Comments on: A Healthier Way to Pay For Care http://www.virginiatalks.com/2009/12/11/a-healthier-way-to-pay-for-care/ Your voice, your opinion, loud and clear. Thu, 14 Jul 2011 17:17:46 -0400 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: Capt. Havok http://www.virginiatalks.com/2009/12/11/a-healthier-way-to-pay-for-care/comment-page-1/#comment-73 Capt. Havok Mon, 14 Dec 2009 16:49:30 +0000 http://www.virginiatalks.com/?p=15637#comment-73 Health Care is an odd market to begin with. For a society that loves comparison shopping as much as ours, we're largely insulated from the true cost of health care. For those of us with health insurance, our prime cost decision comes down to which insurance company is going to give us the best deal. All we know is that health care is expensive, so we pay somebody else to pay for it. That creates this closed loop of costs centered around our health needs, but we have no idea what amount of money is going where. We have no specific hand in it. The hospitals and insurance companies come up with their own costs and then tell you to pay whatever combo of premiums and co-pays they feel suits them. And we just trust them on this because the costs - created by the hospitals - are too big to shoulder without insurance. Imagine buying a car under the same system. We would know that cars are expensive, but wouldn't shop around for a good deal. In fact, we'd have no way to compare costs. The only hand we'd have in the process is choosing which third party we want to pay to pay for our car. Would you trust a dealership and a shady third-party to make your car buying decisions for you? No - so why do we do this with health care? Health Care is an odd market to begin with. For a society that loves comparison shopping as much as ours, we’re largely insulated from the true cost of health care. For those of us with health insurance, our prime cost decision comes down to which insurance company is going to give us the best deal. All we know is that health care is expensive, so we pay somebody else to pay for it.

That creates this closed loop of costs centered around our health needs, but we have no idea what amount of money is going where. We have no specific hand in it. The hospitals and insurance companies come up with their own costs and then tell you to pay whatever combo of premiums and co-pays they feel suits them. And we just trust them on this because the costs – created by the hospitals – are too big to shoulder without insurance.

Imagine buying a car under the same system. We would know that cars are expensive, but wouldn’t shop around for a good deal. In fact, we’d have no way to compare costs. The only hand we’d have in the process is choosing which third party we want to pay to pay for our car.

Would you trust a dealership and a shady third-party to make your car buying decisions for you? No – so why do we do this with health care?

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