ShellGames

Word of the Day: Insurance!

One of the big topics everywhere is the high cost of medical insurance and medical care. What to do, what to do. There have been all sorts of psuedo-solutions raised, but none seem to get to the heart of the problem. Most try to deal with how to afford it, what cut-backs are reasonable in coverage, etc. But I haven't seen any dealing with the real heart of the problem - the fact that insurance companies charge too much! And if you DO get sick, lord help you... your premiums jump to $1500 a month or something. (Not that they weren't high enough already - the cheapest I can find for me and my wife - two healthy people - is $400/mo. with a $5000 deductible. I can't afford that. I am uninsured.)

My solution? I propose this country start a new insurance regime which requires insurance companies to be non-profit organizations. Caps of, say, $200k for directors salaries, etc. could attract some good management. And every insured would become like a stockholder in the organization - the organization would actually be run BY the people who are insured with it (as opposed to stockholders whose main concern is return on investment and paying out as little as possible, while bringing in as much as possible... that is no way to serve people!) The finer details of this need to be worked out, but I believe this is a starting point.

Other avenues to reduce costs would be to stop pharmaceutical and medical companies from charging all their "R&D" costs to the consumer. That is ridiculous! There is no way ANYTHING should cost $70,000 for a one-time treatment. (That was the cost of something my Dad had done - not sure exactly what it was, but that doesn't matter.) There is no way any of those machines could be more expensive than, say, a car to make, and we're not buying the things anyway! One time use of a car is $100 a day. That should be about the line on those things, too.

Just some thoughts.

posted by DadEO @ 8:32 AM