How does the US lower costs for consumers while maintaining inflated profits for an industry?

The answer is - you can't do it. And yet most of the discussions and debates about health care (oops!) health insurance reform revolves around the premise that the conundrum in the OP has an actual answer.

A decision has to made whether the goal is to provide universal, affordable, equitable coverage for all Americans or whether the goal is to preserve, protect and maintain the profits of 2 highly flawed and self-serving industries who share their ill-gotten booty with the pols who protect them.

There has NEVER been as issue as clear cut as this one.

If a bill is proposed and passed that:

Has a "level playing field option" (JUST described by Daschle on This Week as having NO benefit over any private option!)
Does not negotiate drug prices
Does not repudiate the most abhorrent practices of the insurance industry (prior condition exclusions and rescissions0 from DAY ONE
Does not have a way to cover the vast majority of Americans who need and want insurance within the first year or so

then I think we have our answer. Those are the key points I will be looking for in Wednesday's address.

we are going to be mandated (I'm afraid) to buy a product. A product that can be taken away from us by the provider (I'm afraid) just at the time that we need it most.

at this moment.

All hell will probably really break lose on many fronts if the President is specific (as he needs to be) on Wednesday.

Harold Ford was saying some stuff on Meet the Press that was just making me cringe - he mentioned covering children specifically, and I thought, oh no, are we back to that same incrementalist crap that has been floating around for years - cover the children but let their parents die through lack of coverage?

You don't really want one. It's not really relevant, but it's definitely doable.

As I understand it you are asking if we can get more people coverage and still increase profits, right?

Piece of cake. These numbers are purely hypothetical by the way. Some order of magnitude proximity and the general theory is all that matters.

Let's say the insurance industry covers 100,000,000 people now and charges each of them $1000 per month for that, but spends only $900 per month on care and SGA expenses. That means they get $1.2T in revenue and $120B in EBIT.

Now we add 50,000,000 more people on taxpayer funded healthcare but the Fed steps in and says no you can only charge $967 per month for EVERYBODY. Imagine that there is NO effort to reduce costs by negotiating with drug companies. Nor is there ANY efficiency to be found in the private sector and that 50% more clients needs 50% more costs in SGA. The latter is an idiotic overestimation, the former is stupid, but I'm doing it this way to absolutely minimize any savings and make it JUST about more people paying less each - nothing else.

So 150,000,000 multiplied by $967 per month gives them a yearly revenue of $1.7406T
Taking away 150,000,000 multiplied by $900 per month in care and SGA expenses is $1.62T means they get $120.6B in EBIT or $600,000,000 in additional profit. Meanwhile each individual costs $33 less per month for an annual savings overall of $59B

.

thank you for this post.

He is no leader. He is a corporate puppet.

He should have been tougher on the Dem caucus out of the gate, IMO, and there are a lot of behind-the-scenes ways to do that, but it may be that he was smart to lay back and see which way the wind was blowing. Certainly, the Republicans, the wingnut rabble and the Dem obstructionists aren't making themselves look so great in the public eye, so maybe giving them some rope wasn't a terrible idea. If he can shame Baucus and Reid sufficiently between now and reconciliation, we might still get a decent bill.

Explains it all --

"Smiling faces -- sometimes tell you lies!"


Smiling Faces

Smiling faces sometimes pretend to be your friend
Smiling faces show no traces of the evil that lurks within
Smiling faces, smiling faces sometimes
They don't tell the truth uh
Smiling faces, smiling faces
Tell lies and I got proof

The truth is in the eyes
Cause the eyes don't lie, amen
Remember a smile is just
A frown turned upside down
My friend let me tell you
Smiling faces, smiling faces sometimes
They don't tell the truth, uh
Smiling faces, smiling faces
Tell lies and I got proof
Beware, beware of the handshake
That hides the snake
I'm telling you beware
Beware of the pat on the back
It just might hold you back
Jealousy (jealousy)
Misery (misery)
Envy

I tell you, you can't see behind smiling faces
Smiling faces sometimes they don't tell the truth
Smiling faces, smiling faces
Tell lies and I got proof

Smiling faces, smiling faces sometimes
They don't tell the truth
Smiling faces, smiling faces
Tell lies and I got proof
(Smiling faces, smiling faces sometimes)
(Smiling faces, smiling faces sometimes)
I'm telling you beware, beware of the handshake
That hides the snake
Listen to me now, beware
Beware of that pat on the back
It just might hold you back
Smiling faces, smiling faces sometimes
They don't tell the truth
Smiling faces, smiling faces
Tell lies and I got proof

Your enemy won't do you no harm
Cause you'll know where he's coming from
Don't let the handshake and the smile fool ya
Take my advice I'm only try' to school ya

Which is code for screwing over workers. In this case, you can't maintain insurance company profits AND provide a working public option, UNLESS the insurance companies can provide a competing package, of course. Which they could, but don't want to because the status quo is easier and fits their sink-or-swim corporate worldview more neatly.

:(