always wins because people don’t have common sense to save money for ‘rainy days’. schools don’t teach basic finance.
