For America, Inc., health insurance no longer makes any sense at all!
For-profit health insurance companies - like all publicly-traded common stock ownership corporations and private companies - have only one strategic goal:
enhanced shareholder value.
...i.e., profit and higher prices for common stock.
That goal informs all company decisions which are most commonly achieved through raw cost-benefit analysis. Of course, strict adherence to local, state and federal laws - and potential high dollar fines - are considered, too. But, mainly, when legal representation and settlement costs are exceeded by major profits, ethical considerations always go right out the window. Even the costs of continuing salaries for lower echelon managers and support for their families during incarceration come into the equation - just like the mob, they protect big earners.
To be entirely realistic, this is where corporate 'philosophy' is today. See the startling numbers for proof of health care value - and in this case, cost-benfit analysis reveals that no laws will be broken either above ..or below the fold.
The problem is simple: How do you pay for universal health care?
What are the extra costs of treating the uninsured population?
* Every year, the United States spends over 100 billion dollars to provide mandated health services to those who are uninsured. Often, regular visits with physicians would have disclosed symptoms of diseases that could have been treated more efficiently and effectively if they'd been diagnosed sooner.
Benefit: Over ten years, that amounts to a saving of one trillion dollars alone!
* Hospitals now fail to obtain fees for over $35 billion worth of care each year.
Benefit: That's another 350 billion dollars saved over ten years!
* Another $37 billion is paid through private and public sources (read: your state and local government) for health services for the uninsured, and another $30 billion is paid out-of-pocket by those who lack any insurance.
Benefit: Add in another 630 billion dollars of savings! Anyone keeping a tally? This is easy. And we're very close to the magic two trillion dollar figure!
* The uninsured are up to 50 per cent more likely to be hospitalized for an avoidable condition other than accidents, with the average cost of an avoidable hospital stay estimated to cost over four thousand dollars.
Benefit: Let's consider a hospital overnighter once every three years for just half of the uninsured, so that totals nearly 300 billion dollars.
* In September 2007, Consumer Reports found that 29 percent of people who HAD health insurance were self-described as "underinsured," with such bad coverage that they often put off any medical care at all because they feared the costs. 43 percent of people with health coverage, reported that they were "somewhat" to "completely" unready to cope with the costs of a medical emergency during the coming year.
Universal Health Care Will Save Lives and Money
Nearly 15,000 people die needlessly every year because they have no health insurance and cannot afford to pay for health care. And, various estimates by Physicians For A National Health Program, The Institute of Medicine and the National Coalition on Health Care place the value of various aspects of lower administrative costs through information technology, lower labor costs, and an end to those nasty CEO bonuses that even conservatives don't like at up to 800 billion dollars per year.
So let's get efficient and realistic about using a capitalist tool, cost-benefit analysis, and get with real health care reform: universal health care. It just makes much more sense for America, Inc., now strategically served with fiscal conservatism, too!