Treznor wrote:In fact, they do. They're the reason people avoid getting basic care by raising prices to the point where people have to choose between medical care and eating.
I'm sorry, but that just sounds like total bullshit. Prove that health insurance companies are increasing prices for the specific purpose to force people to only buy their services when a serious emergency comes up (given that it would totally not be a profit oriented measure, by substantially decreasing their revenue and customer base and would cause the company to have a very undiversified risk base, another anti-profit measure).
The payout is greater for treatment than prevention. That's why more and more doctors become specialists instead of general practitioners. Pharmaceutical companies make their profits on new drugs for new diseases, so they wine and dine doctors to find reasons to use those new drugs. The insurance companies have to raise premiums to cover the expense of all these specialists and drugs, so people are less inclined to spend money on basic care.
Bold mine. Remember, we're talking about insurance companies, not other segments of the industry.
All because there's profit to be made.
And yet, most of the world, including Europe, are almost entirely dependent on these competitive pharmaceutical companies, funny how that works.
Denial of coverage is real, and it's on the increase. Competition isn't helping this, and there's good reason to believe that the insurance industry is establishing "industry standards" to weed out "high risk" customers -- even people who are perfectly healthy. Maybe it doesn't make sense, but this is what's happening right now. Something needs to change.
I do support a health service , but there should also definitely be measures against these 'industry standards'. One thing I will mention is that living in Britain, having an NHS does not prevent abuses, I hear weekly reports of many terrible things happening under the system here, I am unconvinced that the bureaucrats the work in the industry are any more concerned about the people.