Your Perspective on Health Insurance?

[newwurldmn]

Healthcare is like anything else: Prices of goods and services are determined by supply & demand.

I said it many years ago: Obamacare would increase the number of patients, which means more demand for healthcare, but it wouldn't increase supply of service providers (doctors, nurses, etc). The imbalance would cause prices to climb and cause long waits for services. That's what happened.

There were 21,500 medical school graduates in 2011, but only 23,000 in 2014. A paltry 7% increase in 3 years to cover millions of additional patients?? That barely covers the attrition and retirement of existing doctors.

Total Number of Medical School Graduates | KFF

Try to make an appointment at a doctor's office that primarily takes Medicare patients; it takes 3-4 weeks to get an appointment, and you have to come 2 hours ahead of time. There are far too many consumers (patients) for the number of producers (doctors).

Inflation is a monetary phenomenon caused by government policies.

no. Healthcare prices are not dictated by supply and demand as much as other things.

they are dictated by health insurance companies that do collective bargaining with complex cost shifting schemes that no one actually understands. I spoke to the CEO of a well known PBM and he couldn’t explain how the costs of drugs work.

Obamacare in its original form would have cut the stranglehold of insurance companies on the health care system.

United healthcare is one of the largest companies in the world by market cap. Think about that.

The best post on this topic is from @Sig. it’s a shame he left this board.

edit: my sister is a prominent cancer doctor (won’t say her speciality) and she left the industry because of mal practice insurance. Biotech companies pay better because they can sell drugs for $100,000 per treatment.

 

[newwurldmn]

Healthcare is like anything else: Prices of goods and services are determined by supply & demand.

I said it many years ago: Obamacare would increase the number of patients, which means more demand for healthcare, but it wouldn't increase supply of service providers (doctors, nurses, etc). The imbalance would cause prices to climb and cause long waits for services. That's what happened.

There were 21,500 medical school graduates in 2011, but only 23,000 in 2014. A paltry 7% increase in 3 years to cover millions of additional patients?? That barely covers the attrition and retirement of existing doctors.

Total Number of Medical School Graduates | KFF

Try to make an appointment at a doctor's office that primarily takes Medicare patients; it takes 3-4 weeks to get an appointment, and you have to come 2 hours ahead of time. There are far too many consumers (patients) for the number of producers (doctors).

Inflation is a monetary phenomenon caused by government policies.

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/hus/topics/physicians.htm#

doctors are increasing faster than the population.