12-05-2015, 04:09 PM
(12-05-2015, 12:42 PM)JustWinBaby Wrote: The billion you mentioned WAS arbitrary, and I used it to make the point that what you THINK sounds like a lot of money ISN'T when spread over 300M+ people. It's a lot less than $100B, because Healthcare Insurance isn't all of, or even most of, the $2T+ industry.
Insurance is an easy target - that's what pandering, scapegoating politicians tend to do to round up sheeple to vote for them. It's actually a very small piece of the solution.
Yes, IT IS PEANUTS...and look at how distracted you are and jimmies rustled over peanuts (which, has very debatable benefits when you consider some of the negatives mentioned) instead of demanding real solutions.
Well, 300 million aren't paying in. If you're gonna try to bullshit me, why don't you spread that money over the total population of the globe to make it seem like even less?
If I'm talking about health insurance, why make the comparison to total healthcare unless your goal is to deliberately obfuscate the topic with an apples to oranges comparison? Okay, pick a number. Gimme a number for the total costs of health insurance so we can figure out how many billions in profit the insurance companies earn annually so I can watch you rationalize why all those billions in annual profit really aren't billions in annual profit.
Insurance companies are an easy target because they are an easily visible part of the problem. There is a dance that goes on between the health insurance companies, the health insurance providers, and the government (Medicare/Medicaid). In order to reduce cost to the tax payer, the government sets limits to what they will reimburse providers for their services. Sometimes the reimbursement is less than the actual cost of the service the provider provides to the patient. The insurance companies base their reimbursement schedule to the providers based upon the government limits. Both the government and the health insurance companies make the reimbursement system so complicated and layered with administrative bullshit they then nickel and dime the providers every step of the way to pay the providers as little as possible IOT frustrate the providers to they point they'll just give up because it is too much of pain in the ass to get paid for the actual work provided. So the providers (who are busy taking care of patients) have to hire layers and layers of their own administration (coding, billing, etc) to fight the government and the health insurance companies for every nickel and dime due to them for providing the services to the patient in the first place. Because the provider's administrators need to pay for the layers of administration, the providers, and the provided services they increase the costs of services to make up for the reduced reimbursement they know they will receive. And that cycle continues ad infinitum. ad naseum.
Not too long ago, I was in an argument with an insurance adjuster (who is a bean counter, not a clinician) over a pre-authorization for an abdominal CT scan because I was worried the patient's pain was caused by an abdominal aortic aneurysm. Normally, I would order an ultrasound. It's cheaper and usually just as good to diagnose a AAA. However, obesity is a known limitation which may cause you to miss the diagnosis. If an AAA ruptures 50% of patients will die almost immediately. Therefore, it is important you don't miss the diagnosis. ***** wants me to order the US instead of the test I ordered because I have tried the US. I explain to ***** even if the US is negative I'm still going to order the CT which will only increase the total cost. ***** still wants me to order the test I don't want or need. Two weeks ago, another argument with another insurance adjuster over a prescription. I prescribed a specific medication because out of the possible medications I could use it had the least amount of potential interactions with her medications she was taking which already had possible interactions. After spending about 30 minutes on the phone with the adjuster, she tells me the prescription would go before the pharmacy board and they would make their decision within the next 7 days . . . while the patient waits. If you want to be a fluffer for the insurance companies, be my guest, just do it someplace else.
In closing, you can go peddle your bullshit someplace else because I ain't buyin'.
