| HappySqurriel said: A few problems associated with the US' current implemetation of healthcare ... Healthcare "Insurance" isn't really insurance at all and is (basically) an open ended pre-paid healthcare plan. In many ways this would be like home insurance paying for people to re-decorate or re-model their house rather than protecting you from risks like fire and theft. The system discourages the competition that makes other markets so inexpensive and high quality. You rarely choose your healthcare insurance provider (it is typically choosen by your company), you don't choose the coverage you get, you don't choose where you get your treatment, and you don't choose the treatment you get.
If healthcare insurance worked like insurance, these companies offered seperate healthcare benefit plans, your company put money towards buying healthcare services (rather than buying them for you), you made decisions on what healthcare insurance and benefits you wanted (and possibly paid out of pocket if it cost more than your benefit package was worth), and your healthcare paid out a certain value for you to get access to doctors of for treatments you could choose who treated you and what treatment you received (possibly paying more out of pocket if you wanted better treatment), the entire system would become better for (almost) everyone involved. |
The funny thing is, why do corporations pay for Health Insurance? The answer: Government.
In certain sectors of industry, government regulated what you could pay someone. That regulation however, did not cover benefits. So, one way a company could entice better employees, was to offer better benefits. This lead to company provided healthcare.
Imagine what the US would be like if health insurance was run like car insurance (or like health insurance was for years before it was paid for by companies).
