It's pretty obvious that creating an explicit profit motive makes things worse. This isn't a hypothetical, people in US pay far more for healthcare per capita than people in countries where there is socialized healthcare.
Doctors' wages have been decreasing when inflation is factored in just like all other workers, despite the skyrocketing costs of health care. Guess who pockets the difference.
In most cases it's probably fair to say that hospital administrations do not give a single shit about passing on those profits to the doctors, nurses, and other support staff. They will give the barest of minimum to everyone below while writing fat bonus checks for themselves or giving out pointless board positions to family and friends.
How I've been looking at it lately is that the issue is in the fact that the hospitals profit when you are sick rather than profit when you are well, and not simply the fact that the hospitals can profit from your care. A possibility that I've heard thrown around is running a hospital on a subscription service. That way the hospital will profit when you are not in it. Unfortunately, this is not without it's issues.
The answer is to stop treating the hospital like it's something that needs to be for profit. That's something we as a species and society could easily support
It's not that healthcare fundamentally needs to generate profit, it's that profit spurs competition, and, thus, innovation. I'm open to counterarguments, but I'm not sure that purely public healthcare can generate the same levels of innovation as purely private healthcare.
I think you've just described the national health service. As a citizen of the country you pay taxes throughout your working life and the health care from the NHS is free at the point of delivery. It's a membership.
Exactly, healthy citizens pay into coffers so more can remain healthy and keep society functioning. I don't know how Americans can be so deluded that you should inject profiteering into healthcare.
They would want you to pay for as long as possible so they would want you healthy.
Anyway as someone else pointed out it's just a roundabout way of saying they want universal healthcare, as that's exactly how it works, you pay a "subscription" through your taxes, get access to all hospitals for free and they have the incentive to keep you healthy because that's how they guarantee people are there to pay taxes. Yes it's pretty much the same thing as private insurance, without the "for profit" part and with a monopoly in the hands of an entity that doesn't have the goal is maximising profits so they can force companies to sell their services for the price they're willing to pay.
Currently, I'm not big on insurance. Like loans, it separates the consumer from the product. A consumer's reluctance to directly pay for a product is what drives down prices.
Also wouldn't it incentivize hospitals to kick you out even before you have healed?
Yeah, like I said, it's not without its issues. Perhaps, when then patient is admitted to the hospital, a contract is simultaneously created which is an agreement between the hospital and patient that they will go through the full treatment required to help them. If the patient is removed prematurely, then the patient can file a lawsuit against the hospital for breach of contract.
In my country we actually do that. Everyone subscribes. An added benefit is that the companies that the sick people work in get higher profit because they get healthy workers back who don't spend all their time thinking about their crippling debt.
That's kind of how HMOs like Kaiser work. They are really good at dealing with issues that could get severe. But things that are not going to turn into something that will cost them money they don't really do a good job at, such as mental health care. Diagnosing you with anxiety or ADHD and prescribing you drugs for it just costs them money, so if they can make it super hard for you to get the diagnosis then they don't have to spend it. It's not really something that will eventually land you in an expensive hospital stay or long term PT.
Welcome to Ontario. In Ontario, if you qualify, your healthcare is mostly paid for by OHIP (other than medication, glasses, hearing aides, and dental.) It works like this.
OHIP sets the price of treatments, doctors and hospitals do the treatments and then get paid the predetermined amount. BUT doctors run their own practice and hospitals are private businesses that need to turn a profit in order to keep the lights on and continue to offer healthcare. So as the cost of everything goes up the profit margins go down and cuts have to be made. Nurses are paid less, emergency rooms are closed and there aren't enough doctors to go around.
The Holy Gospel of Supply Side Jesus According to JubilationTCornpone
Now a certain man named Jairus, a leader of the synogogue, came to Jesus saying, "sir, my daughter is ill to the point of death. But, if you will come and see her, I know that she will be made well."
Jesus asked of the man, "Have you any health insurance?" Jairus was dismayed, for he knew that he did not have insurance. Jesus knew what was in the man's heart for his countenance fell at these words.
And Jesus said, "Be not afraid. With God all things are possible. I shall see your daughter and she will be made well this very day." And Jairus was filled with joy because his daughter would be saved and because he knew not of the outrageous bill he would receive for Jesus' services a few weeks later.
Wasn't there a court case early on in Americas history where the judge basically made it clear that companies only existed to generate value for shareholders?
Something about them wanting to take a large amount of their profits and reinvest into the company by raising wages, and the shareholders took them to court for not paying out the profits to them and the shareholders fucking won?
If you're ever curious why companies fuck everyone over, read a history book.
The entire purpose for a corporation to exist is to pay rich people for holding shares. Nothing more. You don't matter, happiness doesn't matter, life and limb doesn't matter, only the almighty dollar.
This a UK politician where the NHS is not run for profit. Sumak is a shit who has had private meetings with US health care companies assumably to try to sell of parts of the NHS.
aah, thanks, I missed that since I'm not from the UK, and I don't generally follow UK politics. I barely care enough to recognize that my country has a king now (rather than a queen). I'm in Canada, and yes, Charles became the king of Canada too. Most of my countrymen just want to do away with the canadian royalty, and everyone who doesn't have an opinion on it, generally doesn't understand that Canada has royalty. We do. It's stupid, but we do.
That wasn't even that early in American history, this is basically the Friedman doctrine. Friedman was one of the most deplorable human beings to ever live. Naturally that parasite is a liberal idol.