Something tells me that the private insurance companies are more concerned with protecting their own markets, than with their enrollees paying 'twice'. If they were deeply concerned with their enrollees, I would have thought they would support the movement of everyone into a national health plan, which would remove the problem of double paying (if it exists), and would create the circumstances in which the (too) high prices charged by US providers could effectively be bargained against, which is something that will have to happen in the US sooner or later in one form or another, if costs are to be contained.
We're academics, so let's not beat about the bush - the private insurance industry are partaking in the entirely rational act of promulgating every argument possible (spurious or otherwise) to protect their own interests.
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From: Neal Adams [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Wed 3/25/2009 8:14 PM
To: Oliver,AJ
Cc: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: AAHPN
I am NOT an economist, so my answering may be a bit of "fools rush in
where angels fear to tread",
but here's what I see as the difference....
the public payers, MediCare and MediCaid, set the rates that they will
pay...and typically those rates are below the actual cost of providing
the service
...and then the hospitals in particular eat the cost of providing
uncompensated care to the uninsured....wo when the private pay/
commercial insurance companies come along, the rates that the
providers offer up for negotiation are set high--high enough to cover
the losses that they are incurring serving the rest of teh population
..and so it IS cost-shifting and in many respects the employers/
employees who are insured are paying a double "tax"--their taxes to
support public service and then increased costs in the service they
pay for
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