Monday, August 03, 2009

Somebody Finally Asks the Question

Michael Hiltzik, in the LA Times, asks: "What's so great about private health insurance?"

He begins:

Throughout the heroic struggle in Congress to provide a "public option" in health insurance, one question never seems to get answered: Why are we so intent on protecting the private option? ...

The [insurance] firms take billions of dollars out of the U.S. healthcare wallet as profits, while imposing enormous administrative costs on doctors, hospitals, employers and patients. They've introduced complexity into the system at every level. Your doctor has to fight them to get approval for the treatment he or she thinks is best for you. Your hospital has to fight them for approval for every day you're laid up. Then they have to fight them to get their bills paid, and you do too.

2 comments:

LoieJ said...

Exactly. Lots of low lever insurance clerks would lose their jobs if private insurance was done away with, but the money could go to the real health care. The executives? Well, they'd move on to run other companies, keeping their hands in the till. [Maybe they aren't all like that, but one of the executives in Minnesota got royally busted, but, apparently is still in charge of the company.]

Anonymous said...

some folks have retired for the sole purpose of staying on hold all day with their health insurance provider (who has generally refused the claim in question).