In the company’s first earnings call since the fatal shooting of Brian Thompson, Group CEO Andrew Witty acknowledges shortcomings of the U.S. health care landscape.
The insurance company is supposed to watch dog and make sure that the doctor’s office is doing the right thing.
Since the average patient doesn’t know what the hell the doctor’s supposed to be doing anyway, capitalism makes for some pretty shitty health practices. Like the $60 tylenols.
To eliminate private insurance you also need to create oversight and limits on the healthcare side of things too.
I worked in IT in health insurance years ago, those mom and pop doctor’s offices would submit the same bill six or seven times back to back. Our system at the time had no ability to de-doop so they just kept getting payday after payday until we caught on.
Not all health care providers are good people either.
Would patients fall that much into debt if regular doctors were setting the prices, though? The invoices are quite outrageous across the board in the US as it is. After all, the blame lies on the MBAs who are the experts at juicing the system and not the MDs who inevitably get dragged into. I’d argue the great majority of MDs actually sympathize with patients since they are the ones who signed up to help people in the first place and I’ve befriended a handful of them who I can point to as examples.
At least where I live, this balance is somewhat managed by the competition between the public vs private sectors. If the public one is failing you, you can always opt for a private one or vice-versa. I’ve done both and each has its benefits and shortcomings. But, mind you, this is a system without insurance at its core as a consequence of the universal care that we have.
The problem is that the whole health care can’t be run by the doctors. You need the might of a corporation or a government with a tax stream income to be able to afford the equipment. Well outfitted hospitals are mind-bogglingly expensive. So the problem becomes how to not attach the greed to the healthcare, But still process the billions of dollars required to set up and maintain institutions.
There is actually a shred of truth in that.
The insurance company is supposed to watch dog and make sure that the doctor’s office is doing the right thing.
Since the average patient doesn’t know what the hell the doctor’s supposed to be doing anyway, capitalism makes for some pretty shitty health practices. Like the $60 tylenols.
To eliminate private insurance you also need to create oversight and limits on the healthcare side of things too.
I worked in IT in health insurance years ago, those mom and pop doctor’s offices would submit the same bill six or seven times back to back. Our system at the time had no ability to de-doop so they just kept getting payday after payday until we caught on.
Not all health care providers are good people either.
Would patients fall that much into debt if regular doctors were setting the prices, though? The invoices are quite outrageous across the board in the US as it is. After all, the blame lies on the MBAs who are the experts at juicing the system and not the MDs who inevitably get dragged into. I’d argue the great majority of MDs actually sympathize with patients since they are the ones who signed up to help people in the first place and I’ve befriended a handful of them who I can point to as examples.
At least where I live, this balance is somewhat managed by the competition between the public vs private sectors. If the public one is failing you, you can always opt for a private one or vice-versa. I’ve done both and each has its benefits and shortcomings. But, mind you, this is a system without insurance at its core as a consequence of the universal care that we have.
The problem is that the whole health care can’t be run by the doctors. You need the might of a corporation or a government with a tax stream income to be able to afford the equipment. Well outfitted hospitals are mind-bogglingly expensive. So the problem becomes how to not attach the greed to the healthcare, But still process the billions of dollars required to set up and maintain institutions.
I’m trying to think of the name of something we could call an alternative option to that… maybe something like The Blederal Blovernment.
Absolutely, many governments in many countries do an absolutely adequate job at managing healthcare soup to nuts.