As long as their is an insurance company standing between you and your doctor then your gambling with your life.

You mean the same thing that insurance companies are doing now?

While I am beginning to agree that opening up the markets to allow people to purchase across state lines, I don’t believe for a moment that will be a long term fix. All it would mean is short term competition until the big companies eat up all the small companies and then we are right back were we started, although this time it will be one or two companies owning the entire market of the nation instead of just the markets of one state. There has to be an entity out there that can compete with insurance companies that can’t be bought and sold by bigger companies. Co-ops will not be able to compete with that.

You do realize that the Conservative solution to health cost increases is based almost entirely on eliminating needle procedures?

Check out the New Yorker article on McAllan, TX. There Doctors have an excellent racket. They prescribe needless procedures like tests in exchange for a cut of Medicare’s fee. Since it’s only a test there is virtually no risk anything can go wrong, and with high enough volume MediCare payment rates are quite profitable.

There are many other expensive procedures that could be prevented if we paid for cheap preventive care. premature babies are very, very expensive. Classes that teach expectant moms the best way to avoid premature births, and regular appointments with doctors to make sure everything’s going smoothly, can cut premature births by 75%.

But in the current US System nobody has an incentive to pay for those classes. Providers could afford it, but they are also the ones who get major revenue from premature births. Insurance companies don’t like paying for this kind of care because you are only guaranteed to save money if you get thousands enrolled.

Believe me, there’s plenty of fat in the US Health system. And it is related to bypass surgery, hip replacement, or trying to keep grandma alive for too long.

First, on why health reform is needed and why the magic of the market isn’t helping contain costs…it’s actually driving it up…

Because consumers don’t pay out of pocket for much of their health care, they don’t shop around for bargains the way they do for cars or toilet paper…

So the magic of the free market isn’t working because there is no free market. This guy is telling you that people don’t shop for insurance (I think car insurance would be a better example than toilet paper). The only reason this happens is because the government doesn’t allow out-of-state providers to be liscensed, and structures the tax system to promote employer-based insurance.

The key isn’t that the cooperatives would be not-for-profit, but that the annual payments would give doctors and hospitals a financial incentive to control costs, better coordinate care, and eliminate procedures with little or no benefit.

In other words, if the co-ops are large enough, they can dictate lower payments to doctors and hospitals, forcing them to reduce the amount of care they give.

I love this new euphamism people are using to describe cutting benefits…”eliminate procedures with little or no benefit.” Like hip replacements or bypass surgery after 60. Its called rationing.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/08/against_giving_up_on_the_publi.html

I wouldn’t call it a lie, but it is obviously untrue. Private security firms supplement the police, FedEx costs a lot more than the post Office but is apparently doing fine, non-profits frequently operate in the same sector as various government services, etc.

Heck even in Canada there is private health insurance available to supplement public insurance.

I’ll still fight for a public option, because I think it would work better, tho.

Successful co-ops DO exist, like HealthPartners in Minnesota.

Actual government ownership is not competition because it always collapses to government monopoly, Spk.