I’m a “wealth producer” too. I run a small business. Tell me how your wonderful HSA can work for me.

I’m 55, I have a pre-existing condition and I’m not rich. Explain to me the following:

1) Where can I “buy” an HSA?
2) What will it cover and what would it cost a person like me?
3) Why are you against Freedom Of Choice when it comes to health care?

I await your answers, John…

Back to the public option, obviously this would not create a functioning market. If anything, it would preclude one from ever existing.

The fact that insurance markets are dysfunctional is primarily the fault of the federal government, not of the insurance companies. Government’s role should be to facilitate markets by setting up rules to promote transparency and discourage cheating. Instead we have a system where market participants need to chisel to survive, and nobody has any idea of what anything actually costs, how risks are determined and adjusted, or how well the companies actually perform. And on top of this we have the tax code.

It’s not reasonable to blame insurance companies for these problems, or to expect them to take actions that would put them at a competitive disadvantage. Instead, federal government should focus on doing its job, namely creating the business and regulatory environment that would allow for an efficient market. Then they wouldn’t have to worry so much about costs– that should ultimately be the consumers’ job. And insurers could do their job without being undercut by unscrupulous competitors.

National health insurance company– what next? Are they going to start building cars and running banks?

They argue that because the sickest 1% of people account for 50% of all costs, while (at the other end of the distribution) one half of the population have trivial annual health costs, we cannot really save money by allowing patients to spend their own money directly for non-catastrophic costs.

While the spending on actual medical and hospital services is very skewed, the spending on insurance-administration is surely much less so, indicating significant administrative savings from consumer-directed health care.

These two industries are related (besides being the two most costly sectors of our economy) Both private health care and public education are “3-party” systems that interfere with the normal relationship that exists in all standard 2-party transactions. Direct accountability between the buyer and seller is lost with such 3-party systems. In govspeak, buyers and sellers are called consumers and providers. The third party go-between is called the “payer.” Either the government (taxpayers) or employer-paid insurance becomes the middle-man. Introducing a third party clears the way for special interests to 1) pressure/bribe/corrupt politicians to maintain their protected status and, 2) line their pockets with excess profits.

If Obama sincerely desires ‘bipartisan hope and change (hold on, let’s give him the benefit of the doubt here), it is high time to insist that any public option in private health care be irrevocably tied to a private option in public education.

The focus should be on eliminating 3-party systems.
another example, “Cap & Trade” is about introducing a 3rd party system into the energy sector. Imagine the potential for corruption and higher costs that will bring.

Piggy backing on that, insurance companies (and non-insurance options like health care sharing ministries) also have cost of acquisition for new customers/members. Medicare’s cost of acquiring a new beneficiary is nearly zero. They come to you, no advertising necessary. The public option would be similar in that stat.

Since Medicare recipients are either elderly or have end stage renal disease, their claims are much higher than in the general population. Thus the total of claims paid is not a valid denominator for comparison.

Simply reporting administrative costs on a per-capita basis shows Medicare to be more expensive even without the other corrections you mention.