On Mon, 14 Sep 2009 08:18:47 -0700, Sure,Not wrote:

>> AND ALL OF THIS IS A MARVELOUS ILLUSTRATION OF THE BENEFITS OF ALLOWING
>> THE PRIVATE INSURANCE INDUSTRY TO FAIL DUE TO ITS OWN LIMITATIONS.
>> GOVERNMENT DOES A BETTER JOB OF SOCIAL INSURANCE THAN THE PRIVATE
>> SECTOR AND WE HAVE JUST SEEN A LOT OF WHY THAT IS SO.
>>
>>
> Ok. Let's try this. Why does the gov't do a better job? They can
> print money?

1. Government carries a much bigger hammer than all the different
insurance companies when it comes to controlling prices. The decision for
government is not one of maximizing profits. It is one of making certain
that there is adequate overall incentive in medical services to insure
competence and quantity. At present we have the most bloated and
expensive health care system on this planet and _NO_ _WAY_ to control
costs. When Medicare attempts to control costs, the providers shift the
prices to the insurance companies who must compete with one another and
who must pay whatever rate the providers might want. For some unknown
reason this is supposed to be a black mark against Medicare. It is
actually a black mark against the "free market" health insurance
companies. They CANNOT CONTAIN COSTS.

2. Government does not need to make a profit and does not actually need a
"pool of money" to protect itself from fluctuations in claims. If such
fluctuations arise then government can borrow less expensively than
private industry. Do not confuse this with typical government debt. It
can be an initial pool that is paid down over time in a totally off
budget system. The SS and Medicare trust funds tell us that such
mechanisms don't work. They are repeatedly used as pools of money to
hide deficits. It would be better to operate the social insurance
systems in a BORROWED pool that is TRANSPARENT and the cost of which is
paid by dedicated taxes (i.e. FICA and Medicare taxes), and paid in
premiums. The idea of government INVESTING from an accumulated pool is
stupid. It creates all kinds of political crap about how to AB-USE the
funds. Health care costs what it costs and will cost in the future.
Trying to "save up a bunch of money" is stupid. No matter what you do
the healthy will be paying for those who are not healthy. That is how
INSURANCE works no matter who runs it.

3. Government does not need to advertise and sell its policies and to pay
a board of directors, a CEO , a bunch of VP's and executives, and then
pay bonuses to people who figure out how to screw the policy holders out
of their benefits. The Social Security Administration and Medicare
Administrators maintain very good on line facilities and phone access
lines that provide for "customer" interface, and they do it quite well at
a low cost.

4. Medicare also processes claims from providers more efficiently than
does the private insurance sector.

INSURANCE is a totally different ball of wax than is a car company or a
construction firm or a legal services outfit. It is also a different
ball of wax than a mutual fund or an investment house. You do not need
the insurance company to do the investing for you. The money you save by
not _GIVING_ it to them to "invest" can be placed in your own 401K and
invested in that way instead of them making the decisions in their own
best interest. The function of an insurance system is to offer the
lowest cost EFFECTIVE insurance as possible. And there is no reason for
profit motives to exist in such a system. Every aspect of insurance on a
scale as large as the population of the USA is pure statistics.
Statisticians do not cost a lot of money nor do the statistics change so
quickly that it takes an army of them to keep up. It is a VERY
PEDESTRIAN AFFAIR when done properly.

--
"Those are my opinions and you can't have em" -- Bart Simpson