Welcome to Missouri, home base of Blunt Trauma.

The idea was private business would operate the programs more efficiently, emphasizing preventive care while saving dollars over the long term.

That would be because they hired scumbags and didn't monitor them. You know how many times the Pennsylvannia blue shield folks got caught stealing from medicare before they FINALLY got kicked off the gravy train?

Reform the insurance industry, or tear down the entire medical system and rebuild it. that'd be a good start towards finding a solution. Right now we've got a half assed part government, part private industry system that works just great for lawyers, politicans and insurance companies. It sucks balls for patients and doctors tho.

B-b-but the MARKET SOLVES EVERYTHING!!!1!!

For Profit health care actually ends up costing more?

America collectively goes "Whaaaa?!"

/Uh-oh, Quatchi sed "collectively"!
//Now Quatchi is gonna be accused of being a pinko/ commie simp!
///Somewhere off in the ether, Pavlov takes notes.

Privatization Corporatization of Medicaid plans at the state level has reduced the quality of care and increased the cost to taxpayers

Yes, there is a difference.

Welcome to Missouri, home base of Blunt Trauma

Thought Philly was the home of BLUNT Trauma?

/Yes, yes, DEEPLY ashamed of meself fer that one. Honest ^_^
//Peace to Pete Rock.

FTA:
Good consumers can force these market forces to work. The problem is, in the past, many states weren't good consumers. They didn't shop around for the best value, force HMOs to provide quality services and take their business elsewhere if needed.

quatchi: America collectively goes "Whaaaa?!"

Pinko commie simp!

Snarfangel: FTA:
Good consumers can force these market forces to work. The problem is, in the past, many states weren't good consumers. They didn't shop around for the best value, force HMOs to provide quality services and take their business elsewhere if needed.

Oh man! You mean the government failed select the best options for it's citizens? No way. I don't believe it. The government knows what's best for us. Don't worry. Our state governments may be stupid, but our federal government will take care of it correctly.

Consumers don't have time to pore over healthcare legalese all day looking for who will fark them in the ass the least?

That's absurd.

I heard most of the people that don't read these things only have two jobs! That's right, two! Lazy bastards. Maybe if they just didn't sleep like the rest of us normal, hardworking Americans I'd say they'd be worthy of a few band-aids and Tylenol out of the emergency room...but this is ridiculous. I can't even count on two hands how many minutes I have to read policies when I get home. They change every damn week, how can you not be responsible enough to read those gigantic bibles they send you? They're big because the healthcare companies want to make sure they explain everything in simple terms, christ!

States are stupid, but to think that a business that exists only to make money for its rich executives would somehow do things more cheaply than the government is ridiculous.

It doesn't make logical sense, and it's never worked in reality, Privitization has never saved Americans money. All it's ever done is take money from poor Americans and give it to the rich ones. It simply doesn't work, and if you have an IQ over 75, it's obvious why.

This is just the effect of what a corporate/government operation can do.

HMO's became pretty powerful in the 1970's due to the HMO Act, which funneled millions of subsidy dollars to corporate HMO's. The result is they got tons of "free money", became huge from it, and by the time the subsidies were finally cut in the Clinton presidency it was already too late; they had a lion's share of the market which whittled down our choices.

Along with how states often put in a restriction that forbids their residents to buy health care from other states (something this article does not acknowledge), plus government taking over more responsibilities in health care, competition is stunted.

What needs to be done is have Congress put pressure on the states to allow their residents to buy health care from any state (not just one or two states, but all of them), let the states duke it out with their pricing.

Then uplift the ban on re-imported drugs from other countries. Let free trade work with prescription drugs, so we can buy from other countries. We buy other imported goods from virtually all over the world but we can't buy pills imported from Canada. It's dumb. Lift the ban, the prices will most likely drop.

This is all just tip of the iceberg, which unfortunately shows just how messed up the health care problem is in America :-(

darkhorse23: Welcome to Missouri, home base of Blunt Trauma.

Not for much longer.

B-b-but the MARKET SOLVES EVERYTHING!!!1!!

This isn't true privatization. It's the medical industry's equivalent to the military industrial complex. The government gives contracts to companies that in turn guarantee profits for themselves at the taxpayer's expense, with almost no oversight done on the part of the bureaucrat who issued the contract initially.

$300 dollar toilet seat, $400 bottle of pills - what's the difference? Both are products of civilian companies getting their money from taxes and not customers.

If Medicaid were truly privatized, there wouldn't be Medicaid. Period. Being fully privatized means there wouldn't be any government program. Insurance companies would either not insure the underclass, or they'd come up with cheap insurance. Hospitals would either not treat those who couldn't afford it, or some entity would be established to treat patients on a tight budget. It opens up the way for an almost perverse kind of, "boutique," medical care facilities for the very wealthy, but like any business there would probably be something targeted towards consumers with lower incomes as well.

verbaltoxin - a good point, well said.

Verbaltoxin

Just how Stalin wasn't a true communist? I've yet to see a single example of privatization which didn't turn out this way.

verbaltoxin: It opens up the way for an almost perverse kind of, "boutique," medical care facilities for the very wealthy, but like any business there would probably be something targeted towards consumers with lower incomes as well.

Yes, abortion clinics, except not for fetuses. They'd be for the creation of soylent green.

sarcastrophe: quatchi: America collectively goes "Whaaaa?!"

Pinko commie simp!

Ha! Ta fer getting it!

In point of Fact Friedmans dreams of a Utopian Free Market totally free of all government "interference" is about as extreme and dangerous and stupid as the Soviet style command economy which allowed for no private enterprise nad in which the government controlled everything.

You can visit the top of the highest mountain or explore the bottom of the deepest ocean but both are extremes in which no folks can live.

Life is lived in between extremes for a reason.

Markets should do the same.

* clambers offa soapbox *

quatchi: Ha! Ta fer getting it!

In point of Fact Friedmans dreams of a Utopian Free Market totally free of all government "interference" is about as extreme and dangerous and stupid as the Soviet style command economy which allowed for no private enterprise nad in which the government controlled everything.

You can visit the top of the highest mountain or explore the bottom of the deepest ocean but both are extremes in which no folks can live.

Life is lived in between extremes for a reason.

Markets should do the same.

I agree. I'm nutjob extremeist libertarian to try to balance out the extremeist nutjob socialists. At least... that's how I justify it to myself.

The fact of the matter is, there is a healthy balance between the two, as you point out. The problem we have is that in our two party system, we've abandoned a very significant third POV: small government. These days, you're either a big government left-ist or a big government right-ist. I'd like to consider myself a small government centrist even though I'm actually a small government right-ist -- and there is no party for either of them.

/I'd happily join the small government centrist party though... if there was one

Don't confuse Capitalism with Corporatism.

JimmyFartpants

Or bureaucratic stupidity...

They didn't shop around for the best value, force HMOs to provide quality services and take their business elsewhere if needed.

wonder why it failed :p

What I want to know is what incentive a private insurance company has to pay for preventive care? Since they can't be sure how long a customer will be covered under their plans, why bother with preventive care when that customer can just up and leave at any time in the future?