The US healthcare system is evidence that this is an overly simplistic view.
In a not for profit healthcare insurance system, every dollar not spent on patient care is considered waste, and we work to decrease it.
In a for profit healthcare insurance system, every dollar not spent on patient care is considered shareholder value, and we work to increase it.
Wouldn't the largest private health insurer just buy up all the smaller ones, and then how exactly would competition work?
That’s cute. But the reality is often closer to this version:
In a not for profit healthcare insurance system, every dollar not spent on patient care is considered waste, so we give it to ourselves and find a way to call it patient care.
That's not hard...
US is the richest nation with poor healthcare. Think about that...
In Spain it is the privatization of the healthcare that is "given to themselves and call it patient care", making politician friends (and politicians themselves) richer and corrupt, and selling it as a way to "fix the healthcare" that they are breaking.
Can you share some significant real-world examples of this happening?
For example, in western Pennsylvania, there is UPMC. According to court documents, UPMC acquired 28 competitors between 1996 and 2018. According to the Pennsylvania Attorney General's office, in 2011 UPMC announced it would stop accepting patients insured by its competitor, Highmark. This prompted the PA government to "enter into consent decrees with both UPMC and Highmark to protect access to care." Which, again according to the Pennsylvania Attorney General's office, UPMC continued to violate. This has lead to, among other things, a recent antitrust lawsuit supported by the US Justice Dept. [1] [2]
[1] https://www.attorneygeneral.gov/upmc/
[2] https://www.wesa.fm/health-science-tech/2024-10-03/justice-d...
I wonder if there are examples of this type of thing happening in places outside the USA, like Western Europe for example.
Yes, that is corruption. However, it is being punished!
If a for-profit insurance/hospital group does this in the USA, taking money from patient care to profit... there is no punishment. Instead, it is encouraged. Correct?
> Yes, that is corruption. However, it is being punished!
In the example I shared, the evidence suggests that the punishment, as you call it, has not been adequate to solve the problem. And that problem has been ongoing for a decade and a half. And still continues.
For profit: While company A keeps the profit, company B lowers its prices instead. Now customers are going to company B instead of A.
Im not saying that this is how it's done, but in the real world, things are not that simple.