Investments may be what puts them from red to black, but that doesn't mean the foundation is unimportant, i.e. determining premiums and deductibles, selecting which services/treatments to cover, etc.. If they couldn't make as much with their investments, the calculations would have to be tweaked to far less attractive plans for the consumers, who are often overusing or misusing the healthcare system.

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I agree with you, except personal responsibility and healthy lifestyle seems like a fantasy to me in this nation. You are demanding that people identify and eliminate all of the risk factors in their lives without the education that can be provided by a PCP. Think of how many people are raised in a completely ignorant environment. Not to mention, there are a great number of diseases and disorders that cost much less to be treated if caught earlier.

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Yeah, the government's meddling played a role. Of course it did. And then the banks took advantage of it. Who pulled the trigger and did the most harm? I've gotten into this banking conversation on other boards and have read the act. I apologize for bringing up an entire other massive argument that could go on for pages and pages.

I can't answer everyone's posts here. I apologize. I'm at work and already wasting tons of time trying to formulate answers that cover all of the challenging points being raised. I don't think I'm up to the task all day.

I don't necessarily agree with "power trumps profit every time." Power is a means to an end, usually profit. They are often tied hand in hand. You can't simply say "government has unlimited power over money" etc. because the Federal Reserve is basically a conglomeration of private banks. I would say that the private sector IS the government monopoly that stands apart from the aspect of our government that is representative and controlled by the people.

A public option does not = forcing you to join it. You can still have private insurance coverage. Am I wrong in that assumption?

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Let me start with MassPackersFan's last question. No, a public option doesn't "force" you to take what it offers. Not yet anyway.

But let me respond with another question or two: Which enterprise, one has the greater ability to restrict your choices and options? One with tens of billions of dollars worth of assets at its disposal (an insurance company, say, or a bank), or one with tens of trillions of assets at its disposal, plus the ability to print pieces of paper and call them "dollars" or "US Treasury Bonds", plus the ability to enforce its will through taxation, law enforcement, and a monopoly over socially legitimate coercion?

I tell the insurance company (or another private company) to fuck off, what can they do to me? Refuse to trade with me. Refuse to offer me services.

I tell the government to fuck off, what can they do to me? They can take my money. They can take my land. They can take my guns. They can take my cell phone and anything else they want. They can make me "voluntarily" pay income taxes. They can suspend habeas corpus or any other rights of mine, or even kill me in the name of "national security."

They can. And history shows they have. Over and over again.

They can regulate the fuck out of me, and they have. Over and over again. To the tune of hundreds of thousands of pages that I am required to obey upon penalty of the law because "ignorance of the law is no excuse." Even though to read said laws and regulations at the rate of one book per day it would take me something between one and two years and I wouldn't even touch the hundreds of thousands of pages of court opinions to which I am subject. And in the meantime they'll change tens, or even hundreds of thousands of those pages, so a quarter of what I've read is out of date by the time I'm finished.

And they can do it without even reading the damn things first themselves. Some people have made a big deal of the fact that a thousand pages or so of health bill is put into effect without the morons of Congress having read them first. Well, guess what? That's the tip of the iceberg when it comes to abdication of responsibility. Because I can guarantee without having read the thing that said unread health bill will come with a "delegation" of rule-making and adjudicatory authority to unelected officials that dwarfs a thousand pages by at least an order of magnitude.

All of it backed up by the coercive power of the IRS, the FBI, the Department of Justice, and the rest.

Yes, private industry has screwed me, and will again. But to compare that possible to the repeated gang rapes that the state can and will and has, repeatedly, been allowed to commit.....that's an error of proportion akin to saying we need to protect ourselves against the next Jeffrey Dahmer or Ed Gein the way we need to protect ourselves against the next Hitler or Pol Pot.

Okay, I get it. People don't trust their insurance company or their employer or Bad Corporation X. Fine. I don't trust the bastards much myself.

But why in the heck do you trust an organization that, despite having power that dwarfs the largest of evil corporations, has shown itself to be even less trustworthy?

I just don't get that.

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Very valid point. I guess I don't understand the separation of the two in our minds. I think it's pretty clear that the government is working for the private sector, and to probably some extent, vice versa, and it's extremely problematic. This healthcare bill without a public option is absolutely, positively working for the private insurance companies. The examples of how private business and industry has their fingers on the controls of our government are limitless. "Government" has become the vehicle by which they acquired access to more power to screw us in all of the ways you said they have, and more. There are some remnants of the representative government our founders envisioned, and sometimes elected officials try to put them into action with some measure of vision behind it, but it's always corrupted and turned inside out for the benefit of the powers behind the power.

My apologies for your loss of your money, land, guns, and cell phones. RIP. :lol:

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So we have established that insurance companies take in X dollars and pay X dollars. What else do we expect them to do. Finding a way to make money while still accomplishing that should not be frowned upon.

My question is, how is a public option going to compete with that? Insurance companies invest, so they can pay for their buildings and pay employees salaries. Are we going to let the government into private investing? Or are we going to pay for this with tax money?

To get insurance for more people (maybe everybody) the cost needs to be cut down, so the insurance companies can provide the insurance at a reasonable cost, then they can still invest to make their profit.

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If health care costs are lowered, I don't see insurance companies lowering their prices for coverage unless it means an increased overall profit by having more people covered under more policies.

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Oh brother.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/12/23/gop-constitutional-challenge-senate-health-fails/ 



I guess there's no doubt left that this is all about passing A bill, not a bill that will actually do something. You'd think one or two of the people voting for the bill might think it's a good idea to see if what you're proposing is constitutional or not. I also find the timing curious - Plenty of time for things to blow over before the 2010 election (but not if they don't cram it through NOW), and the bulk of the changes won't take effect until 2013 (after the 2012 presidential race).

I work in the health care field ... I can tell you this as a chiropractor when talking about how many other chiropractors function.

Many look to 'rape' insurance companies to make money. Meaning they are inclined to do services so they make money even if it is not medically necessary.
plane and simple is against what doctors should be doing (and this obviously isnt just chiropractors that function this way).

In california there was a huge change in how workerscomp and personal injury cases were handeled because again; chiropractors were literally 'raping' the insurance companies that handeled these. And the california chiropractors were so good at it that there had to be a state wide change to not allow chiropractors (err could be other practiononeers also) to not be able to abuse the system anymore.

these are just some examples that have bugged me about my profession.

ie another reason why your insurance costs are so high (again I would have to assume these types of practices are not just done by chiros but by many health care practionerrs).

This is where you are wrong IMO.

The biggest complaint around the country, is not that people are not offered insurance, it is that what they are offered is to expensive. Insurance companies look at risk reward and determine a price based on risk level.

Somebody goes to get insurance and makes 20k a year. but their risk level puts them at a level that is determined to cost 2 k month to cover. The insurance company knows there is no way that person can afford to pay that much, so why offer it in the first place. Now lower the costs and that 2k a month turns into 1k. Now that is a level where it is worth offering in the first place.

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