FlowVoid @ FlowVoid @lemmy.world

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2 yr. ago

Oops, I read "generic medicine" as "genetic medicine". I thought you were suggesting that hospitals start competing with pharma over new mRNA designs!

Yeah, you don't need a clinical trial to make generic medicine. But you do need special facilities, which most hospitals probably would be unwilling to pay for.

Neither UHC nor Anthem have anywhere near a 90 billion dollar net profit.

GTFO with that. Lmao

Anthem's policy wasn't going to leave patients in agony. It was going to cap how much anesthesiologists could bill.

There are already plenty of billing caps in medicine. Medicare has a cap for every single patient in the hospital.

When a patient reaches the cap they aren't dumped to the curb in agony, that would be an instant malpractice lawsuit. Instead, the hospital works for free. The same thing (in principle) happens when your plumber offers a flat rate for a job but it takes a lot longer than expected.

That's why a large number of hospital patients actually lose money for the hospital, but the hospital (and presumably these anesthesiologists) make up for it on the other patients. In the end it all averages out.

how come they are so fucking profitable.

UHC has a profit margin around 6%, whereas Anthem's is around 3%. Those are not particularly high. For comparison, Toyota (8%) and Home Depot (10%) are both more profitable.

Insurers already divide providers into in-network and out-of-network. They deny or pay very little for out-of-network providers, because they want their policyholders to stay in-network. The reason they prefer in-network providers is that they negotiate reduced/discounted rates with those providers.

Sure, they could outright hire those providers as employees, but that means they would have to start paying their entire salaries rather than just discounted fee-for-service. And that's not necessarily a good idea, because health care clinics are not very profitable. Basically, this is the same question facing everyone who has to choose between hiring an employee and paying a subcontractor.

That said, some insurers do run their own clinics and hospitals, notably Kaiser Permanente.

Well, when you deny a claim from a clinic you own then it's very likely your "savings" are losses for your clinic.

instead of getting together and building a non profit co-op

The Blue Cross Blue Shield insurers are either nonprofits or mutuals (the shareholders are the policyholders). So are many smaller insurers.

But nonprofit insurers are subject to many of the same pressures as other insurers. They need to keep premiums low, and they would go bankrupt if they paid every claim.

Likewise, the vast majority of hospitals are nonprofits. But nonprofit hospitals have to pay for medicines, doctor salaries, etc too. Most are barely scraping by and can't fund clinical trials into novel genetic medicines.

They’ll take the savings and issue a stock buyback.

They can't do that.

The ACA requires large health insurers to spend 85% of their income on health care providers. If they don't (eg because they start paying less to anesthesiologists) then the savings must be used to reduce premiums or give rebates to customers.

Did the author of that article even read their own links?

Most insured adults (81%) give their health insurance an overall rating of “excellent” or “good,”

Most of the links they cite are about health care in general, not health insurance.

They don't need to prove motive, and plenty of juries would convict.

It won't go to trial, but only because if he's caught then his best bet is to take a plea bargain.

Allow his defense lawyer play up that he killed that fucking CEO because someone he loved died

That would not be admissible at trial.

The purpose of a trial is to present or rebut evidence that he killed the CEO. Anything extraneous to that is not allowed.

The exception would be if he were trying an insanity defense, which almost never succeeds.

An insurance CEO is not responsible for millions of deaths. Drug dealers cause suffering to a lot more than just a couple of people.

And drug dealers are not forced to do what they do to survive. Every drug dealer has friends or family who survive without dealing drugs.

You can sharpen guillotines for the CEOs, while Kyle Rittenhouse wannabes load their assault rifles for street criminals. You're ultimately indistinguishable to the rest of us.

School shootings do not change bullying for the same reason CEO shooters do not change corporate policy.

That's like saying "Now maybe kids will stop bullying their weird classmate" after a school shooting.

Followed by an ominous "There's more bullets than school bullies".

Yes, I am.

Because in their pursuit of money, drug dealers are also directly responsible for the deaths of countless people. I'm surprised I have to spell it out for you.

If the next guy doesn't want to make money for shareholders, the next guy will be fired.

And there are plenty of guys who are willing to risk a bullet if the money is good, including bodyguards and mercenaries.

It's pointless to use force. That would mean breaking all treaties with the Bahamas. Which would free the Bahamas to do things that are normally prohibited, like putting all the newly arrived immigrants on a boat and sailing them 50 miles right back to Florida.

Trump isn't in charge of Bahamas. So if they say nobody gets off a plane in their airport, then nobody can get off the plane. The pilot can either sit in the cockpit forever or fly everyone home.

Trump can't send people to the Bahamas without the goverment's permission. They won't be allowed off the plane, and eventually the plane has to return to the US.

But nothing has stopped. UHC will do the same thing tomorrow it has been doing all year.