Why are we afraid to REGULATE health Insurance prices?

[Armstead]

In all the folderol about Health Care Reform, a fairly simple question keeps coming back to me.

There is almost no talk of regulation of health insurance prices. Instead we get all this folderol about relying on competition, etc.

It seems that one very simple way to keep insurance rates in line would be through regulation of rates. Set a baseline of prices, and if an insurer wants to raise them, they'd have to prove their case.

This is what we used to do with public utilities (and sometimes still do). When an electric company wanted to raise its rates, it had to go before a public board and demonstrate the need and impact. The rate board would then determine whether to allow it, deny it, or modify the original proposal.

Seems like that would be a straightforward way to do it. Am I missing something?

[liberal N proud]

1. We are not, Congress on the other hand...

If they regulate, they might not get as big a party from the Insurance Lobby.

[quantass]

2. Precisely. nt

[Proud Liberal Dem]

5. Lobbies may give them campaign money

but they don't vote (well, not yet anyway). If politicians should be afraid of anybody it should be us. I will vote for leaders whom make the right choices and help us, NOT the ones that sell out to the various lobbies and serve THEIR interests. If our leaders genuinely care for us and are helping people, why should they be worried about being defeated in the next election?

[dflprincess]

7. The should be afraid of us, but they're not.

Come 2010 and your choice is between a wing nut Republican and a Blue Dog Democrat, what are you going to do?

Before we can make them afraid of us we have to change campaign finance. Currently the game is stacked too heavily in favor of incumbents who don't have to worry about running on their records because they can bury it under all the cash their true constituents have given them.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

10. I definitely agree with you

The amounts of $$$$$$ that people have to raise/supply to run for elected office is simply obscene. I've also never understood how contributing vast sums of money to politicians somehow="free speech" We need to go to some kind of public financing system IMHO.

[thoughtcrime1984]

21. Absolutely correct- If there is no campaign finance reform, nothing else will change substantially.

[olegramps]

25. Would you bite the hand that feeds you sumptuous meals?

Would you dare to kick sand in the face of such a powerful force and risk being driven from office under a deluge of vicious propaganda that you fuck pigs? Would you risk those lavish parties and free jaunts to island paradises that can be justified with the most flimsy of pretenses?

[quantass]

3. Unless campaign finance reform happens America will continue to crumble...

no matter who is president. A LOT of people in congress are bought and paid for and until that is taken out of the equation they have little insentive to support the people...and sadly that includes the president. I personally feel Obama wants to do things to supopr the people but he has realized tht it is better to get something done then nothing with hopes that it can be a stepping stone...this would explain why he seems insistent on working with corporations and republicans because to him they DO control washington and to get any headway he breadcrumbs his way to victories....its not a good approach but to him its something where other democrats have failed in the past. But lets be clear, campaign finance reform is even more difficult to do then Health care.

[truedelphi]

15. So judging by what you are saying and his actions, he has decided, like Bill Clinton before him,

To try and be the best damn Republican President that any Republican has ever seen.

[Lucy Goosey]

4. Because insurance execs NEED their 3 summer homes more than cancer patients need chemo?

And big business owns congress.

Seriously, there is no good answer to that question, other than the system is too entrenched, and has too much money - and it's money they would rather spend on lobbyists and donation (bribes?) to politicians than on life saving treatments for their clients.

[Oregone]

9. What I find mind-numbing is how much everyone focuses on the execs

Their pay is an expense. At least they actually "work".

I find it more outrageous that people born to the wealthiest sit at home, doing nothing more than masturbating in a pile of their feces, and make a killing because they inherited shares (or the wealth to purchase them). Yes, that is right. People must mortgage their homes to have their cancer treated, such that an elite group of people can sit at home and reap the profits from the process. That is outrageous.

[Lucy Goosey]

14. Okay, I see what you're saying - you've shamed me.

And I agree with you re: people born into uberwealth.

[Armstead]

24. The execs work to ruin things for everybody

If there were health care executives who were social-service oriented, they would be fixing the system on their own.

Yes there is pressure from the investor class.

But it is collusion between awful execs and awful investors.

A pox on all their houses.

[Oregone]

26. They do so only on behalf of the shareholders

Thats why their pay is a justified expense. They devise ways to, despite their pay, increase profits above and beyond that expense (that is essentially their job function). But the root problem is the shareholders. If there was no need for profits, but rather financial viability, the execs would also have an opportunity to run an ethically sound AND fiscally sound business.

If you take the exact same business model, but merely have the general people as the shareholders (crown corporations for example), you will see the execs acting very differently. It is the nature of capitalism itself (business owned privately for private profit) that is the root cause of all these problems. For anyone who understands that, it becomes infinitely more disgusting the great grand sons of plantation owners and sweat shop operators should be allowed to sit at home and profit each time someone gets sick, for no other reason than their lineage.

[Armstead]

27. I basically agree -- But the execs are just as culpable

[Oregone]

29. Because that is their job description, as written by the board, for the purpose of the shareholders

Remove the private profit, you remove the exec problems

[SharonAnn]

28. And the "uber wealthy" heairs pay lower tax rates on their dividends. Great or what?

They do no work. They get high income from their dividends. They pay no Social Security or Medicare taxes on their income because they're not "wage earners".

AND they pay the 15% "capital gains" rate on their income!

Ah, it's good to be a very wealthy heir. The Waltons, et al know all about that. That's why they contribute so much money to thed right-wing think tanks and movements. As do Richard Mellon Scaife, the Olin(?) family, the Bass family, the Koch family, etc.

On the other hand, Warren Buffet, who actually works for his money and is a billionaire many times over, says he pays far too little in taxes.

[Oregone]

6. Idealogical Purity

The Democrats and the Republicans both espouse capitalistic philosophies. Anything that would limit, beyond free-market voodoo, the dividends that shareholders receive (aka the great descendants of slave owners), would threaten the magical concept of capitalism.

The manifestation of capitalism in the health care industry--death, bankruptcy, a non-competitive nation, etc--is less important to the ruling class than the perseverance of capitalism itself (which would make a normal person question its value). This is a result of idealogical purity.

[TheKentuckian]

11. To be fair their is little in the way of market capitalism in the health insurance market either

All I see is a few regional and unregulated monopolies that work in concert rather than competing. I'm not saying that capitalism makes overriding sense in this area but to paint the mess we have as anything like a free market is almost as disingenuous as calling these proposals a government take over of medicine.

[Oregone]

12. "All I see is a few regional and unregulated monopolies that work in concert rather than competing"

Capitalism has little to do with competition at its core. What capitalism means is that the means of production are privately owned (and such owners do not have to be involved in the actual production whatsoever). The main tenant of capitalism suggests that such private owners must be allowed to possess all profits, privately, that are generated in business production. Thats the main point. From that, fixing prices will limit private profits, and knowing that, its that easy to understand why they are against it. People merely use competition and other free market crap as an excuse to not interfere with private profits

And thats the problem with this reform. The political parties cannot suggest a model that would not involve private profit (or even limit them). The manifestation of this system is an ailing society which is less important than the existence of the model to those politicians.

My post wasn't about the "free market" (I only made reference to it when I talked about pricing). Rather, it was about the concept of capitalism itself, and how the major political parties are so ideologically pure that they cannot threaten the concept of private ownership & profit in health care.

[Autumn]

8. The insurance companies don't like that

idea, fear has nothing to do with it.

[Armstead]

18. Fear of the inasurance companies has everything to do with it

[Yavin4]

13. We're Not Afraid, Congress Is

And 30 second ad time in a stat like Montana is really cheap. A good Health insurance co. lobbyist can buy tons of ad time on radio and TV blasting a congress critter.

[wiggs]

16. This is what utility companies do. Seems reasonable. nt

[Crunchy Frog]

17. Because our politicians are terrified of/bought off by

the insurance companies.

Prices of insurance and everything else health related are regulated in civilized countries that rely on private health insurance. Not in this country.

[andym]

19. Why not ask your Representatives in Congress?

Seriously.

I already have. Only Senator Boxer replied so far.

[Armstead]

23. My Rep is solidly pro real reform

If all werev like him, we would have acyual change

[andym]

20. I will even make a more modest suggestion

If insurance companies want to participate in an exchange to get new "customers" then they need to offer a at least a basic policy where the cost is completely regulated= capped at a reasonable price.

Of course, I believe that such a basic policy should include everything that Medicare might include.

You can see one way it might work here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6488988

[Armstead]

22. good idea