The primary reason is that the insurance industry is one of the largest spenders on lobbyists. For every dollar that you give to a health insurer, $0.20 to $0.30 goes to fund the cost of their infrastructure and generate net profits that the stock market and their stockholders expect/demand.
The basics of insurance is to spread out the risk over a very large population. With Obamacare, everyone was not required to sign up for and pay a monthly premium. Of course, there was a small penalty for not doing it but the penalty was much smaller than the premium and if you ended up in need of major healthcare that was going to be a major expense.. you could apply and get immediate coverage since preexisting condition was covered… and once the expense has been covered… the coverage could be dropped and go back to paying the small penalty.
We are a county full of liars and cheats. All states have mandatory auto insurance and yet it is reported that in some states/cities 50%+ do not carry auto insurance. Some will even get insurance, renew their drivers or auto license and then cancel the policy…all without consequences.
The IRS ADMITS that they can’t collect 600 billion tax dollars every year http://business.time.com/2013/03/27/the-600-billion-the-i-r-s-cant-collect/
and SEVEN MILLION tax payers fail to file tax reports every year http://www.forbes.com/sites/irswatch/2014/08/27/7-million-taxpayers-fail-to-file-their-income-taxes/#5b326a5645af
Everyone seems to have the idea that “I pay too much and ‘they’ pay too little”.
Before Obamacare we had two national health insurance programs – Medicare & Medicaid – but Congress had to establish another entire entity and put the for-profit health insurance and IRS in charge of it. It has been reported that the IRS had to hire 11 K – 16 K new agents to oversee the collection of the “taxes” to pay for Obamacare, and they gave the insurance industry a “backup slush fund” to cover any of their losses for the first few years until they could figure out what the necessary premiums needed to be.
Now that the “slush fund” is no longer being funded, some insurers are pulling out of the program and/or premiums will be increasing in 2017 15% -50%… depending on the state. Does it surprise anyone that when “the rent comes due” just as Obama is leaving office ?
The question has to be asked… why do we need an insurance company involved in a national insurance program.. there is actually no “insurance” involved..the Feds are the final payer… just like Medicare Part A & B all they have are organizations that “pay the bills”.. they have no fiscal risk and they charge the Feds abt 5% of what they pay out as an administrative charge… a lot less than the 20%-30% the health insurance take our of premiums for Obamacare.
IMO.. if we want a national health insurance, we have to do several things… first is to have one system.. merge Medicare, Medicaid and whatever is left of Obamacare. Everyone needs to pay into the system..the simplest way to do that is a Federal Sales Tax and family deductibles will be based on a family’s income. Adjusted annually, one year back.. just like Medicare Part B & D premiums are. Likewise the Federal Sales tax would be adjusted annually in the same manner. If you are a legal citizen, you have health insurance. The whole process could be tracked thru a charge card type system. Once you have satisfied your deductible… you would pay – if any – deductible per service rendered.
But don’t hold your breath on Congress telling the health insurance industry and all their lobbyists to take a hike.. so that all of us can have an affordable healthcare system.
Filed under: General Problems
I assume you are talking about what I usually called a single payer system. I have always felt that we should have what most say “Medicare for All” I have always thought that they don’t realize it doesn’t cover everything so when you say to merge the two and even three, I think that’s the perfect solution plus I would describe it as a sliding scale system where people pay according to their income. There’s a great website that explains it all but I don’t remember it now. The whole thing would be so easy and the experts have figured it out so that it actually is affordable and everyone is covered. A friend’s husband who was a doctor in Banghladesh use to teach a class at USF on this very subject and she would tell me that he had a way worked out whereby the big insurance companies could become the distributers so somehow it all worked out and apparently everyone came into the class very cynical, and came out wondering why in heck don’t we do something like that?
This is disgusting,,true,,but leaves a bad taste in my mouth,,,,,”our” country is/has become sooo corrupt,,,to the point of no return,,,unless we the people actually return it,,to our founding fathers declarations,,jmo,,mary