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December 29

Choice is the Key to Savings

Posted by admin
Filed under Health Insurance |

Alain Enthoven wrote in the New York Times recently about the fundamentals of the health care system. He presented a number of insights which may prove true regarding the necessity of changing the way our health care system is run to decrease costs. Enthoven points to a lack in choice as the leading problem, as employees have no choice in which health insurance company they pay for coverage, as that is dictated by their employer. This is due to restrictive costs, meaning that it would be too cost prohibitive to administer more than one insurance company, thus giving their employees a choice. This crippling of capitalism is what allows companies to charge rediculously high premiums for lesser and lesser coverage. Enthoven asserts that there needs to be a way to increase competition among insurance companies, and reward those that run efficiently and reduce costs. Read more here. Do you agree?

This entry was posted on Monday, December 29th, 2008 at 11:43 am and is filed under Health Insurance. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “Choice is the Key to Savings”

  1. Kirsten on December 29th, 2008 at 12:48 pm

    If you read the article written by Enthoven he talks about these “multispecialty group practices” and how the doctors affiliated with these organizations are more efficient bla bla bla. Enthoven is just another uneducated voice talking about the healthcare industry. These group practices are referred to as MSO’s or Medical Service Organizations. Doctors group together to form MSO’s because they get paid more for doing so. In addition, these doctors will only refer within their group even if the patients best interest is to go elsewhere. The fact is that MSO doctors get paid more to do the same job as a doctor not affiliated with an MSO. In addition, the groups make for a much more corrupt healthcare system.

  2. Bud L. on December 29th, 2008 at 12:52 pm

    I don’t think employees much less any but the largest employers with departments devoted to health care delivery (employee biased) have much of an idea as to how their health plan works, much less a clue about “national healthcare delivery systems” in place today. What they do know is that they are paying more and getting less. The election of a new President who says he will solve “their” problems leaves them out of the equation. A broad national debate and discussion of the issues (and not just inside the beltway) may generate an ever increasing percentage of informed citizens who will voice their needs. Let’s not kid ourselves that the juggernaut of lobbiest and politicians will deliver meaningful change without them.

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