Can someone explain...

[Steve Petersen]

Is there anything stopping people from forming their own insurance pools or co-operatives?

 

[Conservativation]

Is there anything stopping people from forming their own insurance pools or co-operatives?

Its already being done for a long time. There are Christian pools that folks contribute to that then help members with catastrophic things. They would not technically be called insurance, but their function is undeniably insurance.
Wife and i have a set of friends who, due to pre-exist cond. joined one. the guy ended up w/ major back surgery and loss of work, and that thing massively helped them out.

Not sure if this is an answer to your question

 

[Bill_monkey]

The doctor and the patient are the only ones who should be deciding what medical treatment a patient gets, not the beancounters be they government or private industry.

That is a ridiculous worldview. The fact is that people have to decide every day what the value of life is. They have to create risk assessments all the time that basically judge the value of a given life. You just can't spend an endless amount of money on a single life.

But I think this is all missing the point. The US currently spends twice as much as most countries on health care without doing a better job by nearly all metrics. It also has a terrible approval rating compared to countries like Canada, where the health care is beloved.

 

[DaisyDay]

Lets look then.

First....refusal of some is bad, and some is good.

Obviously.

YOU get to decide? Govt gets to decide? A company gets to decide? Seriously, its nice that you or anyone has YOUR opinions....what if mine differ?

Ideally, you and your doctor decide. There should also government guidelines to not pay for quack treatments or treatments proven ineffective. I have no problem with preference given to treatments that have equal outcomes (predicted) but less cost. What if yours do differ? Hopefully, we can reach a compromise; if not, one or both of our won't prevail.
Why?

The point is then that you are saying that refusal via insurance company is bad.....but refusal via government is good.

No, that's not what I said so your "why" is unanswerable.

 

[ArnautDaniel]

I think we are missing a crucial part here.

Let's suppose I pay $N into the health care system.

Now in neither system do I get $N worth of health care.

In the case of private insurance the company takes away some amount to pay for running itself and some more away as profits. Let's say (just for simplicity this is $N/2).

So I pay $N into the system and get $N/2 in health care.

Now the government is the same. It has no profits but let's say the conservatives are right and it costs more for it to run itself. Maybe it works out that the government needs $N/2 to run itself.

So I pay $N into the system and get $N/2 in health care.

In this case there is no difference from me, and the only difference is whether some amount of money goes to some people that own a company or not.

So in the case both systems would be equally (in)efficient.

Now understanding that I will always get less value in health care than the $N I put it, from my perspective I want the system that gives me the most value per dollar I put in. If the private system does that, fine. If the public system does that, fine.

But let's recall, the private system is not fighting for its right to give you the best health care possible. It is fighting to get as much in profits as possible.

The private system is fighting to get as much of your $N as it can and hand that over to its investors. That means give you as little health care benefit as it can get away with.

That said, I'm inclined to believe that a government system will give me the most for my $N as less money will be siphoned away from the system to line the pockets of investors.