One single question about health-care reform, for Conservatives

[Thunder]

Do YOU support or reject the idea of a nation-wide or a few regional non-profit private health insurance co-ops for Americans to buy into.....set up by the govt?

 

[peptoabysmal]

If they are set up as true mutual insurance entities, I don't see a problem. All Congress has to do is let them have non-profit status and stand out of the way. On the other hand, if it is just stamping another name on government run health care or making some kind of GSE like Freddie Mac, I do object.

In other countries, this might work fine, but here in the US with the way our politics revolves around special interests, all I can see in the future of government run health care is that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

 

[MikeMangum]

Do YOU support or reject the idea of a nation-wide or a few regional non-profit private health insurance co-ops for Americans to buy into.....set up by the govt?

Why do they need to be set up by the government?

Wait, they don't.

 

[Brainster]

I assume anything set up by the government will be non-profit. The real question is whether it will be non-loss.

 

[Just thinking]

That's how the government makes things non-profit.

(Sheeeesh ... what rock have you been under?)

 

[Thunder]

no non-profit HMOs exist in New York State. for some reason, no one has tried to create one. if the govt. needs to be the one to do it, then so be it....I say.

 

[Neally]

Kaiser Health Plan is a non-profit. They aren't making an impact on affordable health care, nor will a government equivalent. We are barking up the wrong tree here.

 

[WildCat]

Kaiser Health Plan is a non-profit. They aren't making an impact on affordable health care, nor will a government equivalent. We are barking up the wrong tree here.

Exactly. Attacking the health insurance industry and its outrageous 4% profit magin isn't addressing the real problem, the high cost of health care in the US.

 

[Thunder]

Kaiser Health Plan is a non-profit. They aren't making an impact on affordable health care, nor will a government equivalent. We are barking up the wrong tree here.

i think if Kaiser was nation-wide, and was available to ALL 330 million Americans, it would make a big difference.

though..they do have high co-pays.

 

[MikeMangum]

i think if Kaiser was nation-wide, and was available to ALL 330 million Americans, it would make a big difference.

though..they do have high co-pays.

Same thing with Group Health, a non profit cooperative in WA state. There is a reason for that...insurance is a method of spreading risk and cost around, but those costs still need to be paid somehow.

 

[carlitos]

(looks at Ron Paul's Robert Byrd's pocket-sized Constitution)

No.

 

[WildCat]

i think if Kaiser was nation-wide, and was available to ALL 330 million Americans, it would make a big difference.

though..they do have high co-pays.

So you're in favor of allowing insurance companies to sell health insurance across state lines?

 

[Beerina]

Blue Cross/Blue Shield runs under nonprofit laws. They have to have pauses in accepting new people from time to time (they must accept any applicants in order to get the tax-free status) because it costs too much. So being tax-free helps a lot, but isn't the full financial backing you'd think.


By the way, as we move into the future, the more things invented to treat, the more it will cost simply because there are more things to buy. This is a good thing.

If you want to reduce costs, you want to attack waste without attacking the profits that drive production of new drugs and treatments and devices. This idea gets lost sometimes in the flamewars.

 

[jayh]

So you're in favor of allowing insurance companies to sell health insurance across state lines?

Absolutely. Why can't we actually get a competitive market?

 

[MikeMangum]

no non-profit HMOs exist in New York State. for some reason, no one has tried to create one.

Why don't YOU talk a bunch of friends and investors into setting one up?