Health Care Bill passes House

[Aquila]

Originally Posted by Pressing-On

No, I would rather have open competition and not with the government who can continue printing money or raising taxes. Private companies do not have that luxury. That gives the government an unfair advantage and it would put the private sector at a huge loss.

It's a fact that private sector insurance premiums are going up, up, up. Why? Because of nearly 50 million uninsured and under insured citizens. When these citizens go to the ERs and don't pay their medical bills the medical field has to make up for the loss by raising the price of health care. When the price of health care increases the insurance companies have to raise premiums. When premiums continue to rise more Americans opt out of carrying health insurance or choose to be under insured because they can't afford it. Then you have more uninsured and under insured going to ERs and being unable to pay their medical bills driving up the cost even more... and the cycle repeats itself.

The only way to drive down prices is to increase the number of insured citizens. Once health care providers are being paid prices will stabilize and begin going down. Then, as private insurance providers have to compete with each other AND the public system providers will lower prices in accordance with the lowering cost of health care. It's simple market forces.

We need to reform the system by allowing insurance companies to compete across state lines. We should, at least, begin there. The only plans that are currently available for purchase are plans that are offered from companies based within the state that you reside. Two or three having the monopoly.

We did that with the credit card companies and we see where that got us. The majority of those companies moved to states that allowed them to charge higher interest rates and then they spread their marketing campaigns from coast to coast. Allowing credit card companies to compete across state lines only allowed them to find ways to increase interest and so the cost of credit went up, up, up.

If competition across state lines were open, people would be able to purchase the most affordable plans for their families. That gives them the American right to free choice and free enterprise. That, in itself, would cause all rates to come down because the insurance companies would want to remain competitive.

Not really. Different states have different laws. You'd see providers moving to states and regions where they could keep prices inflated and competition would coalesce in that region alone with rates inflated.

In addition the health care industry isn't like other businesses. For example, the auto industry. If you show up at a car lot and say that you need a car they will take cash or work out a loan. If you don't have the cash or the credit... you don't get a car. But let's assume that the auto industry was run like our current health care industry. Let's say you show up at a car lot and say you need a car and you don't have cash or credit. But the auto dealer is under an oath to provide you an automobile. So they provide you a car. So they bill you. Guess what, now expand on that, imagine there are millions of you going to the auto dealer getting billed for a car every year. What would that do to the cost of automobiles? You'd see dealers raise the coast of automobiles to offset the loss millions are bringing to the system. As costs rise, more people can't afford auto mobiles so more people are going in for their car and simply choosing to be billed. Now imagine that tens of thousands choose not to pay their bill at all. You'd see the auto industry inflating in costs and crashing. Opening up state lines for dealers isn't addressing the issue. The issue is the millions who can't afford cars getting free cars or being slow pay on the bills from the auto dealer. The issue that has to be addressed are the millions who are milking the system dry.

In both scenarios presented above only one of two resolutions will stabilize costs. One, deny people who can't afford services treatment. That's right. Outright deny treatment. If someone shows up at the ER without insurance... send them home or sit them on the curb side to die. Or two, pass a law forcing everyone to pay SOMETHING toward their care. That requires a public option.