Quote:
Originally Posted by WT Sharpe
Let's talk about the public option, since that's what we're really talking about when we're talking about anything approaching government-run health-care.
1) If like the insurance you have, you can keep it. That's why it's called an option.
2) If you would rather have the government plan, you must pay for it. It's not charity, and it's not free; but it's the best way I can see to make the big boys behave, and in my opinion, health-care reform without a strong public option is no reform at all.
Could it hurt the insurance companies ability to make profits? All I can say is that I'm every bit as worried about that as the insurance companies are about people with pre-existing conditions.
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I know a little bit about medicare reimbursement rates. I work for a clinical laboratory and the way medicare reimburses for services is insane. If you go to a hospital and they draw your blood and run a CBC (a blood test), medicare will pay the hospital $20 for the test. If you go to your doctor and he orders a CBC and you get the test done by a non-hospital lab then medicare will only pay the lab $9 for the exact same test. We even lose money on some medicare reimbursed tests. Private doctors, x-ray, and other non-hospital enties face the same situation.
If we charged insurance companies the same that medicare reimburses us then we would be out of business in a week. What happens in practice is that the other insurance companies pay more for services than they would if medicare paid a reasonable rate. What should happen is that everyone should pay $12 for a CBC, but instead medicare pays $9 and the insurance companies pay $15. Then medicare cuts their rates and pays $8 and the lab raises price on the insurance company who ends up getting charged $16. Now everyone starts screaming about rising healthcare prices.
My fear is that the government plan is going to be a fraction of an insurance company policy and then the government is going to try reimbursing in a similar manner as medicare, but this time there is a difference. Currently not everyone can get into the medicare program, but everyone will be able to get into the "government plan". And if everyone moves to the government plan it will leave no one left to pay for the governments discounted prices. You think healthcare is a mess now, just wait until the government puts those evil insurance companies out of business.