What part of this equation do health care "free marketers" not understand?

You break your leg. The cost of treating that broken leg currently looks something like this:

With Insurance:

ER cost + ER Insurance Co-Pay (Insurance Company Profit) + Hospital Profit + Doctor's Fee + Drug Cost + Big Pharma Profit + Drug Store Profit + Deductibles (Insurance Company Profit) + Out of Pocket (Insurance Company Profit) + Drug Co-Pay (Insurance Company Profit) = Total Cost to you for this accident - What the Insurance Company Is Forced to Pay After a Year's Worth of Arguing + What Insurance Company Disallows = Revised Total Cost of This Accident.

Without Insurance:

All the above, minus the insurance company involvement, but multiply all actual costs and profit costs by three since those without insurance are charged the maximum rate without the benefit of special insurance discounts. Thus, the ER charge that will cost an insurance company $150, will cost you $450 or MORE. Charges are payable on delivery and turned over to a collection agency after 90 days.


Now let's see what your accident costs with universal single payer health care system administered by the government:

ER Cost + Doctor's Fee + Drug Cost + Big Pharma Profit - Negotiated Government Discount - Single Payer Payment = Total Cost of This Accident.

Cost of private insurance:

Actual Cost of Care + Cost of Operation + Advertising + Lobbying Fees for Special Interest Laws + Investment Banker Fees + Securities Listing Fees + 8 Digit CEO Compensation + Legal Fees to Get Out of Paying Claims + Class Action Law Suit Expenses Due to Fraud + Investor Profit Margin + Operating Profit Margin + Reserve Margin = Cost of Insurance Premium


Cost of universal insurance:

Actual Cost of Care + Cost of Operation + Advertising + 6 Digit CEO Compensation + Reserve Margin = Cost of Insurance Premium.


Any question?

Can we copy and paste to send our congress critters?
;)

use wherever you it find useful.

Private companies can never be cheaper than public institutions because the profit margin will always cancel out any efficiencies (real or imagined) attained by the private company. Also, a private company must maximize profit and is answerable to the stockholders. A public institution must serve the public and is answerable to the public.

Where's the incentive?


:hide:

Maybe, the 'incentive' spent on suicides in this country.

I was just listening to Michael Moore kick Sanjay Gupta's teeth in and the equation came to me.

to put out fires? After all the FD doesn't turn a profit? What about the police? The health department? Public schools?

I assume you are being facetious. :)

I'm in total agreement with the library/fire dept analogy.

Kaiser has been maximizing profit for their shareholders for 35 years.

This is going to be a very difficult and long fight, but we really have no choice.

You put your fire department's marker on your house, and if you had paid up, they'd come and put it out. If not, it would burn along with your neighbors' houses. Ben Franklin decided that was seriously stupid and instituted the first public fire deparment in Philadelphia before the Revolutionary War.

I guess Ben had a wee more substance than the business-ho-persons of our generation.

as a non-profit insurer also. BUt they've been NPINO (NonProfit In Name ONLY) At least since the late 80s. I talk about BCBS because it's the one I'm familiar with. I have been offered Kaiser a couple of jobs over the years, but it always seemed that they offered very little for A LOT of expense. I'm learning that impression wasn't a wrong one.

That makes no sense.

Just like BushCo added a proviso to the Medicare bill which prohibited negotiating drug discounts.

Of course, theBush Admin and PhRMA share the same pollster.

You forgot to subtract the "uninsurable" from the get go.

Other then that, your math is impeccable.

I'm gonna preach it to all the "free marketers".

get to use the uninsured equation, paying top dollar for services they can't afford.

The key decisions are: what's the problem, and what do we do.

There is nothing deterministic about the costs of treatment.

can you clarify your objection?