Feeling political...
As insurance companies are the ones who set their own rates, why are they so sure that health care reform will cause rates to rise? There is no federal regulation of insurance rates (or anti-trust legislation for them, for that matter) so rates rise really when the companies want them to.
Or maybe it's because they won't be able to say anesthesia for abdominal surgery is "optional" and therefore they don't have to cover it. (Yep, still smarting over that one from my surgery last summer.)
While health care costs are rising in a crazy way, I think a lot of that is driven by the insurance companies. My doctor was showing me their rates for a procedure, and what my insurance company negotiated it down to- almost half what the original cost was. So- are health costs rising in order to account for what they will be cut down to by the insurance companies? The real cost of the procedure is probably closer to what the insurance companies will pay. And what happens if a doctor says no? Then the insurance company won't work with them and costs go up for the consumer who is discouraged from using doctors the insurance company doesn't like by nework vs. non-network differences in price.
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Also, I'm completely appalled at the 30 GOP senators who voted against Al Franken's 'amendment to the 2010 Defense Appropriations bill that would withhold defense contracts from companies like KBR "if they restrict their employees from taking workplace sexual assault, battery and discrimination cases to court."'
I can certainly see that companies would want to have their employees submit to arbitration instead of being taken to court. It's much cheaper for them- and I think in a lot of cases, that disputes should be dealt with in arbitration, rather than having frivolous lawsuits in our courts. (It would be rally nice if society would be less "sue-happy" in general.) However, I don't think that sexual assault (like the case of the Halliburton employee who was gang-raped by her co-workers) should be restricted to arbitration. Sorry, that's a little different to me.
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Or maybe it's because they won't be able to say anesthesia for abdominal surgery is "optional" and therefore they don't have to cover it. (Yep, still smarting over that one from my surgery last summer.)
While health care costs are rising in a crazy way, I think a lot of that is driven by the insurance companies. My doctor was showing me their rates for a procedure, and what my insurance company negotiated it down to- almost half what the original cost was. So- are health costs rising in order to account for what they will be cut down to by the insurance companies? The real cost of the procedure is probably closer to what the insurance companies will pay. And what happens if a doctor says no? Then the insurance company won't work with them and costs go up for the consumer who is discouraged from using doctors the insurance company doesn't like by nework vs. non-network differences in price.
link to story
Also, I'm completely appalled at the 30 GOP senators who voted against Al Franken's 'amendment to the 2010 Defense Appropriations bill that would withhold defense contracts from companies like KBR "if they restrict their employees from taking workplace sexual assault, battery and discrimination cases to court."'
I can certainly see that companies would want to have their employees submit to arbitration instead of being taken to court. It's much cheaper for them- and I think in a lot of cases, that disputes should be dealt with in arbitration, rather than having frivolous lawsuits in our courts. (It would be rally nice if society would be less "sue-happy" in general.) However, I don't think that sexual assault (like the case of the Halliburton employee who was gang-raped by her co-workers) should be restricted to arbitration. Sorry, that's a little different to me.
link to story