Originally Posted by
wahoonc
Need to figure out how much of that is wasted and profit. IMHO Health Insurance and Health Care should not be for profit operations. Our company kicks in for our health care but the cost is still around $600 a month for family coverage. This has been an ongoing problem in this country for years. I USED to belong to an HMO that would give preventive care at no cost if you were a member, but that got cut out during one of their cost cutting, profit raising binges.
Aaron
I'm not sure how much is outright waste. I suppose that would depend on your definition of waste. But overhead and profit in the private health care sector runs about 25-30% of each insurance premium dollar.
Contrast that to the 2-3% overhead of programs like Medicare, SS, & Medicaid and let's hear that mantra of "gov't. can't do anything right/efficiently" again.
We need universal single payer healthcare in the U.S. We already have it with Medicare and it generally works fine. Drop the eligibility age and let the private ins. companies have the supplement/boutique market or go under completely. They add nothing of value to the healthcare system in the U.S.. They are parasites, pure and simple.
There is some real good information on the site of Physicians for a National Health Program.
http://www.pnhp.org/