Insurance companies have to negotiate reimbursement amounts with medical providers which provide care to their members. The government doesn’t negotiate fees with medical providers rather they mandate the fees and they are much lower rates…see Medicare and Medicaid. Most insurance companies pay on the order of 130-200% of Medicare to doctors and hospitals. Medicaid is even lower than Medicare.

The reason insurance companies and larger self-insured employers pay much higher rates is because so many medical providers lose money on Medicare, Medicaid and the uninsured, thus they have to recoup that money from the private plans. It’s a hidden tax in our healthcare system without question.

Because of the much lower cost of claims the government would have to pay for medical claims, they woudl be able to charge much lower premiums to consumers. Insurance companies simply cannot mandate fees to medical providers, so it’s an uneven playing field.

Sounds all good right? Goverment can dictate fees, thus charge lower premiums and save us all a bunch of money right? Rates will be cheaper, but you will see a major decline in the quality and availability of healthcare because so many quality hospitals, physicians and other medical professional will get out of the system because their income will be drastically cut. I don’t think many orthopaedic surgeons go to school and training for ten years to earn $50,000 a year. Many medical providers don’t accept Medicare for the reasons stated above (lower reimbursment).

This is a very generalized answer…there are many many details that I am not including becuase it’s too much to type. I will submit the system needs changing and there are some good ideas being thrown around by both parties to fix the system. A government option is not the solution.

So, what’s your answer?

I rarely consider a joke in poor taste. To me, jokes are funny or they’re not. I rarely invoke my sensitivities. But again, to each his own.

But to makes jokes about Ahamdinejad being suitable for the GOP are in very poor taste and the equivalent of making jokes about Osama Bin Laden being suitable for the Democrats or Obama’s cabinet (jokes by others I also found repugnant).

I’ve had lots and lots of comments about my humor. You’re the first to call it “wildly inaccurate.” Kudos, mate.