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You're correct that a profit motive leads for-profit health insurance companies to push back on improper billing and negotiate prices, because whatever profit t
by jawns 9y ago
You're correct that a profit motive leads for-profit health insurance companies to push back on improper billing and negotiate prices, because whatever profit they are able to eek out goes to its shareholders.
But the same motive applies to co-ops. The member-owners of a co-op don't want their costs to be inflated by improper billing or inflated prices, because if they are able to reduce their expenses, then the member-owners benefit in the form of lower premiums.
In both cases, the shareholders want to get their money's worth, it's just that in the case of a for-profit company, those shareholders are often external investors, but in the case of a cooperative, all shareholders are also members.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- adventured 9y agoFor companies like Amazon, JP Morgan, Berkshire, it's blatantly clear they have a massive financial incentive to beat down the run-away cost of healthcare. They've got a million employees all up and down the economic tiers. It's a very big boon to their business, to have a smaller share of cost going into healthcare, where they can instead redirect that money into eg competing for labor with higher wages (especially relevant with the U3 at 4.1%). Healthcare costs are so bad they're now a large, direct competitor to the Amazons and Berkshires and JP Morgans in a business well-being sense, as resources are finite. I like having these giants stepping up to the plate and targeting the healthcare system on cost. They tend to get their way; if a political rock (eg insurance companies) gets in the way, it'll get moved out of the way. It reminds me of the 450 hospitals getting together to set up a not-for-profit generic drug company recently - https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/18/hospitals-plan-to-create-their-own-generic-drug-company.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/18/hospitals-plan-to-create-the...