Remember, their priority is money, not health care, as seen in the recent NCQA rankings:
Health care is a public good, not just an industry, to be governed by the same economic principles that govern pure business. Value in health care can only be assessed by weighing cost and quality together. Quality health coverage not only improves care, it saves lives.UnitedHealth’s record in this regard, as measured by the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA), is as revealing as is its animosity toward physicians and hospitals. According to last year’s ranking of the country’s best health plans by NCQA and US News & World Report, UnitedHealth’s highest-rated plan was UnitedHealth New England at 77. UnitedHealth New York was even lower at 125. . .
. . . What makes UnitedHealth’s rankings particularly unsettling is the fact they are based on such important criteria as access to care, member satisfaction, disease prevention and treatment.
Related posts:
- UnitedHealth: "The health care system isn’t healthy"
- Why do the world’s richest come to the US for health care?
- Obama and McCain’s health plans
- Is UnitedHealth behind the "Dr. Nurse"?
- Congressional Budget Office’s Report on Consumer Directed Health Plans
- UnitedHealth continues its attacks on doctors
- UnitedHealth ranked as the worst insurer
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{ 9 comments }
The definition of a public good is something that is:
(a) non-excludable, such as national defense, and
(b) non-rival, such as a large park or movie theater
“Health care” — whether a doctor, an ER, a flu shot or a tongue depressor — is, with hardly any exceptions, neither non-excludable nor non-rival and is therefore NOT a public good, any more than food, clothing or housing are “public goods.”
People who blather that “health care is a public good” are really saying that they want other people to pay for their health care. Which might be a legitimate public policy goal (I think not), but it has no basis whatsoever in the economics of public goods.
ERs fit the definition exactly. They are legally required to treat everyone who walks through the door, and in most areas of this country there is only one community hospital nearby.
The government mandates that ERs treat all, regardless of ability to pay or citizenship status, and yet does not fully fund that mandate. Either let ERs turn away chronic non-payers or let the government pick up the tab for their bills.
It IS in the public interest to have functional, effective emergency departments open and available for all.
“Remember, their priority is money, not health care…”
Sounds about right… In describing the current crop of healthcare of providers.
Crim,
Once again, your psycopathic hatred of healthcare providers comes across in its usual ignorant fashion. The statement you so fondly quoted applies to the most hated health insurance company on the planet, not physicians. But your blind hatred of all things medical won’t allow you to see that. If you were a physician who lost money on every transaction, you yourself might sing a different tune.
Keep up the whining anonymous coward. Your bleeting will rapidly turn to dismay when the Dems take over and socialize the whole corrupt lot. You think six figures barely compensates you now? Just wait until you have to give it all away for free.
“Just wait until you have to give it all away for free.”
You think the democrats are going to make us “give it away for free”? If the democrats win, we’ll order even more tests, cause they suck at the Teat of the ATLA. The entire system will be bankrupted, as we order whole body MRI’s for every patient that walks through the door with a hangnail, to protect us from the Democrat-reinforced sodomites.
“Just wait until you have to give it all away for free”.
Thy speaketh of the present in the future tense.
Thy teat that beareth the milk of human kindness doth runneth dry as thy fountain of wisdom; Thy ostia anuca doth runneth flush with the excrement that overfloweth from thy cranial abyss.
Not at all. The Dems will “nationalize” the healthcare system, by outlawing the practice of medicine outside of the gub’met system while paying pennies on the dollar to acquire all existing facilities and equipment. On the other hand, they will allow to make just enough such that their trial lawyer supporters can take it all away. god help you, however, if you have a dem special interest group member that you turn away for inability or lack of willingess to pay.
Crim,
The above responses to the anon post of 11:41 AM are really pathetic. “Oh knock it off” “Keep up the whining anonymous coward. Your bleeting will rapidly turn to dismay when the Dems take over and socialize the whole corrupt lot.” You actually might get sheeple to listen to you if any of your comments were based on reality and facts, not the meandering blabberings of an uninformed lunatic. As far as other points of view on allopathic medicine, this is a free country and you’re allowed your POV, but at least ground your perceptions in reality (ie the facts), not some psychotic fantasy.
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