...over here doctors are allowed to group together to form a single body with which to purchase malpractice insurance. That keeps insurance costs extremely low for the doctors... but if it's good for doctors, it's equally valid for patients.
Medicare patients would be profitable if doctors didn't have to pay huge insurance overheads in order to practice (I believe malpractice insurance can be somewhere in the region of 40% to 60% of a doctors gross income depending on the state?).
But what you miss here is that the ONLY ones doing well under this system are the insurance companies.
They screw the patients, screw the doctors (malpractice), screw the taxpayer and profit from screwing the system.
Your post is actually making my point for me... you're just locked into the mindset of thinking INSIDE the system: we need reform; we need to tweak this; we need to fix that.
Fuck reform, fuck legislative provisions: eliminate the parasites feeding on the system (and I don't mean illegals).
What America needs to do is outlaw these insurance companies altogether.
They provide NO SERVICE.
All they do is step between patients and doctors and skim off the top on every transaction.
But they have you all so misinformed and terrified that you all react with predictable knee-jerk adversarial aggression. Everyone afraid to lose what little they have, each side attacking the other... nobody looking behind the curtain.
The Fench system WORKS... STEAL IT!
Most European systems WORK... STEAL ONE OF THOSE!
Even the Canadian system WORKS... STEAL THAT!
At the rate this situation is exacerbating, in another twenty years you'll all be paying half of your salaries to insurance companies (I use HMO as a catch-all term) just to be included in a yearly lottery wherein one lucky American wins a visit to a witch doctor.
The Luke
See here is the thing. I think we have one of the best healthcare systems in the world, and I dont want that to change and I am sure the vast majorityof people in this country would not be happy with an HMO type system as well.
My wife belongs to several "mommy boards" and she hears numerous complaints from women all over the world about problems with their healthcare systems. Several of them have flown to the states to have procedures done.
I agree that the Insurance companies are making out like bandits, but what is the cause of this? Would malpractice insurance be so high if someone couldnt sue for 30 million because their little toe got cut? Obviously their are Valid cases such as wrongful death and other serious injuries, but there is no limit to how much can be given in such cases and that is like insuring a crab fisherman.
One of the things my state has done, but has not expanded upon is a program called Simple Care. Simplecare is a program that allows you to directly pay your medical provider at a reduced rate and avoid going through insurance. Why cant we expand upon that?
Also why not make insurance companies more competative with one another? Allow insurance across state lines? Its just like any business, the more competition there is, the better the consumer makes out. Any monopoly allows complete control of a product, its quality and its pricing.
