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>Assuming you have competing insurance companies, then you can’t just raise premiums if your costs are unnecessarily high. That's true if it's just your costs

>Assuming you have competing insurance companies, then you can’t just raise premiums if your costs are unnecessarily high. That's true if it's just your costs that are unnecessarily high. But you can encourage policies and regulation that raise the total cost of healthcare for everyone.

lotsofpulp 8y ago
The main factors keeping cost high is low supply of doctors, hospitals, and medicines. I’m not aware of any insurance industry effort to keep those supplies down. If anything, seeing a doctor who charges $200 for a 5 minute visit to prescribe antibiotics for a fever or a hospital that charges $7.5k for a no complications birth is what keeps prices high. If people had doctors and hospitals competing to offer standard procedures like births, broken bones, fevers, etc at lower costs, then that’s what will bring prices down.
- learc83 8y ago
  >The main factors keeping cost high is low supply of doctors, hospitals, and medicines. This is an enormous oversimplification unless you are taking such a broad view of "low supply" that it loses usefulness. >I’m not aware of any insurance industry effort to keep those supplies down. I don't know every policy that insurance industry lobbyists push. I do know that they lobby against price transparency--the lack of which almost certainly plays a role in healthcare costs. >If people had doctors and hospitals competing to offer standard procedures like births, broken bones, fevers, etc at lower costs, then that’s what will bring prices down. For elective procedures like plastic surgery and LASIK sure, but overall medical care is full of such extreme examples of market failures that you need more than just free market competition to control costs.
  - lotsofpulp 8y ago
    I’m not aware of them lobbying against price transparency. I can easily search procedure codes on my insurance website and get the cost back. What I can’t get are the procedure codes from the doctors or the hospitals, somehow not a single person that works there knows what procedure codes will be billed.
    - learc83 8y ago
      Here's an article from a few months back titled: Hospitals and Insurers Set to Resist Price Transparency Proposal. https://www.wsj.com/articles/hospitals-insurers-set-to-resist-price-transparency-proposal-11552343346 https://www.wsj.com/articles/hospitals-insurers-set-to-resis...

lotsofpulp 8y ago

The main factors keeping cost high is low supply of doctors, hospitals, and medicines. I’m not aware of any insurance industry effort to keep those supplies down. If anything, seeing a doctor who charges $200 for a 5 minute visit to prescribe antibiotics for a fever or a hospital that charges $7.5k for a no complications birth is what keeps prices high. If people had doctors and hospitals competing to offer standard procedures like births, broken bones, fevers, etc at lower costs, then that’s what will bring prices down.

learc83 8y ago
>The main factors keeping cost high is low supply of doctors, hospitals, and medicines. This is an enormous oversimplification unless you are taking such a broad view of "low supply" that it loses usefulness. >I’m not aware of any insurance industry effort to keep those supplies down. I don't know every policy that insurance industry lobbyists push. I do know that they lobby against price transparency--the lack of which almost certainly plays a role in healthcare costs. >If people had doctors and hospitals competing to offer standard procedures like births, broken bones, fevers, etc at lower costs, then that’s what will bring prices down. For elective procedures like plastic surgery and LASIK sure, but overall medical care is full of such extreme examples of market failures that you need more than just free market competition to control costs.
- lotsofpulp 8y ago
  I’m not aware of them lobbying against price transparency. I can easily search procedure codes on my insurance website and get the cost back. What I can’t get are the procedure codes from the doctors or the hospitals, somehow not a single person that works there knows what procedure codes will be billed.
  - learc83 8y ago
    Here's an article from a few months back titled: Hospitals and Insurers Set to Resist Price Transparency Proposal. https://www.wsj.com/articles/hospitals-insurers-set-to-resist-price-transparency-proposal-11552343346 https://www.wsj.com/articles/hospitals-insurers-set-to-resis...