and, overall it would cost about half what we’re paying now as a nation for health care.
Doctors would actually spend time with patients instead of jumping through hoops for insurance denials. Yes, their staff handles much of it, but there are insurance issues that they end up having to deal with directly, wasting their time.
At my last physical my doctor when on a short rant about insurance. Told me that the reason that there is so much burnout and a high suicide rate among medical professionals isn’t due to their primary job function, helping people become healthier, it was due to having to deal with insurance companies bullshit.
Living in a country with universal health care. Doctors have limited time for each patient. Many people complain about it.
And insurance companies add nothing to healthcare. They contribute nothing. They streamline nothing. And THEY are the ones who make your health care decisions for you, NOT your doctor.
Got a back problem that could be easily fixed by surgury? Well screw that, insurance isn’t paying for that. But they’ll be happy to put you on painkillers for the rest of your life so you’ll be stuck in a parasitic relationship where you have pay them forever to afford your pain meds.
They only exist to transfer wealth from sick, financially vulnerable people to the billionaire class.
And it’s also bad science and bad philosophy.
Insurance works on probabilities. They pick the most likely outcome based on old population studies (not current ones - so they lag behind epidemics). This means that if you have a pet alligator, and it bit off your toe, insurance would disbelieve you and would say the accident was most likely from a vehicle or tool, and then wouldn’t treat you for salmonella or other concerns from an alligator bite because that’s unlikely to occur in the general population. Even though that’s literally what happened here.
So the way they practice medicine is stupid and bad. It should also be illegal, because to practice medicine you’re by law suppose to have a doctor patient relationship. I’ve never met the doctors at my insurance company. So how can they prescribe (including deny) treatment for me?
Further, I have privacy concerns with insurance companies as well. I don’t want them to have all my medical information. I don’t want them to code my information in a way that benefits their insurance system but isn’t accurate to my actual diagnosis.
I want to go into a doctor and actually be treated by that fucking doctor.
Remember when they said socialized healthcare stops you from seeing the doctor you want? Well our current system, in all its justice, let’s me see the doctor I want, pay her, and then I can’t get the treatments she recommends because they aren’t approved by an anonymous third doctor at my insurance I didnt choose and never met. Lol. Fml.
I don’t want them to code my information in a way that benefits their insurance system but isn’t accurate to my actual diagnosis.
My fiancee has been dealing with this for like 2 years. She got a relatively simple bloodwork panel done, and the NP who ordered it fucked up the code/paperwork for it by labeling it as something more expensive than it actually was, which resulted in the insurance not covering it, which resulted in a $1k bill for what should have been a $20 test.
The bill was sent to collections, and they were told that the bill was erroneous because the NP fucked up the paperwork. They’re still calling 2 years later. They don’t seem to get the hint that my fiancee is disabled, has no wages, and no way to pay it*, and therefore they ain’t getting shit.
* Fortunately it is within my means to pay for it for her, but she has no wages for them to garnish, they can’t mess with her credit score over it, and so they have no pathway to do any harm for failure to pay. So fuck em.
The succinct way to describe it is that every dollar earned in profit by a health insurance company is a dollar that was spent on health care for which no healthcare was delivered. Their profits are literally just inefficiency in the system, and they’re directly incentivized to maximize that inefficiency.
I’m currently fighting a bill because insurance doesn’t like who gave the diagnosis. The diagnosis isn’t wrong, it’s actively being treated, they just think the wrong doctor gave it. Dealing with insurance is a huge pain in the ass for no reason except to enrich the insurance companies. They add no value to society.
I showed this to my mom, and her reply was “but that socialism!” And promptly hung up on me.
Some people are so stupid and stubborn that they would rather be bilked by conmen than to actually get the care they need, affordably.
That’s kind of bullshit we’re dealing with.
Insurance IS socialism. By definition. The only difference is who holds the money from the group to pay out claims. In one, it’s the government which has an incentive to keep costs low across the board. The other it is a private company trying to make as much profit as possible.
US healthcare is extortion
Think of the knock off effects of universal health care beyond paying less.
you would not be tied to a shitty job anymore - your ability to quit and move to another company becomes easier
You could quit your job and start your own company since now you don’t have to worry about medical bankruptcy
Or maybe you live a minimal enough of a life that you could quit your job that you have only because of the health insurance and go do something that is fulfilling to you?
A huge reason that I took the job I have now is because they let me start my health insurance plan asap. It was supposed to be after 3 months but I just asked nice and they didn’t hesitate to agree even without my whole spcheil. I have a wife and a son, at the time my wife was still going through some post pregnancy health issues and my son was going through some stuff that required regular visits. I turned down some cushy jobs solely because they wanted me to wait 3-6 months to be insured, which I get from a business perspective, but what the actual fuck? It took me a while to switch jobs for that reason alone. I guess it’s a good indicator of a company that has common sense/common decency.
I’ve had jobs where you have to wait for 401k but Healthcare has always been covered on day 1.
Wait is that normal? The last 3 jobs I’ve had had a waiting period of at least a month.
Why the waiting time? What’s the risk on their part if they insure you immediately?
We would be able to track bad products that give us cancer more easily, could sue companies in a class action easier. As it is, you cant sue for cancer you never had diagnosed because you couldnt afford to go in. And also with lead contamination and other heavy metals, and a million other toxins.