While many people feel that competition will lower health care costs, Insurance companies will still be obligated to meet wall street expectations. Basically all insurance companies whose stock is publicly traded have to make enough money to pay all worker and in addition enough to satisfy investors, the same can be said for many hospitals and clinics.
I would propose a non-profit system the collection of premiums and payout of services would be non-profit, all workers would be paid salaries. Same with hospitals Doctors would be paid salaries depending on specialty, bonus would be paid to doctors based on treatment results. ie working with patient to lower weight and blood pressure with exercise and diet vs medication. All money going into the hospital would have to be used to pay salaries, and update equipment. Set up a rewards program for researchers that discover new inovations in procedures and medications.
In addition set up a malpractice fund that is also non-profit based, while the fund would still be based on doctors having a percentage of pay go into the fund. the money would then be invested. The main difference would be no dividends would have to be paid to investors.
including legal fees, insurance costs, and payouts, the cost of the suits comes to less than one-half of 1 percent of health-care spending
from Tom Bakers "The medical Malpractice Myth"
victoria - you would pay a premium just like you do now, it would cover any doctor and any hospital. There would not be a tax on individuals.
The Zeitgeist
OMG, you pinko commie!
Just kidding, it sounds like a great system.
It would work except for all the capitalist pigs out there who insist that the profit motive doesn't harm medical results.
Elwood Blues
In Massachusetts there are no for-profit hospitals, and there is a mild form of universal coverage. The world has not ended in Massachusetts. In fact, some of the Boston hospitals are counted among the world's finest.
----------- update -----------
Victoria: you ask about paying for it? You are welcome to keep the insurance you have. That's part of the plan.
News flash: we already pay for heath care for the poor. Hospital emergency rooms are required by law to treat anyone who comes through their door. This loses money (ER care is among the most expensive) so the hospitals charge all the other patients to pay for the indigent ER patients. This is the status quo that needs to change.
News flash: we already have rationed health care. Right now it's rationed by insurance companies. And they are skimming off 20% administrative overhead.
News flash: we are already paying *too much* for our health care. The point is not that we in America have slightly higher infant mortality and slightly lower life expectancy than most of western Europe. The point is we pay nearly *twice* what Europeans pay for our slightly inferior health care! See http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0004393.html
News flash: A number of states already have "caps and tort reform" and the insurance companies have not lowered the cost of malpractice insurance. However, including legal fees, insurance costs, and payouts, the cost of the suits comes to less than 1.5 percent of health-care spending. See http://www.insurance-reform.org/pr/AIRhealthcosts.pdf and http://makethemaccountable.com/myth/RisingCostOfMedicalMalpracticeInsurance.htm
----------- update 2 -----------
Here are the numbers on health care quality and cost for a number of developed nations.
The fact is that in the USA we pay nearly *twice* what Europeans pay for health care, and we have both higher infant mortality and lower life expectancy than most European countries. See http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0004393.html for mortality and life; see http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/46/33/38979719.pdf for costs.
United States -- im= 6.4, L= 78.0, cost $ 7290, 16.0% of GDP
Canada --------- im= 4.6, L= 80.3, cost $ 3895, 10.1% of GDP
Austria -------- im= 4.5, L= 79.2, cost $ 3763, 10.1% of GDP
United Kingdom -- im= 5.0, L= 78.7, cost $ 3895, 8.4% of GDP
Denmark ------ im= 4.5, L= 78.0, cost $ 3362, 10.4% of GDP
Finland ------- im= 3.5, L= 78.7, cost $ 2840, 8.2% of GDP
France -------- im= 4.2, L= 79.9, cost $ 4763, 11.0% of GDP
Germany ------ im= 4.1, L= 79.0, cost $ 3527, 10.4% of GDP
Greece -------- im= 5.3, L= 79.4, cost $ 2727, 9.6% of GDP
Italy ----------- im= 5.7, L= 79.9, cost $ 2686, 8.7% of GDP
Norway ------- im= 3.6, L= 79.7, cost $ 4763, 8.9% of GDP
Spain --------- im= 4.3, L= 79.8, cost $ 2671, 8.5% of GDP
Sweden ------- im= 2.8, L= 80.6, cost $ 3323, 9.1% of GDP
Switzerland --- im= 4.3, L= 80.6, cost $ 4417, 10.8% of GDP
USA has 36 days longer life expectancy than these two countries!
Ireland ------- im= 5.2, L= 77.9, cost $ 3424, 7.6% of GDP
Portugal ----- im= 4.9, L= 77.9, cost $ 2150, 9.9% of GDP
.
SinDelle Morte
"A malpractice fund"? I hope it would be HUGE. People routinely win hundreds of thousands of dollars from malpractice suits and sometimes even more. Who would pay for that? That is a BIG part of the reason health care costs are so high, by the way: Doctors have to pay ASTRONOMICALLY HIGH malpractice insurance premiums.
Victoria
Who wants to pay for this? No one... I like deciding what to do with my money that I earned. I think that I pay too much in taxes already. I like the insurance that I have.
Daniel
Why can't we have a not-for-profit government?
Orignal From: why not a non-profit health system?
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