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Mark Miller's avatar

To me, this is the big flaw with healthcare for profit. American capitalism is always trying to increase the bottom line in whatever ways they can find. Maybe it’s time to revisit the whole idea of single payer healthcare or as some say, Medicare for all. Get the profit motive out of taking care of people. Medicare may not be perfect, but overall it’s incredibly well managed and has delivered healthcare and peace of mind to me since I’ve been on it. I thank God and LBJ and all it’s supporters back in 1965 who brought it into being.

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Donna's avatar

It doesn’t take rocket science to know they those who provide health care as a business are milking these federal programs dry. Insurance companies with their constant denials , hospitals admitting someone for a normal ekg, normal lab, resolved chest pain but guess what your gonna get a cardiac cath anyway or them allowing for a physician to inflate that level of stenosis to 70 percent when it actually is only 10 percent just so he can put in a medically unnecessary stent. The shenanigans in health care are ridiculous. Terminate all this in one easy step. Take the profit out of healthcare and things will change.

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Susananda's avatar

All of this is by design of lobbyists representing for-profit private health insurers.

This confusion is the last thing a person needs When they are sick or injured.

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Jace's avatar

Part of the unnecessary chest pain admissions isn’t profit (lots of unfunded/uninsured/illegals get unnecessary admissions too). A big component of it is also “defensive medicine” (look it up; due to poor tort reform)

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Candace Lynn Talmadge's avatar

I suspect that the killing of United Healthcare's former CEO--and even more, the widespread high-five reaction to it--opened the eyes of politicians on both sides of the aisle. I have wondered for years what it would take for this issue to gain political traction. Now I know. Just the death of one powerful privileged man. The deaths and suffering of countless ordinary people from all the fraud and payment delays the healthcare insurance industry has pulled for decades? Nah. Just a speed bump in the road to greater profits.

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Erica's avatar

And to add insult to injury, the CEO of the UH parent company, Andrew Witty, doubled down on "our customers need us to help them understand their insurance." The F I do.

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Candace Lynn Talmadge's avatar

Here's the business model. Charge as much as possible in premiums. Pay out as little as possible in actual healthcare. The gap between the two is your profits, minus expenses.

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Boom Boom Mancini's avatar

Repeal CITIZENS "DIVIDED".......because that is exactly what SCOTUS accomplished when they passed that traitorously destructive law! GET THE $$$ OUT OF POLITICS.

Make Billionaires pay their fair share. It's the price we all pay for Civilization.

If you don't like it; move to Mars with Felon Muskovite!

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Bruce Grau's avatar

They want to look like they’re really doing something but a market based system , even one heavily regulated, will never provide quality care universally. Our system needs a fundamental transformation, not just a good tweak.

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Chris Duty's avatar

I do not think we will ever see any actual change. There has been a lot of talk in congress over the last year, but no action. We have had opportunities for actual legislation to be put forth, but it never makes it. There is too much money to spread around to the members of congress...

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Susananda's avatar

It is republicans that have brought us Mehmet Oz

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Boom Boom Mancini's avatar

Blame Oprah for him and Dr. Philth!

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LabChick's avatar

Slightly disingenuous to say that the Democrat party has always been against Big Insurance. The insurance companies have always donated far more to the Dems. Certainly the R party hasn't assisted, but we are now at a point where no independent primary care physician can make a living. Yes, our practice generated ZERO profit last year after expense. This was due to the massive power handover to the likes of UHC and Anthem, who felt that a primary care doctor's visit was worth $20 for managing 5 chronic problems and refilling 40+ meds in that visit.

Greed is their downfall. The doctor is joining a reimbursement umbrella that will cost the payers far more than it would have had they been willing to negotiate and partner directly with the independent practice. We the people allowed the insurers to be the bullies, no one else. So we have to assume this is what we want- taking power away from those "greedy" docs and giving it to the benevolent insurers. Well, we got what we asked for.

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George Shay's avatar

I’d like to see DOGE dig into this but I don't think Musk has time. Mark Cuban would be an excellent instrument but politics preclude him.

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Boom Boom Mancini's avatar

DOGE is a Fascist construct created to destroy OUR [We The People's] Government of the Commons]. It is straight out of the republican's Project 2025 playbook.

Cuban is an opportunist, not a defender of progressive programs. He's a billionaire. Useless.

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