Nimbus Couzin wrote:
Steve,
You simply aren't thinking about this the right way. You wonder why the gov't wouldn't need administrators for all of the paper work and red tape? Because with single payer, you wouldn't have insurance claims! You wouldn't need to sell people insurance! You wouldn't need to advertise your insurance company A versus insurance company B. When I show up to the doc office, I wouldn't be greeted by insurance forms and then asked for my cards and then shuttled off to another "business" office with extra bureaucrats if something wasn't in order.
In short, when you go to the doc office, there would be perhaps a receptionist, some nurses, and some doctors. But not the bureaucrats.
And you wouldn't have to argue about whether procedure X, Y, or Z is covered. Leave it up to the doctor, not an accountant!
There would be less administration because we'd all be covered. I wouldn't need to email my insurance agent so she can have me fax over application forms. (my most recent agent, for my baby, was negligent by not informing us that vaccines (routine shots) would apply against our deductable). Her job would be gone, yes, because it would be unnecessary. Yeah, we wouldn't need the collection departments either (boohoo)
This is not true. In government single payer systems, government bureaucrats decide what is covered or not. And sometimes it's based on the who is being treated. For example, an old person might not get a pace maker if some government bureaucrat decides the improvement to his quality of life is not worth the cost to society. A younger person with the exact same condition would get the device, because some government bureaucrat decided that his future contributions to society make it worth. Criteria like this are used now, today in government single payer systems.
You are the one misinformed if you think EVERYTHING is covered by government single payer systems. They have much more stringent criteria before you can even get a CAT scan or an MRI. This is one of the big ways that government plans save money. They REDUCE the amount of care that is available.
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The bureaucrats decide what the annual goal will be for many of these procedures based on budgetary constraints.
For example, a common practice to treat back pain is to inject steroids to reduce inflammation, thus promoting healing. (I am not a doctor.) So, Britain's NHS decided they could only afford X number of steriod injections per year. So, they started using other criteria to limit the number of steroid injections besides what was medically best for patients. Things like age, whether they smoked, etc. So it is ABSOLUTELY not true that everything is covered. Do you know what new REQUIRED treatment was for the patients who didn't now qualify for the now restricted steroid injections? Injections of opiate pain killers, like morphine. Cheap for the government, but very addictive and really doesn't promote healing. At. All.
It's obvious to me, that many advocates of single payer do not understand how medical decisions are actually made under these systems.
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So, you might be able to get the cursory primary care examine without much paper work. Woe be on to you if develop a chronic or difficult to diagnose condition. Single payer systems are notoriously bad for cases like this.
Another area single payer government systems are looking to cut costs is by reducing care to smokers and over weight people. The rationale is that their behavior is costing society money by reducing their baseline health. Of course there's no limit to government invasiveness once it gets started.
No. It's not rationing when health insurance companies do it. It's the free market.Nimbus Couzin wrote:We have massive rationing right now. By the insurance companies.
Let's say that I want a car for every day of the week. Is Ford rationing cars because they wont sell me several cars at a price that I'm willing to pay? No. It's not rationing. It's how economics works. The buyer and the seller have to agree on price.
If you want a plan that covers more things, they why wouldn't expect to pay more for it? And if not, why would anyone want to sell you one at a loss? This is not rationing it is economics.
A government single payer plan would really be rationing. The bureaucrats would decide how much money to spend on health care that year and the number of times that the various medical procedures are performed would be restricted to some arbitrarily derived target. Even if people are willing to pay for more procedures, they can't. That IS rationing. There's a customer ready to buy. There's a seller ready to sell. The government says no. That's rationing.
Nimbus Couzin wrote:Further, we presently have THOUSANDS of different insurance companies, all basically doing the same thing. If you had just one, you'd have a LOT more potential efficiency. Why have multiple people doing the same job? I mean, if you look at corporate situations, mergers almost always lower costs due to increased efficiency and less workers needed. Come on, look at the business example there.
i mean doesn't it make sense that one "company" would have less paperwork than a thousand companies trying to do the exact same job? I'd call it streamlining. Especially when you eliminate billing from the system, which is what most of the paperwork is all about!
This is silly. This was the basis of of the Soviet economy. Why have three car manufacturers duplicating all that effort when all you need is one?
You could apply this logic to anything. Why have many small coffee beverage companies, duplicating the invoicing, the purchasing, and the hiring, etc. ONE big company, or better yet, the Government Coffee Beverage Cooperative, would be more efficient. It would have the same number of customers but only one accounts payable department, one hiring process, etc. Think of the duplicated effort that would be saved!
Heck, it could get rid of making coffee in pesky little batches and brew one big batch per year! Think of the savings! And don't forget! The GCBC would be able to distribute the delicious coffee beverages more fairly! It's all good!
Do you really need to be reminded that competition is a good thing in the long run?