pan6467

I have to agree with you, it isn't the health insurance companies that are the major evil here. They are part of the big 3 but they are the smallest part of the triad that is the Healthcare beast.

First and foremost, we have malpractice insurance and lawsuits that feed the beast, probably moreso than all other reasons combined. Somewhere, in this great country's journey we became an extremely litigious country. We sue for ANYTHING, we believe it is our right to, we deserve it and we look at lawsuits as ways to "get rich quick" without thinking of what the end will bring.

Doctors of certain areas (such as OB/GYN Dr. here in Ohio) in some states can't afford the malpractice insurance. Doctors that do stay in business, then have to see more people, cover themselves better by issuing tests that they know are not needed but due to liability have to authorize to cover their asses. If they miss anything, they run the risk of getting sued into oblivion.

Hospitals are the same way. Their #1 cost (for most hospitals) is not equipment, people who can't pay or staff but insurance. Then it's the equipment that they have to have. They have to cover their asses for malpractice in far more ways than any doctor. So they tack those prices onto the services.

Pharmaceutical companies, as much as I hate them are also in the same boat. They spend years developing a med that helps. FDA tests and approves it (this is where the Pharms fucked themselves). Med comes out... starts affecting a percentage of people adversely and a class action comes up... they lose millions. They have to raise prices on meds to cover any potential litigation.

(I say the Pharm companies fucked themselves because they lobbied the FDA to be more lax in the regulations and testing... the FDA did. However, in doing so, meds come out that show bad long term effects or even short term because they were allowed to rush testing.)

So we have side one of the Triad. Malpractice and liability insurance.

Part 2 of the triad is the uninsured and those that cannot pay. This causes prices for those that can pay to go up. Again, when someone comes in and complains of chest pains, the hospital needs to perform all kinds of expensive tests to cover their ass from a wrongful death lawsuit. (Trust me, even that homeless bum on the corner has family that will come out of the woodwork if he dies and they think they can get money for a wrongful death suit.)

Again, the hospital runs these tests and no one pays. So that cost has to be passed on to those that do.

Finally, we have the insurance companies and government (medicare/medicaid). They get the brunt of everything because they do pay. Thus, they get all these tests, meds, everything thrown at them, because the money is prime for the taking. The insurance companies try to protect themselves a little but in the end they really can't because the doctors and hospitals know ways around all the loopholes. So things like "Tonail Fungus" become big money. Which feeds into the "we have a cure for everything"... erectile dysfunction... we have a cure.

Regulating the whole industry and throwing tax money at it, giving government control over you life.... is NOT going to end any of the Triad. If anything the Triad will get worse and the beast become even more of a financial drain to the GDP.

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I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"