Health Insurers Confer

No good can come from any meeting held at the BigCaca. It is and will always be a thorn in the side of Goleta and bad karma hangs over it like a perpetual fog. This sounds like a meeting of rich and greedy insurance executives trying to figure out how best to screw the American people.

Yeah, I don't trust that meeting one bit.

Also, it is CenCal not CentCal.

Riiiight. They're meeting at the Bacara Resort & Spa to get costs under control. I guess Motel 6 was booked.

Increasing competition in the private insurance industry will only lead to one thing: crappier insurance "products". Let's for once and for all accept the fact that private insurers aren't in business to provide healthcare but rather to provide the client with some comfort that healthcare will be accessible when they need it (even though that may not be the case as policies are rife with claim denials and outright rescission once a client becomes seriously ill). The private insurance business model should be removed from the healthcare arena as quickly as possible.
It is interesting that Mr. McCabe faults Medicare for being inefficient, when it is demonstrably far more efficient than the private insurers. In fact, when one compares the privatized Medicare Advantage plans to traditional Medicare, it is immediately made clear how inefficient they are since the government has to pay the privatized plans an additional 12 to 17% over and above what they pay for the exact same thing in a traditional Medicare plan. On top of that, the privatized plans are "managed care" plans that trap the client in an HMO or PPO network unlike traditional Medicare where the user can access anyone they want.
The whole intent behind the "public option" as originally envisioned was to crowd out the private insurers with 100 million plus enrollees - this is the only reason it was supported by some on the left. What scraps of the PO survive the legislative process will be nowhere near this vision, that is certain.

The irony of meeting at the Bacara is heavy indeed; a family of four could be fed and housed for a month or more for the cost of one attendee's daily fare. And it's OUR health insurance premiums that paid for this insult.

Over the weekend I wrote the following in response to an editorial in the L.A. Times:

The Times editors would have everyone be subject to a federal mandate to buy private insurance, but this merely would increase the numbers of prey in the shark pools of the insurance companies, state-by-state, with significant individual costs for compliance and significant individual penalties for non-compliance. Thanks, but no thanks.

I agree that everyone should go "into the pool," but into one big USA risk pool, from birth until death. This would mean that all states would have to give up individual regulation of health insurance. However, this wouldn't necessarily mean "socialized medicine." As many employers do for their own coverages, the "one big USA risk pool" health insurance contract would be put out to bid, with strictly enforced contact stipulations and performance measures that ensure benefits to patients, providers, and the contractor(s). Contracts could be regionalized to different administrators, if this makes financial and business sense, subject to the "one big USA risk pool" fundamental. If private administrators are unwilling or unable to meet these contract criteria, either initially or over time, then yes, the program could and should be run by the federal government.

How to pay? The same ways we do now: employer premiums; individual premiums; and taxpayer subsidies for the destitute. However, the results would be greater fairness, lower per capita costs, and universal patient coverage under universally equitable terms. Should anyone of ample means want to buy supplemental coverage, then by all means, they'd be free to do so.

"One big USA risk pool" would be the best way to control costs and maximize fairness.