What the fight between Anthem and anesthesiologists was really about.

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Private insurance companies have earned the public’s distrust. They routinely put profitability above their policyholders’ well-being. And a system of private health insurance provision also has higher administrative costs than a single-payer system, in which the government is the sole insurer.

But the avarice and inefficiencies of private insurers are not the sole — or even primary — reasons why vital medical services are often unaffordable and inaccessible in the United States. The bigger issue is that America’s health care providers — hospitals, physicians, and drug companies — charge much higher rates than their peers in other wealthy nations.

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  • henfredemars@infosec.pubEnglish
    291·
    3 days ago

    Vox, do you want to know why those medical service providers charge much higher rates? Gee…

    I’ll give you a hint. It requires a large bureaucracy and staff to deal purely with interfacing with this behemoth that’s somehow part of the healthcare but has nothing to do with actually providing the healthcare. You guessed it! It’s still the health insurance companies. I strongly disagree with the article conclusion.

    Health insurance companies actually incentivize more expensive medical care because it allows them to show you the bigger discount and punish others for trying to go around the insurance mafia. Their goal is to force everyone to pay the toll, the maximum possible toll, and provide the least amount of service possible in doing so.

    Don’t blame doctors. Hell, don’t even blame the hospitals even though they do have crappy administration. The heart of the problem is private insurance. Insurance games the system, and people die.

    • protist@mander.xyzEnglish
      18·
      3 days ago

      I worked in a hospital for a long time and oversaw an entire team of people whose only job was to interface and argue with insurance companies. For my small hospital, we had 7 people doing this averaging $85-$90K per year each.

      And don’t get me started on unfunded care. Since we live in Texas, which has not expanded Medicaid, there are a ton of people who end up in the hospital with no insurance and who will never pay a cent because they literally can’t. Hospitals try to make up that funding gap by raising rates on everyone who does pay. We’re already paying for other people’s healthcare this way, I wish we would just nationalize health insurance and eliminate insurance companies entirely.

    • dogslayeggs@lemmy.world
      5·
      3 days ago

      I think there is some blame to passed onto for-profit hospital conglomerates. They degrade care to drive down costs to maximize profits. They force doctors to do min-maxing and game theory shit to get bonuses that don’t actually help the patients.

      I agree that insurance companies are the biggest issue, but let’s not absolve the big hospital corporations.

    • atzanteol@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      15·
      3 days ago

      Health insurance companies actually incentivize more expensive medical care because it allows them to show you the bigger discount and punish others for trying to go around the insurance mafia

      Wut? I don’t expect a coherent response since lemmy loves conspiracy theories, but where did you get this from?