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Governments have a poor track record to manage our money. Are there any proposals to just regulate insurance providers, pharmaceuticals and hospitals as non-pr

Governments have a poor track record to manage our money. Are there any proposals to just regulate insurance providers, pharmaceuticals and hospitals as non-profits? In addition other industries that provide for basic human necessities should simply be regulated as non-profits. It is simply perverse for insurance companies to profit out of my misfortunes and further optimize those profits to pander to industry and investor whims.

zozbot234 7y ago
An enterprise which is "regulated as a non-profit" is just a for-profit enterprise with opaque money flows, corruption etc. etc. Genuine non-profit enterprises require commitment, and the private sector is better able to deliver that.
- innagadadavida 7y ago
  Not disagreeing with you, but wouldn’t the government be more successfully regulating and policing these health non-profits instead of becoming a health provider? I’m only speculating the relative success between the two options. From an election standpoint, it also seems like a good way to galvanize the support bases - something that presidential candidates are looking for currently.
  - zozbot234 7y ago
    Our approach to the healthcare sector should start from de-regulation, not piling even more red tape on it. That would be the best way to decrease undue profit margins in the industry as well.
- gremlinsinc 7y ago
  What if government could enforce CEO caps of 500k. No bonuses. No sales staff. Transparent prices both on insurer/hospital side. 100% tax of company profits at end of the year use or lose all the income earned. Basically make it impossible for corruption/self-enrichment at the expense of others. Also make insurance a national thing, i.e. plans cross state-lines. How much money is wasted because an insurer needs to hire people who know the laws of utah, more people to work within the laws of AZ, etc... and create plans centered around different states and their nuances? If we can streamline some of this stuff, and make it uniform across the nation maybe they save money and pass that savings to us. (I say this as possible solutions to the non-profit thing, but I'm a huge supporter of Single-payer). There's other options on the table for sure, but something definitely needs to change. Better we bankrupt the entire country than 100k people die from Cancer over the next 10 years who could've lived, had children, and one of those children end up discovering FTL drives or curing Global Warming.

zozbot234 7y ago

An enterprise which is "regulated as a non-profit" is just a for-profit enterprise with opaque money flows, corruption etc. etc. Genuine non-profit enterprises require commitment, and the private sector is better able to deliver that.

innagadadavida 7y ago
Not disagreeing with you, but wouldn’t the government be more successfully regulating and policing these health non-profits instead of becoming a health provider? I’m only speculating the relative success between the two options. From an election standpoint, it also seems like a good way to galvanize the support bases - something that presidential candidates are looking for currently.
- zozbot234 7y ago
  Our approach to the healthcare sector should start from de-regulation, not piling even more red tape on it. That would be the best way to decrease undue profit margins in the industry as well.
gremlinsinc 7y ago
What if government could enforce CEO caps of 500k. No bonuses. No sales staff. Transparent prices both on insurer/hospital side. 100% tax of company profits at end of the year use or lose all the income earned. Basically make it impossible for corruption/self-enrichment at the expense of others. Also make insurance a national thing, i.e. plans cross state-lines. How much money is wasted because an insurer needs to hire people who know the laws of utah, more people to work within the laws of AZ, etc... and create plans centered around different states and their nuances? If we can streamline some of this stuff, and make it uniform across the nation maybe they save money and pass that savings to us. (I say this as possible solutions to the non-profit thing, but I'm a huge supporter of Single-payer). There's other options on the table for sure, but something definitely needs to change. Better we bankrupt the entire country than 100k people die from Cancer over the next 10 years who could've lived, had children, and one of those children end up discovering FTL drives or curing Global Warming.