Flame — HabitableZone

Flame » in reply to Atlanta's burning, Miz Scarlett

re: Atlanta's burning, Miz Scarlett
TB — (archived)

Market forces do not apply when you have a good chance of dying unless you can afford the product. Free markets depend on the assumption that somewhere down the line the consumer can say "I don't need this at this price, I'm going to the competition."

I hear this a lot.

Nobody goes around pricing health care during a crisis, any more than I start shopping for a deal on tires when I get a flat, or ask about fire insurance when my house is burning down.

The competition is what happens when you are preparing for health care emergencies. When you are picking out an insurance program, a level of coverage, or a doctor. Even employer-provided policies offer a range of choices and costs.

The government or nothing is not a good solution for this. And even if you allow private insurance as backup to a single-payer system, doesn't that put you right back into the "rich get more" situation?

How much of our health dollars go into those gleaming insurance company office towers and walnut-panelled executive suites (or should I say "sweets"?).

Interesting question. Ever bother to look it up? Or is this just one of the dozens of factoids I read here every day that seem to arrive out of the ether?

80 million Americans with private health insurance get it from non-profit companies. Did you know that? The Census Bureau reported in 2005 that there were 245.3 million Americans covered by some form of insurance, and that of those, 68 percent (about 167 million) were covered by private insurance.

Combining these numbers, we have almost half of private health insurance in America provided by non-profit organizations.

Of all the community hospitals in America, only 17 percent are private for-profit organizations.

I've pointed this all out before. Typically, it didn't stick. Numbers never seem to stick in the mind as easily as talking points do. Hey, why find out the complicated facts when you can listen to anecdotes, horror stories, and chocolate-covered crap from Michael Moore?

But hey, you read the thread above. It's okay if Moore lies like a rug because it's for a good cause.

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