Of course the problems weren't just in the insurance industry -- although I do believe allowing people to buy across state lines would help drive the costs down and give people some options that might be more affordable -- it's the healthcare industry itself (namely the shunting off of family practioners to smaller and smaller roles which means they serve fewer clients and the rise of large healthcare consortiums at the expense of smaller, local clinics; and let us not forget the costs fo prescription drugs -- which has a lot of factors involved in it, one of which has been monies allocated for alternative medicine issues, which is helping to drive prices up rather than down), plus what a lot of companies have done vis a vis healthcare plans for employees. And a lot of our problems came about during the Clinton administration(what happened during those years to healthcare is worth a big look) -- but we can't seem to address the problems that started there.
And we are now truly and royally stuck (and have been for some time), and it does need to be fixed, and I'm afraid that instead it's just going to get worse.
Of course the problems weren't just in the insurance industry -- although I do believe allowing people to buy across state lines would help drive the costs down and give people some options that might be more affordable -- it's the healthcare industry itself (namely the shunting off of family practioners to smaller and smaller roles which means they serve fewer clients and the rise of large healthcare consortiums at the expense of smaller, local clinics; and let us not forget the costs fo prescription drugs -- which has a lot of factors involved in it, one of which has been monies allocated for alternative medicine issues, which is helping to drive prices up rather than down), plus what a lot of companies have done vis a vis healthcare plans for employees.
ReplyDeleteAnd a lot of our problems came about during the Clinton administration(what happened during those years to healthcare is worth a big look) -- but we can't seem to address the problems that started there.
And we are now truly and royally stuck (and have been for some time), and it does need to be fixed, and I'm afraid that instead it's just going to get worse.
PW