Impeding changes to our Health Care system

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by classicman

To mandate coverage to private industry makes no sense.

That's how car insurance works.

The government has never run a profitable enterprise - EVER. Therefore it is crystal clear how this ambitious new plan will be payed for - tax increases. To even consider it ignores that reality.

If the government ran something at a profit, it should either spin it off to private industry or decrease its budget. One of the reasons for a government to run something is if the profit motive is insufficient (e.g. pure science) or corrupting (e.g. the military).

If there were a way to set up private health insurance in such a way that the profit motive incentivized low premiums and paying claims, maybe that could work. Unfortunately, it's the other way round. Is there even a theoretical way for health insurance companies to be run at a profit without incentivizing the denial of claims?

All I can think of are from the other direction, placing more restrictions on the various reasons insurance companies give for denials, such as "preexisting conditions" or "experimental". But as long as the incentive is still for denial, they'd just make up new classifications.