Sunday, May 04, 2008

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens

Let's just pretend it's sometime in 2009 and President Whoever has fixed it such that every single one of us can and does buy health insurance and now we're all covered.

As far as I can tell, none of the Wannabe Presidents has addressed a few piddly little issues:

  • the inordinate number of fingers in the health care money pie
  • the unholy collusions of PBMs and specialty drug companies
  • insanely-paid CEOs will still be the ultimate gatekeepers deciding who gets what care
  • [there must be more that we just don't know about yet]


On gatekeepers, sure, some people are still wary of letting a bunch of government bureaucrats replace the greedy CEOs and their minions in the disbursing of funds, and rightfully so, but even with all the dismantling and disarranging that BushCo has done, our government is still more transparent and more accountable than the insurance industry has been or ever will be.



cream-colored ponies and crisp apple streudels...

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

yeah, the entire health insurance model is crap. i keep saying we should just have open access medicare for all because it's the health care that people need, not insurance.

puppylander said...

i don't understand why we can't move to the taiwan model.

hipparchia said...

pl:

i may have to move to taiwan...

taiwan has basically the same model as canada, which is basically the same as medicare for all [what michael said above].

i am impressed with how quickly taiwan implemented their nhi plan.

hipparchia said...

michael:

germany and france and some other countries do well with the bismarck model, but they regulate the living daylights out of their insurance companies. and among oecd countries, health care costs seem to run a little higher in the ones using private insurance.

from everything i've read and heard about france's system, i think i would like it the best as a 'consumer' so i'm not entirely opposed to that model. regulation is key.

Steve Bates said...

CEO packages, tied up with strings,
These are America's favorite things;

When I called my doc today for the first time in years, one of the questions the clerk asked is what my insurance was. And her final words as we signed off were, "Be sure to bring your insurance information to the appointment." In America, it's all about the insurance.

hipparchia said...

ceo packages, tied up with strings,

just too true.