What was the purpose of Obamacare?

[pjorourke]

Originally Posted by charlestudor2005

1. I think it was largely the insurance companies and an ungodly high profit motive.

2. Don't get me wrong, I don't have anything against making a living wage, or even a healthy living wage for a doc, but don't be greedy.

3. Hospitals should all be non-profit, but substantially financed.

1. Medicare/medicaid turned doctors from respected professionals that made a nice living (consistent with their educational investment) into "machines" to be managed and squeezed for costs. Doctors (and hospitals) responded by shifting costs to the private patients (i.e., covered by insurance). Employers, who were paying the bills for this cost shifting, said fuck that and had their insurance companies push back. (Insurance companies don't assume risks, they transfer them.) The confluence of these events brought us to the mess we have now where all medical pricing/decisions is driven by mandarins in Washington. Obamacare is the logical conclusion of this mess -- not an improvement.

2. The average doctor makes far less money today -- relative to the community averages than they did pre-M/M

3. Not-for-profit is an economic myth. It doesn't mean "doesn't make a profit". Its just a tax status. BTW, many BCBS plans are not-for-profit. And if hospitals don't make a profit, how do they become "substantially financed". Does the Easter bunny float them some capital?

[charlestudor2005]

Originally Posted by pjorourke

3. Not-for-profit is an economic myth. It doesn't mean "doesn't make a profit". Its just a tax status. BTW, many BCBS plans are not-for-profit. And if hospitals don't make a profit, how do they become "substantially financed". Does the Easter bunny float them some capital?

I didn't elaborate. Of course true non-profits fold. They can't sustain their own debt. I meant non-profits as opposed to for-profit mega-multi-hospital corps. You know, the ones based on the Catholic/Methodist/Lutheran Hospital systems. Having been a patient in a Lutheran one in the last year, I can vouch for the professional care. It's what I wish everyone had access to.

[pjorourke]

You can be sure that those hospitals have profit margins that are very similar to those of HCA. They just call it "surplus", "contribution to reserves" or some other euphemism.