Great article in the Business Section of the NY Times that shows distills why US has a broke health care system that siphons $800B a year into paying insurance companies vs. paying for health care and how that system bankrupts and kills Americans for no reason other than to enrich insurance companies.
Health Insurers Making Record Profits as Many Postpone Care. The nation’s major health insurers are barreling into a third year of record profits, enriched in recent months by a lingering recessionary mind-set among Americans who are postponing or forgoing medical care.
Health insurance companies have been profiting from the recession for the last three years. They make money when people can't access health care and likely when people will need health care more due to stress of finances
Health insurance business is based upon the 80/20 percentage where the insurance company (in theory) pays 80% of the cost and the "insured" pays 20%. So that ACL will only cost you $500 not the full $2500 and of course you are out of work for three months so the $500 is money you won't have. That article lists all kinds of examples especially for families where it 20% for four people's health care.
All this on top of the insurance which you pay whether you get health care or not.
The system is broken. It and it demonstrates why we have not had any real health care reform that addresses getting the cost down and providing universal health care to people.
Real health reform will eliminate the insurance companies from the health care system. Insurance companies serve no health care function. They provide no health care services. They represent 30% of US health care costs BUT PROVIDE NO HEALTH CARE.
This is the reason why the public option was so key to even beginning health care reform. We had a candidate who stated clearly that public option was necessary for health care reform who then abandoned that for the exact opposite, requiring people to purchase insurance company products vs. health care. Had Obama kept his campaign promise of "necessary public option" we would have had the incremental health care reform he advocated. We got no health care reform as the record profits, record deaths from no health care, and insurance company profits demonstrate.
So now we have the result.
Insurance companies making record profits.
People with health "insurance" can't afford to get health care.
The solution to the US problem is clear. Every other advanced economy has universal health care and costs that are 50% less than US. Their systems would be called Medicare for All in the US. Everyone pays a health care tax. And that's everyone, no "GE pays no taxes" or "Trump pays less tax than his gardener" deals. Everyone gets health care.
US will save $800B per year, 10% of GDP as Europeans spend, vs. the 20% of GDP US spends while carrying the insurance company economic burdent.
Physicians for National Health Plan have a detailed transition to real health care reform in the US. A majority of doctors, faced with insurance company barriers for health care support a national health plan. People should only vote for candidates who support that plan. Get insurance companies off the backs of the health care system. That should be a platform of Democratic Party.