> Which large companies that sell health insurance have gone bankrupt due to being wasteful with money?
Was not necessarily talking about companies in a specific market. But plenty companies have gone bankrupt through bad financial management. I think in the Netherlands some insurance companies might have gone bankrupt if our government allowed them to (because many insurance companies in the Netherlands are linked with banking companies). But instead our government thought it wiser to spend taxpayers money to keep these companies alive.
> The incentive to "not waste money" in the health insurance industry is "deny coverage when possible". Is that really the best way to provide healthcare for all Americans? Presumably that's the real goal that we all share, and we're just arguing about the best way to do it.
I think this is a prime example where government legislation should provide consumer security that insurance companies keep to their end of the contract.
> If government-provided health insurance is too wasteful, why does the American federal government spend more money on healthcare than most other countries (not even counting the American private healthcare expenses), with worse outcomes?
Of course the cause might be in many areas, I'm not sure the US example compared to many other countries is proof that government supplied social healthcare is always cheaper.
Then again, even F.A. Hayek argues in his book "The Road to Serfdom" that perhaps in very few situations government supplied services might be worth the loss in freedom [1]. Perhaps healthcare could be one of these services.
[1]: "In instances like these it is at least possible that we might all be better off, and should prefer the new situation if we had the choice-but that no individual ever gets the choice, because the alternative is that either we should all use the same cheap car (or all should use only electricity), or that we should have the choice between these things with each of them at a much higher price. I do not know whether this is true in either of the instances given. But it must be admitted that it is possible that by compulsory standardisation or the prohibition of variety beyond a certain degree, abundance might be increased in some fields more than sufficiently to compensate for the restriction of the choice of the consumer."
"When an insurance company goes banktrupt, the owners don't suffer. The customers suffer."
Not necessarily. Often another company will gladly buy the bankrupt company in order to take over the accounts. Also, for many types of insurance it's not that big a deal, customers might switch to another company and from the first payment they'd be able to make use of the new insurance policy.
Was not necessarily talking about companies in a specific market. But plenty companies have gone bankrupt through bad financial management. I think in the Netherlands some insurance companies might have gone bankrupt if our government allowed them to (because many insurance companies in the Netherlands are linked with banking companies). But instead our government thought it wiser to spend taxpayers money to keep these companies alive.
> The incentive to "not waste money" in the health insurance industry is "deny coverage when possible". Is that really the best way to provide healthcare for all Americans? Presumably that's the real goal that we all share, and we're just arguing about the best way to do it.
I think this is a prime example where government legislation should provide consumer security that insurance companies keep to their end of the contract.
> If government-provided health insurance is too wasteful, why does the American federal government spend more money on healthcare than most other countries (not even counting the American private healthcare expenses), with worse outcomes?
Of course the cause might be in many areas, I'm not sure the US example compared to many other countries is proof that government supplied social healthcare is always cheaper.
Then again, even F.A. Hayek argues in his book "The Road to Serfdom" that perhaps in very few situations government supplied services might be worth the loss in freedom [1]. Perhaps healthcare could be one of these services.
[1]: "In instances like these it is at least possible that we might all be better off, and should prefer the new situation if we had the choice-but that no individual ever gets the choice, because the alternative is that either we should all use the same cheap car (or all should use only electricity), or that we should have the choice between these things with each of them at a much higher price. I do not know whether this is true in either of the instances given. But it must be admitted that it is possible that by compulsory standardisation or the prohibition of variety beyond a certain degree, abundance might be increased in some fields more than sufficiently to compensate for the restriction of the choice of the consumer."