Thursday, June 28, 2012

"Victory" Has Been Achieved

The ruling on the mandate is actually a little mixed, although it will clearly allow “health care reform” to stand. What it boils down to is that no, the government cannot require you to buy health insurance, but it can tax you if you don’t. That’s what “ACA” does, so Obama’s “grand legacy” is intact. Liberals are absolutely beside themselves with glee, and are wearing out the exclamation mark keys on their keyboards.

I'm glad they are all so thrilled that health insurance companies are going to be selling so many more policies. Yes, I know this is better than nothing, and all that, but unlike everybody else in the liberal camp, I actually think that legislation which makes health insurance companies bigger and more powerful, more in control of the health care delivery system, is a very long way from the best thing that can be done for this nation.

I know, there is all the wonderful things about how they cannot turn down people and must keep kids until age 26... Awesome. They are required to have all of these additional paying clients whether they want them or not. Makes your heart bleed for those insurance companies, doesn’t it; saddling them with all of that additional revenue?

Where are the regulations limiting insurance premiums? The 80% “medical loss ratio” thing? No, actually that's a regulation insuring that they do make a profit, because whatever their costs are they are allowed to add 25% to that to determine their selling price. It’s the “cost plus” thing that Pentagon procurement is so fond of. In any case, that is not a “health care cost” issue, that is a “health insurance price” issue.

Health care costs are generated by hospitals, physicians, drug companies and the like. Where are the regulations saying that a hospital can't charge you $300 for a blanket that they let you use for five minutes before surgery? Where are the regulations that say a hospital can't charge $1000 to one insurance company for a procedure and $3000 to a different insurance company for the same procedure? Where is the regulation saying that a drug company can’t charge $100+ for a pill that costs them 50¢ to make?

An insurance company must spend 80% of its pricing on cost, but a hospital is not limited in anything like the same way. Its costs might very well be only 40% of the amount that it bills. Drug companies might have costs that are only 35% of what people pay for drugs.

So the insurance companies pay the outrageous hospital costs, pay the outrageous drug costs, pay the $2,000,000 doctor salaries, and then they add 25% to that and pass it on to be paid by the people who are being treated. And we are cheering lustily because instead of fixing that broken system, we simply require more people to participate in it.

Victory? This nation is so bankrupt we don’t even know what victory is.

No comments:

Post a Comment