Originally Posted by FloggingSully

Insurance companies are also the only players who have any interest in keeping the cost of healthcare down.

Please explain. Wouldn't doctors and hospitals also benefit if heathcare were less expensive? More people able to afford care?

Originally Posted by quinn14

Overall, the profit margin for health insurance companies was a modest 3.4 percent over the past year, according to data provided by Morningstar. That ranks 87th out of 215 industries and slightly above the median of 2.2 percent.

I don't know what the other industries are, but they probably don't profit from denying healthcare to their customers.

Originally Posted by quinn14

Isn't that basically what pharmaceutical companies are doing when they set "grandma's heart pills" at a price she can't afford? Or put the price of other drugs so high that a lot of people can't afford them? Like you said in the post before the one I quoted, wouldn't they make more money if more people could afford them?

Drugs are a whole other can of worms and prescription coverage is part of the insurance issue. I'm talking about first line medical treatment: doctors and hospitals.

Originally Posted by Spider

Please explain. Wouldn't doctors and hospitals also benefit if heathcare were less expensive? More people able to afford care?

If you cut the price of a routine tooth-cleaning in half would you make more or less money? Wouldn't more people be able to afford cleanings if they were cheaper?

Doctors and hospitals make money by providing care, the more care they provide the more money they make. If someone shows up at the hospital with a crying child who falls off their bike the doctor could probably look at the kid for 10 seconds and say "He's fine, go home" or could order a full physical, x-ray, cat scan, etc charge the person's insurance $10,000 and cover themselves from any potential liability down the road and the guy who brought his kid in has the same co-pay either way.

"This American Life" on NPR has done a couple of pretty good shows on this issue lately.

Originally Posted by quinn14

This is kind of where it gets sticky, I think. If the doctor looks at the kid and decides he's okay and sends him home without all the tests, the he might be liable if there is a bigger problem. But, if there was some tort reform, then maybe they wouldn't feel the need to cover their butts so much. I never did understand why some politicians were against tort reform. Seems like it would make sense, no matter which side of the aisle you were on with Obamacare.

Why would the doctor send the patient home without the [probably] unnecessary tests? Businesses don't do well by sending away paying clients.
I think they passed some huge tort reform in Texas not to long ago and haven't seen much if any reduction in costs. Even if doctors weren't afraid of getting sued for not recommending tests/expensive care, it's still in their best financial interest to get the patient to consume as much care as possible.

Originally Posted by quinn14

I also remember a time when a sent my forearm through a glass door and was taken to the hospital for stitches. Since I was over 18, I was allowed to sign a paper denying treatment and releasing them from any liability. Do they still do that? If so, then the dad in the scenerio you presented could just hear what the doctor said, sign a paper and be out the door.

Why would the Dad to that? He's paid the co-pay so he has no incentive not to get as much as possible out of the system.

Originally Posted by Spider

Please explain. Wouldn't doctors and hospitals also benefit if heathcare were less expensive? More people able to afford care?

Keep in mind that most get their heal;th care coverage through their employer. The employer decides which plan to purchase and coverage within those plans can vary. For large employers, they are essentially self insured with a cap on the total cost they pay out. Those employers decide which services covered, which are not and what your deductible and premiums will be. The "insurer" is merely a claim administrator.

Employers change their plans all of the time.

This is interesting, my employer made some kind of change in the pharma plan we had last year. I had been paying upwards of $3000 annually for 3 meds. The plan changed this year, all have been reclassified as "preventative" and are now included in the plan at $0. That was awfully nice of them.