If there is no public option, we ought to be able to regulate health insurance like the utilities.

[dkf]

Dr. Dean talked briefly about it on MTP. I like it!

[Kolesar]

1. Like Germany, IIRC eom

[elleng]

2. States have the authority/ability, I think.

but to the extent they do, Feds don't.

[uponit7771]

3. It'd be easier to invest in them too, I don't know why the HCI's didn't want this in the first place

...they wouldn't be boom stocks but they'd be steady income big money stocks that retirees stick their money into.

Some are too greedy for their own good.

[iceman66]

4. That would be an acceptable alternative,

but the public option is actually more of a 'free-market' approach and would be preferable to the opponents of reform if they were ideologically honest.

I think they are assuming that if they can kill the PO there will be no meaningful reform, and that is not necessarily true.

[stray cat]

5. Isn't that to some extent what Obama is trying to do?

that some DUers claim is not reform and worthless.

[dkf]

12. Not really because he hasn't looked at Government review of premiums.

But I think regulating utilities also requires the justification by the utilities to raise rates and to submit them to in our case a public utilities commission who gets to approve increases or not.

[andym]

17. Some kind of premium cap on basic insurance would be key nt.

[LiberalAndProud]

6. Would it be more effective to regulate rather than compete?

Given that what has been regulated can be deregulated, but it might be preferable to any market competition that a public option would introduce, as it would at least be transparent and measurable.

[Orsino]

7. Whether or not there is a public option.

Commerce should be regulated, particularly when it can kill.

[LiberalAndProud]

8. "particularly when it can kill"

Leads into a whole other discussion of corporate personhood, and whether a corporate "person" could be tried for and convicted of murder. In this theoreical realm, I find myself favoring the death penalty.

[twiceshy]

9. I can understand some vilification of the health insurance industry

But this is a bit ridiculous. I am working as a consultant for a non-profit HIC with over 900,000 participants in the Boston area. I just see a nice bunch of very liberal folks doing their jobs and trying to provide a great service.

By the way without profit there is no way to allocate resources intelligently towards the future. Think of a farmer and his corn crop. Part of this crop must be retained as seed corn to allow the next planting. In a simple way this is part of his profit.

[LiberalAndProud]

10. A non-profit HIC ... interesting animal, that.

And not at all what we're talking about here, is it?
http://wcco.com/local/unitedhealth.group.profits.2.1094476.html

[dkf]

11. Saying they should be regulated like utilities is vilification?

Gosh those poor electric and gas companies. What monsters huh?

[andym]

15. Non-profits plan for the future by setting goals to achieve their mission

The profit motive is not the only way to "plan for the future"

For example, a non-profit research institute's goal might be to discover the root causes of cancer.

To achieve, it's goal it will plan to research molecular mechanisms of mutation and to do that it will hire are fund researchers with similar goals. No profit motive is involved, however efficient use of funding is important.

With health care, a non-profit's goal might be to provide the maximum services to its clientele. To do so effectively, means they need to hold down costs associated with waste (otherwise they can't use their money to give the services they desire). The quest for efficiency is not solely associated with for-profits. Planning for the future is certainly not the sole province of for-profits. Too many people believe ideological nonsense. In fact, quest for short-term profits often becomes a fatal weakness for for-profits, when long-term planning is eschewed in favor of short-term profits.

[uponit7771]

22. How much are premiums for a family of for fairly healthy? TIA

[twiceshy]

23. Sorry, I'm just the database administrator.

I can check out pricing, but since they work for employers it probably varies with company contributions. I can tell you at my last employer typical plan was $220 - 340 a month for Family coverage.

[Hello_Kitty]

24. Well gosh, I guess we've been wrong all this time.

Some nice people work at insurance companies so we should leave them alone. :sarcasm:

[andym]

13. I was going to post this idea soon myself.

Make them offer a "basic" insurance policy at little or no profit.
For example,

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6488988

[janet118]

14. It will be a lot harder to go that route

Regulations have to been enforced and that takes funding. Lately, they have not been working too well in other areas, e.g., financial, food & drug, aviation, etc.

[andym]

16. It will take substantially less funding to regulate health-care insurers

than to implement any government-based health care. It should be way less expensive than monitoring food (which requires an army of inspectors)
or drugs (which requires 1 billion dollars to do one clinical trial).

That's because in this case, the insurers just need to be audited to follow the rules. Regular people will serve as the feedback, if they are not getting what they have been promised, they will report the infractions.

Of course, it still will cost something. If nothing else, each insurers "work" would have to be audited yearly. One thing to mention is that with exceptions utility regulation does work.

[janet118]

19. I'm not talking about cost per se . . .

I'm talking about getting Congress to allocate funding for regulatory agencies and viable enforcement mechanisms when many of those same legislators are in the pockets of the corporate health insurance lobby.

And I have a few questions? Would these regulations be standard nationally? Or would there be state agencies in charge of setting the regulations? Would states fund their own regulations or would there be whole or partial federal funding? Would insurers shop around to find states with lax regulation (like the credit card companies do)? Would people be able to purchase less regulated health insurance from outside their own state?

Regulations and statutes tend to be complex and easily manipulated by corporate lawyers. There definitely should be strict regulation of insurance companies and health care providers, along with a strong public option. But if I have to chose only one - it's the public option.

[andym]

21. well i'm talking about serious regulations

well I'm talking about serious regulations such as those that regulate atomic energy and nuclear materials-- whether congress has the will is another thing.

>Would these regulations be standard nationally?
We need national regulations of course-- otherwise no uniform standard. Then it would apply to everyone. Period.

>Regulations and statutes tend to be complex and easily manipulated by corporate lawyers....
Well, if there are potential loop holes, they need to be eliminated early in the process

[ProSense]

18. Nope. Regulation alone will not suffice.

Krugman:

So where does Obamacare fit into all this? Basically, it’s a plan to Swissify America, using regulation and subsidies to ensure universal coverage.

If we were starting from scratch we probably wouldn’t have chosen this route. True “socialized medicine” would undoubtedly cost less, and a straightforward extension of Medicare-type coverage to all Americans would probably be cheaper than a Swiss-style system. That’s why I and others believe that a true public option competing with private insurers is extremely important: otherwise, rising costs could all too easily undermine the whole effort.

But a Swiss-style system of universal coverage would be a vast improvement on what we have now. And we already know that such systems work.

So we can do this. At this point, all that stands in the way of universal health care in America are the greed of the medical-industrial complex, the lies of the right-wing propaganda machine, and the gullibility of voters who believe those lies.

The U.S. health insurance industry is entrenched. Regulation alone will have little impact.

[me b zola]

20. I keep thinking about those Enron tapes

where they were laughing at how they were manipulating energy prices and the suffering of 'Grandma Milly'. So when I hear well intentioned people suggest that we could treat insurance co's like utilities, I cringe.