| Lord Flashheart said: So is that all the providers will have to charge the same for equivilent policies? Isn't part of the problem with that that they would have to get enough people to sign up and if they don't then they go out of business? I understand the need for price controls. Too cheap to undercut the rivals and you wont have enough money to cover the hospital charges. Too much and you price yourself out of the market. No regulation and they will charge whatever they want. If this bill doesn't have any price controls then that is a good enough reason not to want that part of it but does that one bit which can be amended spoil the rest of the bill? Will it drive cost up? No-one has explained why yet. It seems that at the moment a lot of people can't afford insurance as it's too expensive for them and the supposed cheap alternative is simply that. Cheap all round. I can see why people wouldn't want the US gov to control the spending if the money came from taxes but to have the money coming in from so many different sources can't be good for the system either? How much money is spent in administration charges by the hospitals jsut getting the money? And what about the policies themselves? will they cover more for the same price as point 2 indicates. You answer so far has been the most reasonable reason as to why you don't want it but to me it's not a good enough reason to throw it all out . I'm going to go and read up on the bill itself to find out more about it. |
1) Yeah that's the problem really. All the providers have to charge the same for equivelent polices regardless of health, meaning once the unhealthy enter the market... the insurance prices are going to go up. The bigger the insurance company you are, the better off you are because that price is going to be spread out more. The smaller insurance companies might just be run right out of buisness though. It's going to decrease competition instead of increase it. Which will drive costs up
2) The problem with it is... it's targeting insurance companies. They aren't the problem. They have low profit margins. It's everyone else who is a problem and they aren't going to lower their prices to keep insurance comapnies in buisness. Also, the government isn't ever going to go after big pharmcuticals... one of the reasons their is absolutely NO drug price controls in this bill is because well... they own democrats. Republicans too but they aren't in power right now. Drugs are a big way we could cut costs for stuff... allowing people to buy in canada, getting rid of the stupid loophole that lets you renew patents because you discovered a new thing the same drug could treat... etc.
4) The administration costs are going to be the same. This isn't actually changing HOW healthcare works. It's just the government is going to give a bunch of people money to buy health insurance, and everyone is going to be forced to buy it or pay 700 dollars. As for why it would raise costs... I did explain that. Those who didn't have health insurance because of conditons will come in and drive up the costs for everybody. These are people who couldn't be insured under their profit margins because they were too risky. In otherwords... they're going to have to not only raise rates for everybody, but raise their profit margin... so instead of making 8% off people they're going to have to make 10-12%
4) No, quite the opposite. It's likely that it will cover less for the same price do to the reasons mentioned above. The only difference is, the government will be paying more in subdisies. Likely more then they expect.
