[ale] ["Topic"? I don't think it means what you think it means] Re: Incompetent corporate web sites

[JK]

Holy sh*t, Jim, tell us how you feel :-)


 > Maybe I just don't understand why anyone would like to keep the
 > current fscked up mess that uses taxpayer money to actually _do_ the
 > research that Big Pharma then get patents on so they can charge granny


At the risk of further provoking the no-doubt incipient yowling
about OT-ness, I had this thought the other day: free-marketeers
are all up in arms about how a gubmint-administered "public option"
insurance plan is somehow going to drive all the private insurers out
of business (while hilariously continuing to assert that gubmint
can't do ANYTHING efficiently. How's that supposed to work exactly?)

Anyway, my actual thought was this: the economic forces acting in
the health insurance market don't seem anything like those acting
in the markets for services or durable goods.  You can't "shop around"
for health insurance, because by the time you figure out that the
product is a lemon (eg it won't cover some necessary treatment),
you're already SOL, since no one ELSE is going to cover a "pre-
existing condition" either.  So there's no effective way to
economically punish health insurers for bad service, which means
the word "competition" is totally meaningless in that market.
A health insurance policy amounts basically to a license to be
fscked. Therefore, even though I'm in favor of competition in
general (which is why I also think anti-trust laws ought to
actually be ENFORCED, and that "too big to fail" == "to big to
continue to exist as a single corporate entity"), if the "public
option" were to put every single private insurer out of business,
I for one would shed no tears.

An acquaintance of mine described insurance company operation this way:

"They take your money, and put 30% of it in their pockets. That's
their profit.  Then they spend the rest trying to figure out how
to avoid giving any of it back to you."

A bit of hyperbole, to be sure, but damn if it doesn't feel true.

-- JK