Impeding changes to our Health Care system

Originally Posted by classicman

Beancounter mentality!

The fact that there is little or no competition in the health insurance industry and little or no built-in incentives to lower administrative costs and /or premiums is not, IMO, beancounting.

It is econ 101, competition stimulates lower pricing and greater innovation (thus lowering administrative costs).

[classicman]

Originally Posted by Redux

It is econ 101, competition stimulates lower pricing and greater innovation (thus lowering administrative costs).

I couldn't agree more - Keep as many competitors as possible. The last thing we want is monopoly and control by a bloated inefficient giant. Long live Capitalism!

Originally Posted by classicman

I couldn't agree more - Keep as many competitors as possible. The last thing we want is monopoly and control by a bloated inefficient giant. Long live Capitalism!

So how would you stimulate greater competition, given that it hasnt happened by leaving it to the insurance companies alone.

Why do you think something like the government administered (not government controlled) Federal Employees Health Benefits program wont work at a more macro level like in a proposed public option (or national insurance exchange)....it currently includes 10 or so private insurance companies providing more than 20 different plan choices (at varying premium rates) and I dont think any objective observer would characterize it as a bloated inefficient giant....but it does control costs in order for any particular private carrier to be include among the provider choices. Hell, even Medicare, with all its faults, has relatively low administrative costs compared to the private sector.

Just throwing out the same old rhetoric....monopoly, bloated inefficient giant, is not a very helpful solution.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Redux

So how would you stimulate greater competition, given that it hasnt happened by leaving it to the insurance companies alone.

Why do you think something like the government administered (not government controlled) Federal Employees Health Benefits program wont work at a more macro level like in a proposed public option (or national insurance exchange)....it currently includes 10 or so private insurance companies providing more than 20 different plan choices (at varying premium rates) and I dont think any objective observer would characterize it as a bloated inefficient giant....but it does control costs in order for any particular private carrier to be include among the provider choices. Hell, even Medicare, with all its faults, has relatively low administrative costs compared to the private sector.

Just throwing out the same old rhetoric....monopoly, bloated inefficient giant, is not a very helpful solution.

Medicare has lower administrative costs?
Maybe not:
only an extremely small portion of administrative costs are related to the dollar value of health care benefit claims. Expressing these costs as a percentage of benefit claims gives a misleading picture of the relative efficiency of government and private health plans.Medicare beneficiaries are by definition elderly, disabled, or patients with end-stage renal disease. Private insurance beneficiaries may include a small percentage of people in those categories, but they consist primarily of people are who under age 65 and not disabled. Naturally, Medicare beneficiaries need, on average, more health care services than those who are privately insured. Yet the bulk of administrative costs are incurred on a fixed program-level or a per-beneficiary basis. Expressing administrative costs as a percentage of total costs makes Medicare's administrative costs appear lower not because Medicare is necessarily more efficient but merely because its administrative costs are spread over a larger base of actual health care costs. When administrative costs are compared on a per-person basis, the picture changes. In 2005, Medicare's administrative costs were $509 per primary beneficiary, compared to private-sector administrative costs of $453.

http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2009/...istrative.html