Imagine if businesses did not have to worry about their employee's healthcare. Instead they could focus on the business at hand. Maybe this is just a crazy idea.
If something is unsustainable then eventually it will stop. US healthcare costs have been increasing at faster than the rate of inflation to the extent that it now consumes about 18% of GDP. The majority of people are on employer sponsored group health plans and employers have absorbed most of the cost increases but they're reaching a breaking point. I predict that more employers will simply drop medical benefits and choose to pay the penalty instead, forcing employees to purchase their own health plans on state ACA exchanges.
Okay, and how much did insurers pay back in rebates to companies large enough to have their own pools? Assuredly that has also grown.
People in this thread ask why don’t businesses lobby for public health. Wrong: why doesn’t Apple lobby for public health? Follow the money. It’s so naive to think it’s solely about providers. Who anyways, when there is fraud, they are defrauding CMS, not UNH.
Want this to stop? Make GLP-1 available on every street corner and get the majority of Americans who are overweight or obese to start taking it en mass.
One of the few things I'm happy about republicans being in power for is the current grey market situation with GLP-1s. I have a feeling that a democratic FDA would try to come down hard on the current situation. Rich people and girls who are pissed at their body know how easy it is to get these drugs with no oversight. Thank god for it and may it never get harder to access these substances.
The whole idea of making employer-sponsored health insurance tax-free but not out of pocket medical expenses is a problem in need of fixing. As things currently stand, you can only write off medical expenses that exceed 7.5% if your adjusted gross income, and only if you use itemized deductions rather than the standard deduction.
This public-private healthcare system as it currently exists in America combines glacially-slow subpar public services with the rent-seeking behavior of private insurance.
More than any other group, it screws small business owners, i.e. the people the politicians usually claim to run for office on behalf of.
The USA really needs to implement Medicare For All or a similar plan. The amount of bureacracy that would be simplified or just go away is staggering. The savings would be huge. Getting healthcare would be easier not just for patients but for doctors as well! Doctors' primary concern is providing the best treatment for their patients, but they usually have no idea how much such treatment would cost. Patients often don't know if they'll be totally covered or if they'll be financially ruined until they make a separate phone call to some customer support rep (who also probably doesn't really know). It's nuts. Under a Medicare For All system, coverage would be standardized for everyone, and doctors would have much better understandings of whether an MRI or X drug would be covered or not.
Likewise, employers won't have to carry this burden. Companies that hire employees across multiple states have to navigate a patchwork of state/region based health insurance policies. Whenever there is a wrinkle in health insurance paperwork, an HR person has to to hunt down the issue and coordinate between an employee and the health insurance.
My gosh. I switched employers within a month of having a major medical event, and it was just the worst. The hospital was claiming I didn't have insurance, but I did (through COBRA, which is a whole other shit show that should and would go away), so I had to have multiple phone calls with the HR dept of the employer that I had just left. It's pretty awkward!
How often do we get to say that the government option reduces bureacracy.
That's not to mention the increasing potential for innovation! I know personally I left a fulfilling but somewhat unstable freelance lifestyle to get a job that offers health insurance after I had kids. I would like to pursue something else independently, and I can tolerate the financial risks, but I simply cannot tolerate the high costs of health insurance for myself and the rest of my family (or worse, the risks that come with having no insurance at all). If my family had health insurance, I'd leave my day job and chase other more exciting, fulfilling prospects. If that was a successful venture, maybe I could afford to hire a few employees because I wouldn't have to cover their health insurance.
Medicare For All should be a slam dunk. The only thing standing in the way is the health insurance industry, which is rolling in money. Get rid of them.
I wonder why people focus so much on insurance companies, given their relatively small profit margins. The more glaring issue seems to be provider costs, which are several times higher than comparable services in other countries, with little variance. Are we suffering from a shortage of medical schools? Or from a lack of competition among medical device manufacturers?
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People in this thread ask why don’t businesses lobby for public health. Wrong: why doesn’t Apple lobby for public health? Follow the money. It’s so naive to think it’s solely about providers. Who anyways, when there is fraud, they are defrauding CMS, not UNH.
One of the few things I'm happy about republicans being in power for is the current grey market situation with GLP-1s. I have a feeling that a democratic FDA would try to come down hard on the current situation. Rich people and girls who are pissed at their body know how easy it is to get these drugs with no oversight. Thank god for it and may it never get harder to access these substances.
The profit motive and health care outcomes are fundamentally at odds.
This public-private healthcare system as it currently exists in America combines glacially-slow subpar public services with the rent-seeking behavior of private insurance.
More than any other group, it screws small business owners, i.e. the people the politicians usually claim to run for office on behalf of.
Likewise, employers won't have to carry this burden. Companies that hire employees across multiple states have to navigate a patchwork of state/region based health insurance policies. Whenever there is a wrinkle in health insurance paperwork, an HR person has to to hunt down the issue and coordinate between an employee and the health insurance.
My gosh. I switched employers within a month of having a major medical event, and it was just the worst. The hospital was claiming I didn't have insurance, but I did (through COBRA, which is a whole other shit show that should and would go away), so I had to have multiple phone calls with the HR dept of the employer that I had just left. It's pretty awkward!
How often do we get to say that the government option reduces bureacracy.
That's not to mention the increasing potential for innovation! I know personally I left a fulfilling but somewhat unstable freelance lifestyle to get a job that offers health insurance after I had kids. I would like to pursue something else independently, and I can tolerate the financial risks, but I simply cannot tolerate the high costs of health insurance for myself and the rest of my family (or worse, the risks that come with having no insurance at all). If my family had health insurance, I'd leave my day job and chase other more exciting, fulfilling prospects. If that was a successful venture, maybe I could afford to hire a few employees because I wouldn't have to cover their health insurance.
Medicare For All should be a slam dunk. The only thing standing in the way is the health insurance industry, which is rolling in money. Get rid of them.
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