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Originally Posted by MMM
I think the tea parties are all kinds of things to all kinds of people.
I agree profit isn't a bad thing, but I just heard an interesting statistic the other day. I do not remember the exact numbers, but in an argument for the public auction it was brought up that the largest (or maybe second largest) insurance company in the US had administrative budget that was about 25% of it's total budget. That meant 25% of the money people gave each month to the insurance company went to things that were not health care. On the other hand people talk about how wasteful beauracracies are, but Medicare (gov't run healthcare) has an administrative budget of only 2% of total costs.
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I think there is a lot of exaggerations going on both sides when it comes to the health insurance that get snowballed into these tea parties.
However when we throw out some sort, "interesting statistic we remembered the other day, but haven't got the details other than maybe the second largest, 25% admistrative budget, the other 75% going to health care", when we aren't really explaining how this adminstrative budge is for this company is defined (as companies define their admin budgets differently depending of the nature and operations of the company)... Then compare apples to oranges (medicare to private insurance companies adminstrative budgets)... while Obama plans to partly pay for a public option "waistful spending" of these existing programs... <inhale>... I'm going to call this a tea party making comment. Thus I going to call "fact check" here...
While I'm hesitant to feed into a majority of insurance companies are greedy cancelling policies left and right when the customer comes to use their policy. It may be, I don't know.. but when the president's speech two examples of two people being denied coverage aren't necessarily the case as he described them url link::
How Robin Beaton Became Exhibit A in Obama Versus the Insurers - Bloomberg.com
I'm thinking... didn't someone do a fact check here, or know that someone would, so lets get a proper example? But leads me to believe we are doing what ever we can to sell this to the public.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MMM
I do agree with you, that regulation and administration are two very different things, and I believe there needs to be more regulation in areas like health insurance and the airline industry.
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How much is the question though. The trillion dollar question that won't add to the deficit but bring down 4 trillion over 10 years.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MMM
But I think people don't realize that there are gov't run health systems already in place (Medicare, Medicaid, the VA). Are the perfect? No, some far from it, but at least they are more affordable. And I would happily buy into an affordable health care system that didn't turn me down when I needed help than they expensive system I have now that turns me down more often than accepts me when I need help.
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Yes, definitely we need some reform/regulation to private insurance companies. Like, if you insure someone, make sure BEFORE they make the policy active that the company is locked into the policy. I think its crazy for these private companies to tell some they are insured and then be able to revoke the policy for whatever reason.....i.e. once that policy is active and you are paying the premium, it stays. Its ridiculous for someone to be paying for a premium thinking they are insured then to think the company can just cancel the policy based on something they could of checked on before the policy was active.
At the same time I don't expect private insurance companies to be able to compete with the public option if they can't cross state lines while being unable to deny anyone a policy that is worth anything. There are so many variables to this equation, its staggering. We would all love for what Obama and his administration are proposing to be a reality, but he is painting it so rosey for this big program and that is the ONLY option (he has made that clear its now my way or the highway) and something so dark as the problem that needs to be addressed now now now that its hard for many to take in.
With past and current government spending and government program track records; I want to see something done right or some massive savings in a failing government run entity before we give the okay to take on an economy in such danger. Impliment fixing that waistful spending of medicare now...stop making people angry with the craziness we've seen recently (Cash for Clunkers, $550 million for 8 new congression jets, selective bail-outs, the post office, the country failing infrastructure such as bridges, levies etc) this list goes on. I want reform or some simple regulation that doesn't look like is going to bankrupt the country... I don't want to hear many well know economists who are almost never wrong to say "this is unsustainable"... I not getting the warm fuzzies from this.
If anything though, this has made more people watch the government like a hawk, and god help the next administration if this goes through and it doesn't work.