tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2807403883562053852.post6208487129850585581..comments2024-03-18T21:32:04.061-06:00Comments on Clayton Cramer.: Is This Why Health Insurance Is So Hard To Get?Clayton Cramerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03258083387204776812noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2807403883562053852.post-81793213941215908862011-10-10T15:53:45.236-06:002011-10-10T15:53:45.236-06:00I have come to see our *entire* health care mess a...I have come to see our *entire* health care mess as a result of government interference. It started with the wage controls of the 1930s and 1940s--so employers were encouraged to provide health insurance as a benefit, and people no longer shopped for health insurance. (This alone irks me--we've come to *expect* our employers to "give" us health insurance--and this assumes that everyone is going to be corporate-employed!)<br /><br />When we can't choose our insurance, we're going to be ticked off when we get a plan that doesn't cover X or Y. So we demand, via law, that insurance pay for this. Thus, premiums go up.<br /><br />And *then*, the Federal Government passed Medicare and Medicaid, which, to keep costs "down", have this magical ability to say "Patient pays X", "Medicare pays Y", and X + Y is *quite a bit lower* than Z, the doctor's original price. What's a doctor to do? He raises prices. And he has to raise prices on *everyone* because otherwise the doctor will be accused of Medicare fraud.<br /><br />Meanwhile, because we all get insurance, we never look at a doctor's bill. "Oh, insurance will cover it" becomes our mantra. Thus, doctors charge what the insurance will cover--without the competition of individuals trying to weigh cost and quality.<br /><br />Naturally, this causes costs to balloon, and so insurance companies create these "networks"--and I am no longer permitted to choose my own doctor. Or rather, I *can* choose, but only if my insurance company approves. (Our *cars* have more rights than we do! Ads on the radio remind us we can take our cars to any shop we want to get them repaired!)<br /><br />In all this mess, government blames the Free Market--and naturally, the "solution" is to restrict the market even more.<br /><br />Yeah, I *wish* we had a free market in health care!Epsilon Givenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16772806403046781521noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2807403883562053852.post-26414348742208899732011-10-07T17:25:18.066-06:002011-10-07T17:25:18.066-06:00"There is a tendency in some circles to blame..."There is a tendency in some circles to blame free markets[...]."<br /><br />I cut this sentence short because it doesn't change the meaning much. In this case, we haven't had a free market in a long time, if ever, so you can't really blame the free market.Rick Chttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10992428161064901136noreply@blogger.com