975
submitted 9 months ago by return2ozma@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] cogman@lemmy.world 17 points 9 months ago

Yeah.. Because there's no place for downward pressure on health expenses. Hospitals are incentivized to raise prices as much as possible, because they know insurance companies will negotiate downwards. Insurance companies pass all costs back down to the pool while working as hard as possible to deny everything. Drug companies know they have a captive market, nobody else is making that medicine you need for survival so "Cha-Ching!". Employers are looking for the cheapest health plans possible which means the shittiest plans for their employees. And any company that sells medical equipment is looking at selling it for as much money as possible (or in a "package" that gets hospitals to overcharge on individually wrapped tylenol). Hospital Admins spend more time and money to make sure patients are charged $20 for a $0.10 pill than they trying to keep enough doctors and nurses on staff.

Medicare for all, that's the only way to start righting the ship here. Nationalizing the entire healthcare system would be the next step. It's beyond stupid that we run healthcare for profit.

[-] jeffw@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago

So it’s actually more complicated than that (at least to your first point, the points about drug companies is accurate). First, I support M4A, especially plans like Bernie’s that improved reimbursement. One major issue is that the government (Medicaid in particular, Medicare also) pays below costs in some cases. So hospitals charge a shit ton to commercial insurance to make up for their loss on other patients.

In terms of employers saving money, most large employers have moved to self-insurance (70-80%, depending on how you define “large”).

[-] JasonDJ@lemmy.zip 1 points 9 months ago

In a single payer system, why would how much the payer pays for service matter, on a per service basis? The payer may as well just run the entire system. Essentially, an integrated delivery network (like Kaiser Permanente) on a national scale.

[-] jeffw@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

I don’t mean this in a condescending way, but that’s a great question. Lmk if my answer isn’t clear and I can elaborate more.

Single payer is not nationalized healthcare. Those are two different models with very different implications for funding.

Any business could buy up their downstream suppliers, just like the government could nationalize hospitals. But most governments (and most businesses) don’t do that.

In a single payer system, hospitals would get paid from one source, plus supplemental services that people buy out of pocket. What a hospital gets paid impacts what they can pay their employees. Ever heard someone say “why would they be an EMT for $15 an hour when they could make that flipping burgers?” It’s the same logic. Private companies lobby single payer govts so that they can attract employees, among other things they can do with money. More money makes running anything in a capitalist society easier.

If you’re nationalized, then the healthcare workers are government employees.

this post was submitted on 28 Feb 2024
975 points (98.8% liked)

News

23622 readers
3093 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS