rssHere’s How Free Market Competition Has Helped Patients
Monday, August 17, 2009 at 11:06 am
- 4 Comments
As the Obama administration appears ever-more willing to accept a health reform plan absent a government-backed insurance option, it’s worth noting how well competition within the private insurance marketplace has kept plans affordable in recent years. And here’s a hint: it hasn’t.
In Virginia, insurance premiums have jumped 3.4 times faster than earnings since 2000, according to a report to be released tomorrow by Families USA, an advocate for health care consumers. The group is tracking similar trends in states coast to coast. North Dakota, for example, has seen insurance premiums jump 94 percent since 2000, while earnings have risen only 35 percent, the group found. In Florida, median incomes increased just 27 percent this decade while the cost of health coverage skyrocketed 98 percent. The list goes on.
“Quite simply, America’s families are being priced out of health coverage,” Families USA warns.
The White House has said that the reform model matters much less than its ultimate effectiveness in providing competition and reining in coverage costs. Families USA has made a good case why the task shouldn’t be left to the voluntary efforts of the for-profit companies.
4 Comments
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Comment posted August 17, 2009 @ 4:28 pm
'..the voluntary efforts of the for-profit companies..'. As if I wasn't already scared enough. Their efforts would only happen if Christmas and Easter would fall on the same day.
Comment posted August 18, 2009 @ 4:34 pm
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Comment posted August 31, 2009 @ 5:53 pm
Well, let's see. Medicare underpays doctors by 40% and hospitals by 25% — which gets passed along to patients with private insurance. And Medicare is twice as large as third-party insurance, so a 40% cut from Medicare needs an 80% increase to private insurance (assuming they can recover all their losses).
HMOs were supposed to provide competition, but Democrats sabotaged them in advance by requiring Community Rating. With Communtiy Rating, younger people pay higher-than-otherwise rates, to subsidize lower-than-otherwise rates for older patients. This causes healthier young people to leave HMOs, seeking lower rates elsewhere, and older people to join HMOs, also seeking lower rates. Common sense says the HMOs then wind up with older members, increasing their risks and premiums. Inevitable.
Liberals say that insurance companies “cherry-pick” younger and healthier patients. But that's like saying people don't shop at Wal-Mart for lower prices, they are being “cherry-picked” by Wal-Mart!
Liberals keep interferting with the market, then they blame the free market for the damage they've caused.
Meanwhile, Medicare, despite all the underpayments, and despite subsidies amounting to 15% of all income taxes … still has $38 TRILLION on unfunded liabilities! This according to the Medicare Trustees Report signed by Timothy Geither (Obama's Treasury Secretary).
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