And despite what caps exist (can you point me to resources on this topic?), the industry is enjoying record profits right now. That's not to say hospitals aren't as well, but I'm puzzled that so many people seem to want to point the fingers at doctors. Doctors and nurses actually provide the care. If there's anyone I'm less worried about making a little more, it's the people actually doing the work. The administrators and the corporations that set and negotiate prices with the insurance companies though... I'm with you there.
Lastly, the incentives of insurance companies do not align with the patients unless you ignore most of how the industry works. Insurance companies make money when they're able to deny you coverage or require you to pay more out of pocket (in vs out of network). That doesn't align with patients at all.
There should not be a profit incentive in health insurance.
This is not correct, as I understand it. Under the ACA (Obamacare), health plan providers had to ensure that at least 80% of premiums were paid out for patient services. That leaves 20% for overheard, including profit and compensation.
The "trick" here is that service providers (doctors, hospitals, MRI facilities, labs, etc.) are not limited in this way (except by "usual and customary" terms where applicable), and there are LOTS of layers of providers. So in the end you can get many multiples of actual costs by simply washing the underlying treatment or service through 5 or so layers of providers.
Doesn't this imply that it's in the interest of health plan providers for patient services in general to be as expensive as possible? That means premiums will have to be correspondingly high, and the 20% available for profit and compensation will be larger.
Trying to make health insurance affordable is a fool's errand as long as hospitals can charge whatever the hell they want.
And since taxpayer funded healthcare is off the table in the US, we have to work with what we can. The biggest problem with health insurance right now is everyone is not forced to use healthcare.gov so the risk pools don't have the correct distribution of healthy and unhealthy people.
This might stand up in a highly competitive market, but even there you have network effects, and asymmetric power/information issues, that keep it from ever being completely true. In a market like health insurance where large fractions of people get their coverage from their employers who make choices for their employees, it's not really credible to say that high premiums will drive an insurance company out of the market. Moreover, the data bears out that premiums, profits, and executive compensation are all increasing while the overall cost of our healthcare as a nation spirals out of control.
> And since taxpayer funded healthcare is off the table in the US, we have to work with what we can.
If you expect elected officials to fix it by writing them letters and angry comments on the internet, well, yes. But campaigning and petitioning are not the only routes to accomplishing political goals. The teachers' union/wildcat strikes across states with unified Republican control of the government that successfully forced wage and funding increases, despite timid unions that wanted to push for less, should be an indication of what actually works. We don't have to accept the system as it is.
> The biggest problem with health insurance right now is everyone is not forced to use healthcare.gov so the risk pools don't have the correct distribution of healthy and unhealthy people.
That's a problem in that will cause premiums to spiral faster and eventually shutter those insurance pools. But that's a slow death. The largest problem in health insurance right now are the actual, living people being forced across the country to either suffer or die from solvable medical problems, people who are rationing medication because they cannot afford to buy more, people who are being forced into bankruptcy by a broken system. When lives are already being destroyed today, a patch that prevents the rate of lives from being destroyed from increasing quite so quickly is nice, but it quite clearly misses the forest for the trees.
Insurance companies are mandated to strict profit margins, yes. But they aren’t mandated to align with what the other parties say a patient needs. This creates a situation where insurance companies can discriminantly choose which services, and level of care to agree to pay for.
I see it happening right now: Long story short, to put it into everyday terminology, our family and the mechanic is urging for a new engine. Insurance is saying “all you need is air in your tires. That’s all we’ll approve.”
That almost never happens.
Untrue, because health insurers profits are limited by law, sure, but to a specified fraction of the costs they pay; if their payouts are too small, they have to refund the excess profits to the people paying premiums.
It's not a market with particularly robust competition, due to small number of players, and barriers to entry, both natural (two-sided network effects, practical capital requirements) and regulatory.
That's not really the source of the lack of competition, as employers are motivated to minimize rates for what they ger, whether they are seeking to fulfill a government minimum-coverage mandate or provide a competitive benefit to attract/retain staff.
(It is a source of some other problems, just not the one at issue.)
Employer provided insurance absolutely reduces competitive forces (among other problems it causes, as you point out).