Case against Blue Cross shows difficulty of cutting health c

[Slinky]

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industrie ... ross_N.htm

[jnk]

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industrie ... ross_N.htm

Thanks, Slinky.

For me, the no-duh sentence in the article:

"The aggressive tactics employed against TheraMatrix raise questions about whether relationships between hospitals and insurers are inflating medical prices and stifling competition needed to control costs."

It would be nice one day to see an article in that paper worded this way:

"The aggressive tactics employed against [internet CPAP suppliers] raise questions about whether relationships between [insurance-based DMEs] and [manufacturers] are inflating medical prices and stifling competition needed to control costs."

[chunkyfrog]

Wonder if 60 Minutes will ever stumble on this stuff?
No way, probably because of conflict of interest.
There, I said it! News people are not worth a hill of beans because they dare not anger their MASTERS.

[Slinky]

A-MEN, jnk and A-men to you too, Chunky!!

AND WHO has the ears AND pockets of our politicians and government ??

Fat chance in hell of any meaningful control of heath care costs w/o sacrificing QUALITY of and access to health care w/those bedfellows!!!

[roster]

If you want to get back to the root of this problem, the key phrases in the article are:

Blue Cross used its position as the state's dominant insurer

Blue Cross — a non-profit created under Michigan law to provide affordable health care

Why is Blue Cross "the state's dominant insurer"?

Is it because they competed against other insurers and won their position in the market through lower prices and high quality benefits and making their policy holders happy?

Well of course not. They are the dominant insurer because the state regulators and bureaucrats passed regulations and conferred favors that blocked competition from the market and allowed BC to become the dominant provider without having to compete for customers' business.

This problem's roots are right in the legislature building in Lansing.



You have a lot of politicians, government bureaucrats, and their executive cronies at BC eating your lunches Michiganders!

[jonquiljo]

We obviously have yet to figure out what reform actually entails - as we now have a $1T bill that passed Congress that addresses very little or none of this. The fact is that there isn't much competition among insurers - usually only 1 or 2 per state are dominant. I don't think it's the lobbying that keeps these people alive - its the fact that no lawmaker can get their head around the problem long enough to figure out how to stop them in any meaningful way.

One of the reasons we have so many uninsured is because insurance is unaffordable to many. So our response is to give away free insurance instead of finding out what practices make the insurance so unaffordable in the first place.

Basically we need to regulate these people in a big way. We don't need a bigger government, we need a tougher one!

[idamtnboy]

News people are not worth a hill of beans because they dare not anger their MASTERS.

About 32 years ago a small Idaho newspaper published an article critical of some local real estate developments. All the realtors yanked their ads for 2 or 3 weeks in protest, and to teach the publisher a lesson. He almost went bankrupt in just that short time. They've been realtor friendly ever since. Principle has a hard time surviving against hunger.

[Daybreakventure]

The goals of health care reform cannot be achieved ... if dominant insurers use exclusionary practices to blockade entry or expansion by alternative insurers.
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