re: How Corrupt Is Our Healthcare System?

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Once Obama let the cat out of the bag it all went to shite, premiums up 300-400% as well as deductibles

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Quite listening to talk radio folks that are just trolling for ratings.

Problems are a bit more complex and a bit more aged than what what those idiots would like to have you believe. It is easy to pass blame to the other guy or make you fear than just biting the bullet and reaching long term solutions that work for all.

After WWII the unwritten deal between government and business was that the government would cover the "widows and orphans" sector and business would cover the workers (and families). To be fair many companies were local and regional with the big national companies covering strategic sectors like steel and bulk components of the manufacturing trades.

Banks are the perfect example when historically they were limited to state and county borders that took local deposits and invested them in local lending and construction. Investment banks are mainly the "sister" banks in NYC like Chemical, Manny Hanny, Chase, and JP Morgan. Under the laws "investment banks" could not own "brick and mortar banks" so risk was separated and goals were separated as well. Now a national bank like JPM takes local deposits and ship them to china where 20 year olds can lose 6 billion on speculations that make Veags look tame. Its may be hard to believe the usury laws capped lending at 6%.

From post WWII to the oils shocks of the 70's the system worked pretty well and we were blessed the the bulk of the folks in America were young and healthy (baby boomers). In the early 80's instead of addressing the with longterm solutions that might have been painful up front, we let big get bigger with the whole "greed is good" mantra of Wall Street. Buy American business with junk bonds then outsource the labor (first to South America then to India and Asia) so without American jobs the associated health benefits cost could be eliminated.

After the 70's insurance companies, investment banks, and retail banks were no longer firewalls from each other and were allowed to merge and no longer separate risk for stability. then along comes the dot.com boom and a whole new way of separating ownership and wealth. Companies stopped paying dividends and long term individual investing was replaced by mutual funds. Wealth transferred from owners and labor to "management" with little skin in the game and eyes on their golden parachutes.

Even with the tax cuts the government has not extracted thing like insurance for employees as the offset in lowering taxes. We, by action of both Democrats and Republicans, have allowed a corporate monarchy to replace true American business of the past 200 years or so. The infighting is just to distract the public so both can pick clean the wallet of the average worker or voter. An insurance company seeing 450% increase in profits over the past few years is obscene and both parties are to Balme for allowing this to happen at the peoples expense.

To be more specific, deductibles have risen, premiums have risen, and services have been cut in the name of corporate profitability while neither side looks out for the actual consumers.

As example, lets say I have to go to the ER and wind up with a 15,000 bill. My PPO of a few years ago has been replaced with an HMO. My 1,000 deductible has risen to 10,000 and my monthly premium has risen from 250 per month to 1,000 per month (all in about 5 year span while my income has been flat). Now here comes the math...

15,000 ER bill (sticker price)

3,000 net bill by contract with insurance company (more like sleight of hand)
Since my deductible is 10,000 the insurance company pays nothing

My premium has gone up 4x yet the insurance pays 0 dollars and pockets my premium as pure profit. would love to have a business where I collect huge piles of money but never have to pay it back out. Vegas slots pay out more than insurance companies do.

The hospital inflates say a 3,000 visit to 15,000 then discounts it back to 3,000 so the insurance company can get out of paying their share. Here is another example if costs and bills were right in the first place.

3,000 = real cost of procedure
2,400 = covered by insurance
600 = covered by insured (with say 1,000 deductible instead of 10,000)




It amazes me that a prescription filled in the USA for 30 dollars a month is 3 dollars a month for the same prescription in Canada.



As for ObamaCare, the Republicans tacked on opiod crisis money onto the bill which adds 33 cents to the dollar. Take that away and ObamaCare premiums drop to 67 cents on the dollar overnight.



Real health care reform means.....
Spending for preventative which is cheaper when caught early
Spending on mental and physical health
Including eyes and teeth as part of same body for healthcare
Reigning in costs by tying tax breaks to required care by corporations
Reigning in costs by limiting insurance companies to reasonable returns
Crossing the aisles by both parties for citizen welfare and not corporate welfare