Back to being me, part 1

Because you KNOW I can't stay away from political landmines for more than a week:
I have said before, and I will say again, if you ever want to fix a problem, you need to find the root cause. You can spend all season picking fruit off of a fruit tree. It will go dormant for a while, but will only continue to bear more fruit next year. If you don't like the fruit, you need to cut down the tree...at it's roots.

Why the new healthcare law will fail miserably (part 1):

1. It totally fails to address the real problems in the US healthcare system.
a. Over-indulgence by the insurance companies. The primary reason that people can not afford health care in this country is because health care costs are not driven by consumers. A true free-market society will balance off when supply meets demand. Because the healthcare system in this country is driven by a third-party payor (insurance companies), it does NOT balance itself because the third party payor can control both supply AND demand.
As a not-so-quick overview, here is how our healthcare was destroyed by the (unregulated) third-party payor system (values/amounts are not researched, documentable and provable numbers...they are estimates from my experience):
At one point, every insurance company re-imbursed at about the same level...about 85% of the billable dollar. The Healthcare Facilities happily allowed the insurance companies the 15%, as they brought in "guaranteed" reimbursement. both shared the same bed happily until the insurance companies realized the amount of available money out there. So, Insurance Company "A" ran a report and realized that they controlled 60% of the patients in a local market. When it came time to sign new reimbursement contracts, Co "A" refused to re-sign at 85% reimbursement. Instead they demanded the reimbursement drop to 70% of the billable dollar. The Healthcare Facility had a horrible problem. They were unable to survive on a reimbursement rate of 70 cents...but they were equally unable to survive if they became "out of network" for the 60% of their patients that Co "A" insured. Ultimately, the Healthcare Facility did the only thing that it could do to survive: sign the 70% reimbursement contract...and then raise prices 15% to make up for the difference. the following year, Insurance Company "A" drops reimbursement to 60%, and so on. This volleying game has now gone on, unchecked, for decades...until the point comes (and is passed) where an itemized bill reveals that an aspirin costs $3.00. The price is completely fictitious, based on the reimbursment rates of the third-party provider instead of on the actual free-market cost that would have balanced itself through the natural laws of supply and demand.
So, in 2010, here's what it looks like (and numbers are gut-averages, not to be taken to the bank): Insurance Company "A" reimburses at 45%, Company "B" at 55%, Public Company "C" at 22%, and Public Company "D" at 6% (and those are closer rates than you would like to believe).
Scenerio: a patient comes in with private insurance "A": they have services and receive a bill for $1000. They have a $100 deductible and a 20% co-pay. SO: they patient pays the first $300 (20% of 1000 plus 100). The insurance company re-imburses at 45%, so their portion should be $450, $300 of which has ALREADY BEEN PAID BY THE PATIENT, so they actually only pay $150. The truth of the matter is that it actually only costs the Healthcare Facility about 25 cents on the billable dollar to see the patient. So, the actual bill, without a third-party pay system would have been $250. The patient would have been billed $250. But, this IS a third-party payor system, so instead the patient paid $300 (an extra $50, not to mention their premiums throughout the year). The insurance company paid $150 (substantially less than the premiums) and the hospital got paid $200 more than they spent. That sounds like a lot until you plug the actual numbers of patients into the reimbursement rates and realize that anyone on Public insurance actually costs the Healthcare Facility money...no profit, all loss. That loss is spread across the privately insured to balance the budget.
Here's who gets shafted in this system:
1. the insured patient. they are paying more than their fair share of the costs, so that the insurance companies can make money and so that the healthcare facility can see indigent patients.
2. the healthcare facility. they are legally forced to take the publically insured, regardless of profit/loss. so, the more the private insurances lower reimbursement, the less money there is to survive on. Quality cuts and staffing cuts are unavoidable
3. the taxpayer. everyone is worried about how much ObamaCare is going to cost the taxpayer. don't you realize that we ALREADY pay for indigent and publically insured patients through inflated healthcare prices and insurance premiums?
4. and most importantly, the uninsured. If they had $1000 bill, it only truly represented $250 in costs. But because of the whole third-party game, they actually receive a bill for $1000. If it weren't for the game, more people could afford healthcare itself...even withOUT insurance.

So what's my end point?
In walks the new healthcare law. what does it do to correct the horrible state of affairs in US healthcare? DEMAND that all citizens buy insurance. What? It's the insurance game that got us into the problem in the first place. Now, they will simply have more control over more people...giving them MORE bargaining power over the Healthcare Facilities, causing fictitious pricing to go even further out of control. This will cause increased premiums, passed on to the now-captive consumers.
And this is good for whom? I mean...OTHER than the insurance companies....