Comments on: Health care insurance can learn from software industry

By: Grant

Grant — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 19:30:12 +0000

I think Rachel is right. Why does it cost $50,000 for some surgeries, while others are $1000 or $5000? It is completely a seller’s market, where the patient really has no meaningful mode of dissent. Why does an advil at the hospital cost $10? It is completely ridiculous! In my mind it should be fairly simple to put a policy in place that keeps our citizens from dying- its really not that hard. Whether we fund this through government means, or like a “warrantee” program, I don’t care.

By: Mitch

Mitch — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 19:21:25 +0000

I think changing the structure of the insurance industry is a fantastic idea. Just an hour or two ago in his town hall meeting President Obama revealed that over the last 8 years health care costs have doubled, while income has lagged far behind that. On my income I am constantly searching for different places where I can get a free rate quote in the hopes that I can shave a few dollars off of my premium. If we are able to reform the industry to make things a little more fair, I would certainly be in favor of that.

By: Candice

Candice — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 05:50:43 +0000

I work for a hospital and my mother works for an insurance company so I think I can give a bit of perspective to the issue (btw, great blog, you guys usually give really interesting, pertinent information).

when you do something like this, you are inevitably harming the hard working people in the field. obviously health care is expensive, but that’s because its valuable and EXPENSIVE to run medical tests and time consuming to diagnose and test. some may be out to make as much money as possible, but most do care about people and want to keep things cheap. If you just give blanket payments, we are not going to be able to make the profits we need. Even if people do, then the selfish wont go itno the profession. If people care aobut the money, and you make it less financially viable to be a doctor (lots of doctor’s already go bankrupt) then i think we will get less doctors in general

By: Rachel

Rachel — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 02:12:59 +0000

The problem with the healthcare industry is not the method of paying, but the actual expenses themselves. I guess the first solution will solve for the example I provide, but I’m not sure if it solves for all. Hospitals charge for each MRI. Each MRI does not cost anything. The first solution will solve for this because they still recover the costs of the MRI but do not charge excessively for it.

I think the mentality needs to shift from hospitals making money to hospitals helping people. Nationalization will help do that since it takes the priority away from the business model.

By: Daniel

Daniel — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 02:00:03 +0000

It’s more like an HMO. The key is to prevent and pay doctors to keep you from getting sick rather than making you healthy. The difference would be that instead of HMOs being only a small subset of the healthcare industry, this plan would expand to every aspect of the healthcare industry making it more efficient since there is a universal understanding in the industry.

Does that answer your question?

By: Dean

Dean — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 01:45:03 +0000

Wait, I don’t understand the second plan at all. So, you pay on the assumption that you may get sick but are probably healthy most of the time. How is this not exactly the same as health insurance?

By: Arjun

Arjun — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 01:37:32 +0000

I haven’t thought about the second situation very much, but i see a few problems with the first situation presented.

In terms of the packages for diagnosis, this sort of ignores the problem of diagnosis itself. I know this is fictional and extreme, but consider the situations that occur on House. It takes a long time to figure out what is wrong with serious medical issues. That’s the real problem with the healthcare system. Its not about the people who are fairly healthy, the prices are high because of hte people who are sick. The ones who are really sick take a long time to diagnose which means they either A) never consent to a particular cost without prior knowledge and B) costs of determining diagnosis aren’t considered so the doctors get screwed too. So, this makes it so everyone gets screwed.