Conspiracy or just a fair deal?
Knowing that single payer healthcare was inevitably coming to America, the idea of Obamacare or ACA was devised as a way to compensate the insurance companies who would obviously lose untold trillions of dollars in the transition.
The insurance companies were guaranteed payments by Uncle Sam, subsidizing the cost of the same insurance they offered for years prior, but now at greatly inflated rates mostly paid by the increasing debt of Uncle Sam.
Meanwhile the CEO pay at the top five health insurance companies exceeded 89 (MILLION I originally posted Billion) my bad a year, that is ONLY the CEO pay, and not the remaining execs included. Profits increased exponentially, Healthcare got no better.
Uncle Sam has greased the skids to ease the burden of the on coming single payer system, now the trick is will you still hold the shares of these companies on the way out?
The insurance companies were guaranteed payments by Uncle Sam, subsidizing the cost of the same insurance they offered for years prior, but now at greatly inflated rates mostly paid by the increasing debt of Uncle Sam.
Meanwhile the CEO pay at the top five health insurance companies exceeded 89 (MILLION I originally posted Billion) my bad a year, that is ONLY the CEO pay, and not the remaining execs included. Profits increased exponentially, Healthcare got no better.
Uncle Sam has greased the skids to ease the burden of the on coming single payer system, now the trick is will you still hold the shares of these companies on the way out?
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I really don't see why it has to be one or the other, maximum profit insurance and medicine or complete government control.
Capping utilities has a long history. Here (Germany) insurance is mandatory, there are a half dozen companies that offer coverage, profits are capped. Coverage is a straight percentage of your income If you earn over $80,000 a year you can buy a non-standard plan, with extras (private room etc.).
Medicine is protocoled, so there is a standard price list for the vast majority of illnesses.
The system promotes competition to a certain degree between insurance companies, controls medical costs and keeps medication costs down. Medication co-pays are typically stocking costs and are way reasonable. Dead patients are worthless, so the system is motivated to keep you alive. Germany is six places higher in life expectancy than the U.S. is. So the system seems to be functional. Kind of a bastard system of capitalism and socialism.
Point is there is more than two ways to skin a cat. It doesn't have to be total Capitalism or total socialism.
I even get rebates back from the insurance company on the years they make too much profit. The insurance companies aren't hurting, they have offices right next door to the major Banks. The hospitals are good, Preventive medicine services are readily available. The only real downside is the Doctors don't make anywhere near what they make in the U.S.0 -
Noting to add just think it is cool we have a person from Germany 
Hessian wrote:I really don't see why it has to be one or the other, maximum profit insurance and medicine or complete government control.
Capping utilities has a long history. Here (Germany) insurance is mandatory, there are a half dozen companies that offer coverage, profits are capped. Coverage is a straight percentage of your income If you earn over $80,000 a year you can buy a non-standard plan, with extras (private room etc.).
Medicine is protocoled, so there is a standard price list for the vast majority of illnesses.
The system promotes competition to a certain degree between insurance companies, controls medical costs and keeps medication costs down. Medication co-pays are typically stocking costs and are way reasonable. Dead patients are worthless, so the system is motivated to keep you alive. Germany is six places higher in life expectancy than the U.S. is. So the system seems to be functional. Kind of a bastard system of capitalism and socialism.
Point is there is more than two ways to skin a cat. It doesn't have to be total Capitalism or total socialism.
I even get rebates back from the insurance company on the years they make too much profit. The insurance companies aren't hurting, they have offices right next door to the major Banks. The hospitals are good, Preventive medicine services are readily available. The only real downside is the Doctors don't make anywhere near what they make in the U.S.0 -
Hessian wrote:I really don't see why it has to be one or the other, maximum profit insurance and medicine or complete government control.
Capping utilities has a long history. Here (Germany) insurance is mandatory, there are a half dozen companies that offer coverage, profits are capped. Coverage is a straight percentage of your income If you earn over $80,000 a year you can buy a non-standard plan, with extras (private room etc.).
Medicine is protocoled, so there is a standard price list for the vast majority of illnesses.
The system promotes competition to a certain degree between insurance companies, controls medical costs and keeps medication costs down. Medication co-pays are typically stocking costs and are way reasonable. Dead patients are worthless, so the system is motivated to keep you alive. Germany is six places higher in life expectancy than the U.S. is. So the system seems to be functional. Kind of a bastard system of capitalism and socialism.
Point is there is more than two ways to skin a cat. It doesn't have to be total Capitalism or total socialism.
I even get rebates back from the insurance company on the years they make too much profit. The insurance companies aren't hurting, they have offices right next door to the major Banks. The hospitals are good, Preventive medicine services are readily available. The only real downside is the Doctors don't make anywhere near what they make in the U.S.
Thank you for a most informative post about a subject most Americans know nothing about.0 -
GilWilson1 wrote:Knowing that single payer healthcare was inevitably coming to America, the idea of Obamacare or ACA was devised as a way to compensate the insurance companies who would obviously lose untold trillions of dollars in the transition.
The insurance companies were guaranteed payments by Uncle Sam, subsidizing the cost of the same insurance they offered for years prior, but now at greatly inflated rates mostly paid by the increasing debt of Uncle Sam.
Meanwhile the CEO pay at the top five health insurance companies exceeded 89 Billion a year, that is ONLY the CEO pay, and not the remaining execs included. Profits increased exponentially, Healthcare got no better.
Uncle Sam has greased the skids to ease the burden of the on coming single payer system, now the trick is will you still hold the shares of these companies on the way out?
I would believe 89 Million per year. 89 Billion per year is not believable.
That said, the ACA was/is one of the worst examples of Government/Industry collusion. It was, i agree, designed to create a health insurance crisis specifically to pave the way for a single payer (Federal Government) program. It was said by many at the time, and if that was the goal, it has worked better than could have been expected.
https://www.axios.com/the-sky-high-pay-of-health-care-ceos-1513303956-d5b874a8-b4a0-4e74-9087-353a2ef1ba83.html
From the link:
The richest year was 2015, when 70 health care CEOs collectively made $2 billion. That was an average of about $28.5 million per CEO and a median of about $17.3 million per CEO. The median household income in 2015 was $56,515, which the average health care CEO made in less than a day.0 -
Ditto on the 89 million vice the 89 billion. 0 -
Mr Wilson is mostly correct. Obama's sole objective was to make ACA the law of the land, & get the sheep to accept it. Subsidies were timed to run out at the end of his second term. At that point, we would be stuck with ACA, & the people would not fight nationalized health care. The fact that the economics didn't work was of no meaning to Obama; everyone would be covered, & the workers would be stuck with taxes doubling.
There are about 2,500 health insurance companies. The biggest in my area is Carefirst BC/BS of MD & DC; the head of it is paid $4,000,000 per year, plus up to $2,000,000 in bonuses. He didn't start the company, he didn't build it, & he didn't invest any of his own money in it, he's just a hired hand. Most of his senior executives do well, but the money that they earn is not public.
By federal law, the cost of overhead for health insurance companies is capped at 20%. Most would like to raise that to 25%. Overhead for the Social Security system (built by government employees) remains at 1%, which is close to the cost of overhead for the Canadian health care system. But, if US healthcare is run by the federal government, overhead will increase because most good employees have been driven out by those of us who believe that they are overpaid & lazy; contracts to run the system will go to --- the very same companies that charge 20% for overhead.
Neal0 -
Many years ago when I started investing, I discovered healthcare stocks were prime investments. A blind man could see there were huge sums to be made in the healthcare industry by everyone involved - except the patients.
I managed to slip in the door of a healthcare mutual fund that was paying huge returns. They had a fairly high minimum buy-in and shortly after I took the plunge they went to a very high minimum buy-in. Profits begin to shrink...
I knew something was up. I had no clue what exactly, but I had a bad feeling. So, I sold my healthcare stocks and reinvested in other stocks.
Downdowndowndown!
I am convinced that the industry knew then a lot more than we average citizens will ever know.
By the time Obama took office I had watched other stocks wither on the vine. Since I was retiring I moved most of my money to safer places.
To summarize: This has been coming for many years and the healthcare industry knew...and you better believe, they had and still have, a plan to hold a large chunk of it in their claws.
I do not believe the government has even the tiniest concern with my health,0 -
It's not a conspiracy. Hell, they were pretty open about it. the intention is to turn it into a single payer system with the government being the single payer. As someone often post, brick by brick one step at a time. A huge step toward socialism, but it isn't a conspiracy, they made the goal clear. 0
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