New California Voter "Initiative" to "Regulate" How Much Health Insurers Can Charge
Posted by scojohnson 10 years, 4 months ago to Legislation
So, apparently, forcing people to buy health insurance from ObamaCare, now has the panic-effect that the people being forced to buy it, never realized that health care was expensive to begin with... or that maybe they are no different from anyone else that already buys it.. and there's no free lunch. Now there is a voter's initiative to require insurance carriers to "justify" how much they charge a customer. So much for supply & demand...
Maybe, “YOU MANIACS! YOU SCREWED IT UP! OH, DAMN YOU! GODDAMN YOU ALL TO HELL!”
I shook his hand once. Yes, the actual hand that parted the red sea.
California is already bankrupt, this will just force them to make it more obvious.
For the moment, these people will feel like they have health insurance, and probably happily vote democrat again, at some point, the reality will set in that a 70% coverage plan with a massive co-pay, that no one will take anyway, will be a big rip-off... (pretty much to subsidize old people on Medicare).
There are are those who's “work” goal is to have big government control everything they can. They "work" hard spending tons of appropriated resources toward that purpose.
If one defines “work” as big government growing even more progressively parasitic, then boy does it “work.”
FYI, Democrats control about 63% of state government in California, they had a super majority of 65%+, but 3 of their senators are currently suspended for illegal activity and broad-based corruption... one of them was a gun smuggler it turns out (and I'm not talking Curio & Relics..)... rocket launchers, fully automatic assault rifles, etc.. while being the author or co-author of much of our stupid gun control laws... and he still did a good showing in the primary from house-arrest while awaiting trial.. http://ktla.com/2014/06/06/leland-yees-s...
Shrimp Boy might have bought the votes... http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2014/03...
I'm sure the Californians don't appreciate the moniker "The land of fruit and nuts" but come on... Californians with sense, do something about this! Of course it isn't just there... we have our share of crooks elected as mayors in our largest cities in the recent past. What is wrong with people?
Respectfully,
O.A.
Tells you all you need to know.
Supply and demand is alive and well. Some willing buys and willing customers offering some kind of "concierge buying club" will find a way to come together despite the rules. The people looking for a law to make things they buy cheaper or things they sell more expensive will be consistently disappointed..
One advantage that health care has over the consumer is that of demand elasticity. There are no substitutes for medical care if you need it.
For example, lets say that the most-demanding customer for a trip to Mars might pay $20 million to get there, but there isn't any way the supplier can accommodate that without "pooling" quite a few $20 million payers. Hence, in some cases, the cost of the supply may out-run the buyers' willingness to pay.
This can be a characteristic of healthcare as well, some diseases may be relatively easy to cure, but are so rare that costs to develop the therapy can't be recouped within the availability of the "sick" pool of customers... so only "popular" diseases are attempted.
In healthcare though, government has tweaked the system (to get votes, I would argue). The young, which will use healthcare sparingly at most, are being 'coerced' to pay much more than their risk pool would suggest, and the elderly (which will consume healthcare by the mountain-load), are being discounted heavily with premiums subsidized by the younger subscribers and the taxpayers.
Very much, a recipe for disaster, and abuse by providers.
California mucked around with the electrical market once, and the results were disastrous... rolling blackouts and $2000 monthly electrical bills for households. Obviously, the "leaders" didn't learn their lesson.
The actual consumer to be a part of the supply/demand equation...one start under this model is insurance companies having to post their prices for the benefits provided. This can have the effect of forcing insurance companies having to compete in a tight market. This of course means the reduction in the prices of services and materials in the hospital/medical provider market because insurance companies will reduce the amount of reimbursement to the medical provider.
Hidden prices and collusion to a certain degree creates a non-competitive marketplace that allows for an oligopoly model of business.
I think this is awesome, California already has very high insurance because of the lack of competitors in the market place... every offered "policy" has to be reviewed and approved by the California Department of Healthcare Services "Managed Care" section. This pre-dates ObamaCare by decades... and all policies have to be compliant with state requirements, sufficient capital in the company, etc... so we basically have a few different flavors of BlueCross/BlueShield and other flavors of BlueCross/BlueShield... very few other competitors.
Most just don't bother and go sell it somewhere else.