I don't think it is difficult, but there is a growing number (I found the percentage once). I think it is a worse problem for Medicaid because payments are lower. In my area some of the family pharmacies have gone under because of payments. My optometrist no longer takes my Humana Medicare Advantage plan.
Get The Super Greeedy Wealth Extractors Out Of Health Care. We Need Single Payer NOW!
- Thread starter PoliTalker
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I don't think it is difficult, but there is a growing number (I found the percentage once). I think it is a worse problem for Medicaid because payments are lower. In my area some of the family pharmacies have gone under because of payments. My optometrist no longer takes my Humana Medicare Advantage plan.
The competition is at the ins co level as most are in group policies. They compete for those groups. But despite large revenues the profit margins are not large.
https://www.verywellhealth.com/health-insurance-companies-unreasonable-profits-1738941
Irish Exit
Verified User
Medicare doesn't even cover root canals for seniors so I am fairly sure your dentists with vans of children thing isn't true.
Which is the point. The law says the Medicare cannot price shop for drugs. They should be allowed to. The power of lobbying and PACS have taken trillions out of the taxpayer's pockets.
Sorry, I meant Medicaid. See the following news segments:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/whistl...hain-when-they-suspect-company-of-wrongdoing/
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/complaints-about-kids-care-follow-kool-smiles/
There has been a considerable price drop in those areas where customers can shop around--lasik surgery, plastic surgery......
Irish Exit
Verified User
It doesn't surprise me but that is self-evident from the piece----it is because reimbursement rates are too low. They cannot stay in business without churning procedures. It is the fundamental problem with medicare/medicaid for all that gets completely ignored by democrats. Unless you either take over the entire industry on all sides or spend significantly more money than we currently are, you cannot overlay single payer onto a for-profit system and have medical providers stay in business and quality of care. medicare/medicaid only do what they do because for profit insurance companies subsidize their patients by creating enough profit for the providers to tolerate some free rider patients. I live in a 1 hospital town and that hospital will only treat medicaid patients through the ER. Unless it is life or death, you have to go somewhere else for surgery. They are almost as bad with medicare patients but they can at least kick them out to nursing homes for "rehab" when they hit their stay window or pawn them off onto long term stay hospitals the day after they become entitled to the full patient co-pay. My state's medicaid is horrible. It is why I say medicaid is almost as good as having no insurance whatsoever because virtually nobody other than the ER will see them. A lot of doctors locally also limit the number of medicare patients they will take for the same reason.
Not a question of staying in business, but maintaining their high profit rates. You don't lose money in healthcare in the US,.
Irish Exit
Verified User
Tell that to Partner's Healthcare that has lost 100's of millions in recent years. It is a question of staying in business when you have to pay a mint before you make the first dime of profit. A no-frills strip mall bay alone in our area will run you between $5K-$10K per month. People who don't know shit about running businesses don't know shit about how expensive overhead can be before the first dime of payroll gets covered. It is why rural access to healthcare is in such huge danger.
"In most rural communities, the hospital is the first or second largest employer, but only if the hospital can keep its doors open. More than 44% of rural hospitals operate at a loss and 30% operate below a -3% margin. 83 rural hospitals have closed since 2010, and 674 are vulnerable to closure. If all 674 vulnerable hospitals close, we will lose 99,000 direct health care jobs, 137,000 community jobs, and $277 billion in GDP. Per-Capita annual income in rural communities will decrease by $703, while rural unemployment would increase by 1.6 percentage points." https://www.ruralhealthweb.org/blogs/ruralhealthvoices/february-2018/rebuild-rural-the-importance-of-health-care-in-in
If what you are saying is that reasonable healthcare cannot be obtained for everyone under our system of capitalism...(AND THAT DOES SEEM TO BE WHAT YOU ARE SAYING)...
...then dump our system of capitalism and install something that can.
We are the ONLY major industrialized nation that has the kinds of problems we do with healthcare for EVERYONE.
If the system is the problem...
...GET RID OF THE FUCKING SYSTEM.
Irish Exit
Verified User
Over half of US hospitals are non-profit. Of the other half, only about half are for profit and half are government owned facilities. So our perceived problem only involves less than 25% of the hospitals. My better half's non-profit hospital operates at about a $250M/year surplus on close to $3B in revenue. That $250M gets combined with about $100M per year in investment income from a foundation to subsidize the losses of two other hospitals in rural areas that are part of the same system, as well as provide free healthcare to communities through clinics, health fairs and the like. It doesn't matter what system you have. To provide hospital care alone for free would require the government to come up with an extra trillion dollars a year in tax revenue which would require a 33% roughly increase in federal tax revenues alone. That does not include non-hospital care that will be another $1T beyond what the public already covers. Then you have to pay for the infrastructure and physical plants of either building new hospitals or using the takings clause to buy up all the existing ones. It is a lot easier to sit at home and proclaim things on the internet than it is to actually make them happen. We can't balance the federal budget now, let alone doubling it just to keep up with tiny little European countries whose nationalized healthcare's success largely involves being a freerider on the US R&D to begin with.
PoliTalker
Diversity Makes Greatness
Hello Althea,
They also spend a lot on advertising.
That seems ridiculous.
If a patient needs a drug, it is up to the doctor to prescribe it.
With a single payer system we can put an end to the absurdity and wasted health care dollars spent on advertising.
They also spend a lot on advertising.
That seems ridiculous.
If a patient needs a drug, it is up to the doctor to prescribe it.
With a single payer system we can put an end to the absurdity and wasted health care dollars spent on advertising.
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Althea
Althea told me...
PoliTalker
Diversity Makes Greatness
Hello Celticguy,
They could reduce the cost of insurance by reducing executive pay. Also, if they are running on such thin margins, running so efficiently, and coverage just can't be delivered for any less, then they should have no problem beating any deal available from a government Public Option run by government which conservatives say 'can't do anything right.' So why do they fight that so hard? It really looks like they are afraid that government can do it cheaper.
They could reduce the cost of insurance by reducing executive pay. Also, if they are running on such thin margins, running so efficiently, and coverage just can't be delivered for any less, then they should have no problem beating any deal available from a government Public Option run by government which conservatives say 'can't do anything right.' So why do they fight that so hard? It really looks like they are afraid that government can do it cheaper.
Rural access is tough because they do not have the customer base. it is not about their start up costs, That is why rural folks have to drive to a city to get almost anything,
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Lightbringer
Loves Me Some Souls
That's not how the Internet works dummy.
Like I said...if we cannot provide adequate healthcare for everyone using the system we have...
..shitcan it...and create a new system.
Perhaps we can borrow the systems used by all the other industrialized nations of the world...because thy are providing that.
PoliTalker
Diversity Makes Greatness
Hello Nordberg,
I agree.
Just imagine how much it costs us to have so many sick people who don't get proper care. How much lost productivity do we suffer because people are not as healthy as they can be?
How many people go to work sick, and spread their illness to others, because we don't have a national paid sick leave policy?
We need the best healthcare system and policy we can have, because unchecked illness hurts the USA!
Our current health care system is a for-profit business. The goal is to make money.
That's the WRONG GOAL!
We need a health care system whose goal is to keep the nation healthy.
OK? Imagine!
There is a basic fundamental difference there.
I agree.
Just imagine how much it costs us to have so many sick people who don't get proper care. How much lost productivity do we suffer because people are not as healthy as they can be?
How many people go to work sick, and spread their illness to others, because we don't have a national paid sick leave policy?
We need the best healthcare system and policy we can have, because unchecked illness hurts the USA!
Our current health care system is a for-profit business. The goal is to make money.
That's the WRONG GOAL!
We need a health care system whose goal is to keep the nation healthy.
OK? Imagine!
There is a basic fundamental difference there.
talking healthcare you dumb shit.
Many (83) rural hospitals have gone out of business due to lower subsidies under Obamacare. I live in a county of 85,000 and our one hospital recently closed. I don't think they would have closed if they were making money. Many doctors have closed their private practices and joined larger groups due to higher administrative and overhead costs.