How insurance work is that they make profit off premiums, but if suddenly all their customers need the cash their insurance policy, the company cannot pay for it since insurance is about paying out as little as possible.
So the insurance companies are basically gambling on something not happening to make a profit, but it is for the reason that something might happen that people buy insurance.
Look at the home owner's insurance after tornado hit in central U.S, the company end up unable to pay.
doutonight @ananiasacts I certainly hope so. I already only eat fruits and vegetables, raw if at all possible. No tofu or dairy. :)
doutonight @donroche I completely agree, but our mismanaged systems are better than no systems, and are stepping stones on the way to better systems (which may, in fact, be without a system lol)
@donroche, "Why not shift the focus on building a caring society?"
Because a system that depends on the goodwill of the decent ends up being most beneficial to those willing to exploit it. I think the best we can do is to stop allowing so much theft. That we'll get a caring society only by measuring and redressing the actual impact our lifestyles have on each other. Using more than the average share of a resource would entail purchasing the right to do so from those who must have used less.
@doutonight, wouldn't it be nice if governments had to compete with each other to please their citizens or risk losing them to the competition?
I think the only genuinely legitimate role of government is to render itself obsolete by systematically embedding the infrastructure to address any issue it faces into the economy itself. They seem like brute force and very mechanical solutions to problems that are too organic to be addressed that way. It's like trying to make a suit for a tree.
@ananiasacts Well, there is immigration in hopes for a better life.. but yeah..
You may be right, but I would hate it if I had to go to a doctor knowing they are only in it for the money and they will do their best to get as much of it from me.
@doutonight, there's every reason to believe the future looks good for people, health-wise. I think statisticians are going to have the greatest impact on our health over the next decade. We seem likely to mine the vast amounts of information available to correlate our eating habits, lifestyle, and surroundings with data from and about our own bodies into a very useful new sort of preventative medicine. You might not even need to call a doctor, because they'll already be on the phone with you.
@doutonight, Suppose we could connect the cost of health care to the profitability of food production such that the less a person spent on health care, the more profit there was for whomever was producing their food. That's the sort of thing I'm talking about. Embedding a selective pressure in the economy to address a set of problems rather than attempt to impose a deliberately engineered solution.
Again conservative thinking can't differentiate between Health Insurance and Health Care. The very title of this video is re: Healthcare, but it goes on to babble about insurance companies. For-profit healthcare isn't unjust, but For-profit health insurance is an oxymoron. Insurance companies make money by NOT providing for healthcare costs. Medicare-for-Everyone would still be for-profit health care!
@etzel33, You are right. But in my mind, the insurance business model doesn't make a lot of sense for anything besides "excess" health care (what you need in excess of what you would have needed if no external misfortunes had affected your health.) And it cannot be expected to profit enough on the float to both cover its overhead and pay out more than the premiums when it has that money for less than a year. It's a waste of HC dollars in my opinion.
@ananiasacts I agree. If wealthier people want vanity, or supplemental coverage, fine. I don't envy wealth. My only concern is that government protect our rights, and that includes our right to life. Gov't has a responsibility to help people. Direct subsidy, like food stamps and medicare, even tuition vouchers, isn't socialism. It's just good sense for good government.
@etzel33, In my mind, having to rob Peter to pay Paul should happen rarely and indicates a systemic failure of the economy. We can't both preach that theft is wrong while actively engaged in it because "in this case" it's okay. It doesn't work in my brain. Fair is what it is for arithmetical reasons that we can only deny, not actually change.
But I don't believe we'll ever need to in practice, because if we redressed the theft I explained earlier it wouldn't be possible to become that poor.
@ananiasacts You're right to point out that a resolution to public finance.... a moral solution to government revenue, is essential to any moral argument for government activity.
I believe there is an answer in issues of land, territorial rights, including natural resources. Even perhaps patents. Any privilege granted by government, monopoly privilege, should be the source of government funding IMO, and a moral one too.
@etzel33, The math seems to prove it is doable. Humanity started out able to feed itself and has had centuries of compounding productivity growth since then. How is it possible that people are starving today? The avg US citizen produces 20T co2/yr vs the global avg of 2.8T. Regardless of how negligible the impact may in fact be, it is still an economic externality that should be redressed. Personal responsibility is the mother of all freedom. We can't have the consequence without the cause.
@donroche I, too, am from a country with national healthcare. I have access to the 'free' healthcare as well as the option to go to a private doctor and pay a lot of money and get treatment with 'better' (mostly just newer) technologies and whatnot. Feel free to reform your healthcare, I guess
yeah, it is free to do what it wants, the good and also the bad
and we can see that man do not always or "naturally" take care of the less fortunate, his behavior depends on a multitude of factors including the society in which he is raised
this view of natural "charity" also contradicts the system we are in where we have money, profit and competition
In Belgium we have the same healthcare system as the Obama administration has aspired to and now has been legislated.
We have had this for 30 years, and we can't really complain about it. Quite the contrary, we are still a one of the wealthiest countries in the Western hemisphere and we can still pursue our dreams the same way Americans can.
I think the preservation of the "American dream" for some comes to the expense of others, by which it mostly turns into a nightmare.
To argue for private health insurance is the same argument for private military protection. I for one don't believe that the US should be protected by a Mercenary army, supported by "voluntary donations" of the wealthy.
Gov't should protect the rights of everyone. This IMO should include basic human services... funds issued directly to people, and let Free Markets continue to provide goods and services. Food stamps vs. State Farms... there's a big difference-- Free market vs. Socialism
There's a big difference between market goods & services, and the privileges that government gives to Insurance and banking companies. The "reserves" idea is a government allowance. In banking, they use this to issue money they don't have. That's fraud... unless it's been legalized by government for a privileged few.
There's a big difference between Health Insurance and Health Care. Medicare counts on free market delivery of services. It's not socialism to say end special gov't privilege!
please explain how the wealth gets redistributed in a free market system
most of this high quality is funded by the state, trough education (universities) and public research
also we already have the issue of people don't giving a **** about others, it is not gonna get any better in a system without any regard for social justice
Not terribly convincing I must say. I think that the "for profit" has to be analyzed in a much more case by case scenario, because in my experience in some sectors it is true and in others it is not.
Not true, in most countries with national healthcare you can still go to high quality private doctors, you just dont HAVE to, as your insurance pays for your regular doctor (and usually they are good enough, and they are definitely much better than no doctor at all)
You do realize that he is NOT making the case for a nationalize health care system and against the profit system, right? The market for medical care is an exception: in that it has lots of information asymmetries. This will lead to market failures. The fact that you can't go past your retarded left-wing ideology is laughable. Amartya Sen is a free trade capitalist. You are an online troll who doesn't understand information economics.
Honestly, I'm tired of the demonization of profits.
The average profit margin of the top ten health insurance providers is only 3.7%. Google, by comparison, has a profit margin of 27.6%.
The largest health insurance company (UnitedHealth Group) made $3 billion in net income last year. Assuming that all of the top ten insurers made similar profits, that would mean the top ten made about $30 billion. The government-run Medicare program lost $60 billion to fraud alone last year.
No serious person demoralizes profit; profit is a vital aspect of any free society. However, profiteering on the misfortune of others to the extent seen in our healthcare system is nothing short of unconscionable.
Secondly, you toss around percentages without seeming to realize that piddly 3.7% constitutes billions. You like percentages? Here's one: health insurance profits have shot up 400% over the last few years, during a recession no less.
Well, I'm Canadian, it took me 3 months just to see my family physician, and then I had to wait 4 months to see a specialist because there aren't many of them around. My doctor is over 80 years old, and won't retire because it'll leave his patients without a doctor, because of the doctor shortage. Not exactly utopian, and the fairness of socialism is the equal distribution of misery, and mediocracy.
It sounds not like a tyranny of the system but simply, as you said, "doctor shortage." Canada is also a particularly poor example. Even Cuba has better health care.
@PSK11489 Well, now that's just idiotic. Cuba does not have better healthcare than Canada. You might want to ask whether basing yourself on Michael Moore is basing yourself on objective information. Also, if you want to base yourself of cuban government figures, you can ask the same question.
Much of that profit was a one time gain when wellpoint sold their pharmaceutical business. 10% of medicare spending is pure fraud by their own statistics.
@Bobbiethejean Doesn't change the fact that millions die because we don't give a dam and wont send 89 cents a day to feed third world children. If people won't provide free health care for each other in a free system, what makes you thing they'll do it if they are forced to? If the CEO isn't doing a good job, he's fired. Plain and simple.
@Bobbiethejean Yeah because under-achievers with chronic illnesses are worth more than third world children. Good ceo's are worth the money they make. And bad ones are still being paid by the government. Its big government that creates the problems in our economy.
@UncommonThinker@UncommonThinker It's not a question of value, you doof. It's a question of 3rd world children having NOTHING to do with this conversation! Stop with the redherrings.
Profits are not the problem, COST is. It COST money to run the business. Advertising, salaries, sales, overhead, consultants, lobbyists, PACs, insurance, bonuses, legal, stock options, etc. etc. etc. That is where every other non-thirdworld country is getting their efficiency from. We get less bang-for-our-buck then Nigeria.
To think the people in the US are just too stupid to run an efficient health care system is racist you un-American fart.
Jet, why don't you consider all the money they throw at buying off politicians while you're at it.
Their overhead costs are much higher than that of other countries and much of it goes into ways of denying payment or even taking back payments already authorized. Much of which transfers burden to customers and hospitals (which have to raise costs due to not being paid) which still raises costs in the long term for everyone.
ur retarded. when profits come at the expense of health & lives, it's fucking evil, pure & simple.
the profit margins u cite r deceptive & misguided. those figures r decided after deducting the so-called costs of business, including exhorbitant pay/bonuses of CEO's & upper management, & also advertising, lobbying, & litigation defending draconian exclusionary practices. These & other costs r vastly reduced in a fully collectivied system, as proven in nearly every other advanced nation on earth.
As a patriotic american it is your duty to deliver health care for little to no profit then. Profit is the incentive to increase supply. The only reason profit exists in any business is simply because noone wants to offer health care in large enough quantity without profit. Not even you! Read a freakin economics book.
IDEALLY CORRECT "the basic necessity of life must not be produce by profit making but by state"
happinesson 3 months ago
How insurance work is that they make profit off premiums, but if suddenly all their customers need the cash their insurance policy, the company cannot pay for it since insurance is about paying out as little as possible.
So the insurance companies are basically gambling on something not happening to make a profit, but it is for the reason that something might happen that people buy insurance.
Look at the home owner's insurance after tornado hit in central U.S, the company end up unable to pay.
Neosaigo 4 months ago
Interesting point on how competition can improve things outside government control.
Ramshobraja 1 year ago
How can anyone dislike this? (apart from employees of medical insurance companies!)
goodinvestor 1 year ago
doutonight @ananiasacts I certainly hope so. I already only eat fruits and vegetables, raw if at all possible. No tofu or dairy. :)
doutonight @donroche I completely agree, but our mismanaged systems are better than no systems, and are stepping stones on the way to better systems (which may, in fact, be without a system lol)
doutonight 1 year ago
@donroche "Competition should be
replaced with cooperation."
well said
Are you an agorist (or mutualist) ?
I know the concepts of free market-trade
But I also know that lots of people and
organizations would just use the term
selfishly on their own benefit.
greenhell666 1 year ago
@donroche, "Why not shift the focus on building a caring society?"
Because a system that depends on the goodwill of the decent ends up being most beneficial to those willing to exploit it. I think the best we can do is to stop allowing so much theft. That we'll get a caring society only by measuring and redressing the actual impact our lifestyles have on each other. Using more than the average share of a resource would entail purchasing the right to do so from those who must have used less.
ananiasacts 1 year ago
@donroche Because it is a common good in the society you live in, just like education, public roads, parks, policing system, etc.
You live in a free democracy, though, so you can a) try to change it, b) live with it, c) go someplace else. These are your options.
doutonight 1 year ago
@doutonight, wouldn't it be nice if governments had to compete with each other to please their citizens or risk losing them to the competition?
I think the only genuinely legitimate role of government is to render itself obsolete by systematically embedding the infrastructure to address any issue it faces into the economy itself. They seem like brute force and very mechanical solutions to problems that are too organic to be addressed that way. It's like trying to make a suit for a tree.
ananiasacts 1 year ago
@ananiasacts Well, there is immigration in hopes for a better life.. but yeah..
You may be right, but I would hate it if I had to go to a doctor knowing they are only in it for the money and they will do their best to get as much of it from me.
doutonight 1 year ago
@doutonight, there's every reason to believe the future looks good for people, health-wise. I think statisticians are going to have the greatest impact on our health over the next decade. We seem likely to mine the vast amounts of information available to correlate our eating habits, lifestyle, and surroundings with data from and about our own bodies into a very useful new sort of preventative medicine. You might not even need to call a doctor, because they'll already be on the phone with you.
ananiasacts 1 year ago
@doutonight, Suppose we could connect the cost of health care to the profitability of food production such that the less a person spent on health care, the more profit there was for whomever was producing their food. That's the sort of thing I'm talking about. Embedding a selective pressure in the economy to address a set of problems rather than attempt to impose a deliberately engineered solution.
ananiasacts 1 year ago
Again conservative thinking can't differentiate between Health Insurance and Health Care. The very title of this video is re: Healthcare, but it goes on to babble about insurance companies. For-profit healthcare isn't unjust, but For-profit health insurance is an oxymoron. Insurance companies make money by NOT providing for healthcare costs. Medicare-for-Everyone would still be for-profit health care!
etzel33 1 year ago
@etzel33, You are right. But in my mind, the insurance business model doesn't make a lot of sense for anything besides "excess" health care (what you need in excess of what you would have needed if no external misfortunes had affected your health.) And it cannot be expected to profit enough on the float to both cover its overhead and pay out more than the premiums when it has that money for less than a year. It's a waste of HC dollars in my opinion.
ananiasacts 1 year ago
@ananiasacts I agree. If wealthier people want vanity, or supplemental coverage, fine. I don't envy wealth. My only concern is that government protect our rights, and that includes our right to life. Gov't has a responsibility to help people. Direct subsidy, like food stamps and medicare, even tuition vouchers, isn't socialism. It's just good sense for good government.
etzel33 1 year ago
@etzel33, In my mind, having to rob Peter to pay Paul should happen rarely and indicates a systemic failure of the economy. We can't both preach that theft is wrong while actively engaged in it because "in this case" it's okay. It doesn't work in my brain. Fair is what it is for arithmetical reasons that we can only deny, not actually change.
But I don't believe we'll ever need to in practice, because if we redressed the theft I explained earlier it wouldn't be possible to become that poor.
ananiasacts 1 year ago
@ananiasacts You're right to point out that a resolution to public finance.... a moral solution to government revenue, is essential to any moral argument for government activity.
I believe there is an answer in issues of land, territorial rights, including natural resources. Even perhaps patents. Any privilege granted by government, monopoly privilege, should be the source of government funding IMO, and a moral one too.
etzel33 1 year ago
@etzel33, The math seems to prove it is doable. Humanity started out able to feed itself and has had centuries of compounding productivity growth since then. How is it possible that people are starving today? The avg US citizen produces 20T co2/yr vs the global avg of 2.8T. Regardless of how negligible the impact may in fact be, it is still an economic externality that should be redressed. Personal responsibility is the mother of all freedom. We can't have the consequence without the cause.
ananiasacts 1 year ago
@donroche I, too, am from a country with national healthcare. I have access to the 'free' healthcare as well as the option to go to a private doctor and pay a lot of money and get treatment with 'better' (mostly just newer) technologies and whatnot. Feel free to reform your healthcare, I guess
doutonight 1 year ago
yeah, it is free to do what it wants, the good and also the bad
and we can see that man do not always or "naturally" take care of the less fortunate, his behavior depends on a multitude of factors including the society in which he is raised
this view of natural "charity" also contradicts the system we are in where we have money, profit and competition
greenhell666 1 year ago
what is the difference between a "good" and a "bad" insurance company?
I beleve that exept for the profit marges ALL companies have the same cost - quality function.... ?
Thiemann79 1 year ago
the content of this video aside, don't both men looks very odd? i'm just laughing while listening... both look cartoonishly odd.
;d
666norton420 1 year ago
In Belgium we have the same healthcare system as the Obama administration has aspired to and now has been legislated.
We have had this for 30 years, and we can't really complain about it. Quite the contrary, we are still a one of the wealthiest countries in the Western hemisphere and we can still pursue our dreams the same way Americans can.
I think the preservation of the "American dream" for some comes to the expense of others, by which it mostly turns into a nightmare.
Kali23Yuga 1 year ago 2
doctors and nurses should be forced to work for free, under threat of imprisonment.
in fact, everyone should do everything for free, under threat of imprisonment.
CRAPCANNONS 1 year ago
To argue for private health insurance is the same argument for private military protection. I for one don't believe that the US should be protected by a Mercenary army, supported by "voluntary donations" of the wealthy.
Gov't should protect the rights of everyone. This IMO should include basic human services... funds issued directly to people, and let Free Markets continue to provide goods and services. Food stamps vs. State Farms... there's a big difference-- Free market vs. Socialism
etzel33 1 year ago 2
There's a big difference between market goods & services, and the privileges that government gives to Insurance and banking companies. The "reserves" idea is a government allowance. In banking, they use this to issue money they don't have. That's fraud... unless it's been legalized by government for a privileged few.
There's a big difference between Health Insurance and Health Care. Medicare counts on free market delivery of services. It's not socialism to say end special gov't privilege!
etzel33 1 year ago
People who support for profit health care are morally confused. Plain and simple.
mistaspot1 1 year ago
its a cat, flushing a toilet
markadams2000 1 year ago
please explain how the wealth gets redistributed in a free market system
most of this high quality is funded by the state, trough education (universities) and public research
also we already have the issue of people don't giving a **** about others, it is not gonna get any better in a system without any regard for social justice
greenhell666 1 year ago
Not terribly convincing I must say. I think that the "for profit" has to be analyzed in a much more case by case scenario, because in my experience in some sectors it is true and in others it is not.
ChuckyHammer 1 year ago
UHC CEO Stephen Hemsley has $745 MILLION in stock options. 2007 pay $13.2mil; 2008 $3.2mil
CIGNA CEO Edward Hanway made $120mil in last 5yrs. Stocks = $28mil
Humana CEO Michael McCallister = $10.3mil in 07. $1,017,308 in 08. Stocks = $60mil
LARGEST GOLDEN PARACHUTE in history of corporate America goes to William McGuire of UnitedHealth $1.4 BILLION!
BLOODMONEY!
baronmorris 1 year ago 2
10 stars
redbrest 1 year ago
Offer to do the same job for less money. The share holders and customers would love you for it. All you have to do it work for it.
UncommonThinker 1 year ago
Not true, in most countries with national healthcare you can still go to high quality private doctors, you just dont HAVE to, as your insurance pays for your regular doctor (and usually they are good enough, and they are definitely much better than no doctor at all)
doutonight 1 year ago 13
@doutonight
You do realize that he is NOT making the case for a nationalize health care system and against the profit system, right? The market for medical care is an exception: in that it has lots of information asymmetries. This will lead to market failures. The fact that you can't go past your retarded left-wing ideology is laughable. Amartya Sen is a free trade capitalist. You are an online troll who doesn't understand information economics.
LogicalFlawDetector 3 months ago
Honestly, I'm tired of the demonization of profits.
The average profit margin of the top ten health insurance providers is only 3.7%. Google, by comparison, has a profit margin of 27.6%.
The largest health insurance company (UnitedHealth Group) made $3 billion in net income last year. Assuming that all of the top ten insurers made similar profits, that would mean the top ten made about $30 billion. The government-run Medicare program lost $60 billion to fraud alone last year.
jetboyJ22 1 year ago
@jetboyJ22
"I'm tired of the demonization of profits..."
Honestly. I have been getting tired of people making up their numbers without anything to back it up too. I'm sure you are not one of those.
Can you provide me the source of your information?
allgoo19 1 year ago 3
You sold me, I am behind the honest hard working insurance companies who really genuinly care about my welfare and the welfare of my family.
wowamonn 1 year ago
@jetboyJ22
"(UnitedHealth Group) made $3 billion in net income last year..."
It's $3.8 Billion by wiki.
Profit margin doesn't include salary (part of the operating cost). Here's United Healh CEO gets:
Total Value of Unexercised Stock Options (Forbes)
$744,232,068 ($3/4 Billion)
2009 Options Exercise
$127,001,281
It is fair to add these numbers to their profit for the comparison.
allgoo19 1 year ago
No serious person demoralizes profit; profit is a vital aspect of any free society. However, profiteering on the misfortune of others to the extent seen in our healthcare system is nothing short of unconscionable.
Secondly, you toss around percentages without seeming to realize that piddly 3.7% constitutes billions. You like percentages? Here's one: health insurance profits have shot up 400% over the last few years, during a recession no less.
Bobbiethejean 1 year ago 2
Well, I'm Canadian, it took me 3 months just to see my family physician, and then I had to wait 4 months to see a specialist because there aren't many of them around. My doctor is over 80 years old, and won't retire because it'll leave his patients without a doctor, because of the doctor shortage. Not exactly utopian, and the fairness of socialism is the equal distribution of misery, and mediocracy.
Re5Publica 1 year ago
It sounds not like a tyranny of the system but simply, as you said, "doctor shortage." Canada is also a particularly poor example. Even Cuba has better health care.
PSK11489 1 year ago
@PSK11489 Well, now that's just idiotic. Cuba does not have better healthcare than Canada. You might want to ask whether basing yourself on Michael Moore is basing yourself on objective information. Also, if you want to base yourself of cuban government figures, you can ask the same question.
Re5Publica 1 year ago
@Re5Publica That is only one MILLION percent beside the point that I was making.
Bobbiethejean 1 year ago
Much of that profit was a one time gain when wellpoint sold their pharmaceutical business. 10% of medicare spending is pure fraud by their own statistics.
UncommonThinker 1 year ago
Doesn't change the fact that thousands die
because of rescission practices while CEOs
skate away with millions of dollars.
Bobbiethejean 1 year ago
@Bobbiethejean Doesn't change the fact that millions die because we don't give a dam and wont send 89 cents a day to feed third world children. If people won't provide free health care for each other in a free system, what makes you thing they'll do it if they are forced to? If the CEO isn't doing a good job, he's fired. Plain and simple.
UncommonThinker 1 year ago
@UncommonThinker We're not talking about
3rd world children, we're talking about our
own citizenry. Your 2nd sentence makes
no sense and your 3rd sentence is silly.
Just because a CEO makes millions
doesn't mean he's done a good job. Just
look at the asshole CEOs on wallstreet for
example. They fucked everything up and STILL
got millions in bonuses.
Bobbiethejean 1 year ago 2
@Bobbiethejean Yeah because under-achievers with chronic illnesses are worth more than third world children. Good ceo's are worth the money they make. And bad ones are still being paid by the government. Its big government that creates the problems in our economy.
UncommonThinker 1 year ago 2
@UncommonThinker @UncommonThinker It's not a question of value, you doof. It's a question of 3rd world children having NOTHING to do with this conversation! Stop with the redherrings.
Bobbiethejean 1 year ago
Profits are not the problem, COST is. It COST money to run the business. Advertising, salaries, sales, overhead, consultants, lobbyists, PACs, insurance, bonuses, legal, stock options, etc. etc. etc. That is where every other non-thirdworld country is getting their efficiency from. We get less bang-for-our-buck then Nigeria.
To think the people in the US are just too stupid to run an efficient health care system is racist you un-American fart.
TheVigilante2000 1 year ago
Jet, why don't you consider all the money they throw at buying off politicians while you're at it.
Their overhead costs are much higher than that of other countries and much of it goes into ways of denying payment or even taking back payments already authorized. Much of which transfers burden to customers and hospitals (which have to raise costs due to not being paid) which still raises costs in the long term for everyone.
garith21 1 year ago 2
Like medicare? The biggest denier of services.
UncommonThinker 1 year ago
Show your work.
garith21 1 year ago
ur retarded. when profits come at the expense of health & lives, it's fucking evil, pure & simple.
the profit margins u cite r deceptive & misguided. those figures r decided after deducting the so-called costs of business, including exhorbitant pay/bonuses of CEO's & upper management, & also advertising, lobbying, & litigation defending draconian exclusionary practices. These & other costs r vastly reduced in a fully collectivied system, as proven in nearly every other advanced nation on earth.
baronmorris 1 year ago 7
As a patriotic american it is your duty to deliver health care for little to no profit then. Profit is the incentive to increase supply. The only reason profit exists in any business is simply because noone wants to offer health care in large enough quantity without profit. Not even you! Read a freakin economics book.
UncommonThinker 1 year ago
to each according to his needs is a simple underlying principle of what should happen regardless they are also unjust aspects of the American system.
dunndudebemelol 1 year ago
well put, got to check this whole video out
LeGioNoFZioN 1 year ago