What would health care cost if NOBODY had insurance?

I was reading about how doctors are now rating insurance companies, and one figure that stuck in my head was $210 BILLION wasted anually on excessive administrative costs. Not administration, UNNECESSARY administration. They want to cut out red tape, well, why not cut out insurance altogether? What would health care cost if NOBODY had insurance, and had to pay for everything out of pocket? I suspect that patients would start paying a lot more attention to their bills, doctors would have to start competing, and costs would plummet. Shoot, there'd be at least $210 billion a year more available! There's mention of one doctor who accepts a flat yearly rate, and doesn't accept insurance. Would this really be such a terrible way to do things? Letting doctors and patients decide what's fair, instead of insurance companies and the government? We could let people buy catastrophic insurance, but not general health funds like we have now. Could it work?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080616/ap_o...

I think you're on the right track. I agree that doctors would likely start charging more reasonable rates as fewer and fewer people were on insurance. An additional benefit is that doctors would be less likely to perscribe expensive drugs unless it was unavoidable or significantly improved a cronic condition. For the average healthy American, health care costs would likely decrease significantly.

With doctors competing rather than patients simply being referred by their insurance, the quality of service is likely to improve too. They know if you don't get quality service, you will leave for a doctor that does provide it. In addition, patients paying out of pocket are less likely to go to the doctor for every cough or scratch so the rushed schedule most doctors see now should lighten up. For the average American, health care would likely be cheaper and better.

With that said, those with serious ailments that require significant medical attention are likely to see increased costs. That's why I would supliment your no insurance idea with catastophic medical insurance coverage. Monthly premiums would be minimal but would provide peace of mind and protection if you were diagnosed with something serious like cancer.

I believe any proposal to turn medical care under government control is wrong! Most of us know how inefficient government run programs are--especially those on such a large scale. Turning control of our health care to beaurocrats will--in the long run--drive up overall costs and significantly drag down quality of care.

Hospitals would charge what people could afford to pay. funny how many Americans dont believe the in the freedom. They all just want to be communists. Or they want me to pay for their Viagra..

There are plenty of doctors running cash only businesses. And I know plenty of people that just pay their doctor bills.. without insurance. Insurance is for idiots that are too dumb to realize they are going to go get a tooth filled and that are not going to get that for free.

Wow, first someone who doesn't think business people should be allowed to determine what their charges will be - BTW isn't that what free enterprise and competition are all about? - and then someone who believes that a government run business - think Post Office or DMV - is better than private enterprise. Guess it takes all kinds.

I think PRIVATE health insurance is good... PUBLIC health insurance is BAD... MANDATED health insurance is BAD... but...

Health Care SAVINGS accounts are GOOOOOOOOOOOOD! Thumbs UP from me on your question... and yes.. it can work, and DOES.

Same goes for AUTO INSURANCE. If we only got RID of all this MANDATORY auto insurance, insurance rates would go DOWN drastically.


Have a right-wing day.

For routine care this would work as competition for your dollars would be fierce. With insurance, doctors have a built in supply of patients. How often do you see ads (beyond cosmetic applications)? Occasionally in newspapers but rarely on TV.

i like the sounds of it....my clinic i go to now...charges me as a cash customer which is about 30% less than someone with insurance, crazy world we live in....but we need to take into account larger health expense, surgery, organ transplant, cancer, etc....then it probably wouldn't work as well in those cases

It would be a whole lot cheaper. President Bush tried to go after the trial lawyers and the insurance companies and limit the payouts, but the liberals kept blaming it on the medical field so they can push their liberal social agenda.

A great parallel to cite to heath care is the American highway system. It's as marvelous as the Great Wall of China or the Egyptian Pyramids. We all chip in to pay for it at the pump. Painless isn鈥檛 it? I rather image national medicine would be much the same.

It won't work. There is an asymmetry of information between buyer and seller. This makes an informed consumer close to impossible (and competition unlikely). Health costs would go up and results would go down.

A lot less because they COULDN'T charge such outrageous rates. Other countries, with comparable care, have no where near the costs we see here. If anything the sheer volume of our systems should see LOWER administrative costs!

If nobody had insurance then how would cancer patients pay their bills?

What if you needed an operation and had to lay down $8,000 or more?

What a great idea!

Honestly, I would not trust letting private doctors set their own personal rates. Nope, too many problems in that scenario.

Thank God, a real question!

I would certainly pay more attention to my bill if I had to pay for it myself!!! And how much could they get away with charging for an aspirin or even a hospital meal if it was pay as you go...
Good Question!

I'm a fan of the Oregon Plan. In a nutshell, They had doctors rate all diseases and conditions for how common they were, how cheap they were to cure, and the odds of success. Then they could simply cover as many of as they could based on how much they could afford and how many people they needed to treat. It would allow the government to cover say the first 200 ailments and your own private coverage or your company could extend that to as many more as you or they wanted. Not a perfect plan, but a practical one.

There are already have allot of patients that don't have insurance. What we need to drive down the cost is composition...Sever health insurance being tied to your employer, cause the insurance companies go in on these large companies and offer group policies and the companies don't really care about the cost because they write it off....
...secondly, this would solve the pre-existing loop hole. Nobody works the same place for 30 years anymore...so they should just have their own insurance...so their employment is not tied to it.
...Controlling law suits with Tort reform, will also help as doctors pay $$$$ in premiums due to frivolous law suits and they have to pass these cost to the patients...

Hold that thought. I am most concerned about clerical go-betweens and career actuarials who are making medical decisions at insurance company offices every day. I am concerned when a clerk tells someone they cannot have a prescription medication their doctor has prescribed because "an OTC should do you just fine." Take this to it's logical extreme, and you have people who need emergency surgery or treatment for a critical illness, which the insurance companies will not pay for. It happens every day. We need to remove the "God Power" from insurance companies. Universal healthcare is a step in the right direction of defanging and declawing the beast of the insurance cartels which have ruined the American healthcare system.

Well, our current system is failing miserably. Most countries with Universal Healthcare are doing very well. You Republicans and Conservatives love to talk about patriotism; why don't you trust the country you love so much to handle the health insurance? We are the most powerful nation in the world. If Sweden can be successful then so can we.

This isn't a money issue, this is life and death for quite a few people. What would Jesus do? Would he be materialistic and favor money or want to help the needy? We all know the answer that question, there's just a lot of stubborn Cons that refuse to suck up their pride and admit they're wrong.

i think there are lots of myths and lies perpetrated about healthcare costs.
Myth 1...
1. Medical records cost soooooo much money....
Doctors dictate reports. Transcriptionists getting paid about 10-17/hour type the reports. File clerks make about $7-10/hour. Medical records costs are 1) costs of paper, 2) costs of storage; 3) costs of personnel. With electronic medical records, more electricity is used; more paper exchanged; more servers for PCs and higher paid network administrators being hired.

2. Billing. Multiple payers (different insurance companies) have different plans and this creates administrative overhead for claims filing and processing.

3. Radiology, life support, and other high tech equipment.
There are new expensive technologies being used. It costs a lot of money for all these bells and whistles.

4. Blame the lawyers. Medical malpractice cases require proof that the doctor violated the standard of care. this is a difficult standard. thus, medical malpractice cases are often tried and not favorable to the plaintiff. so, this is not the case that lawsuits have upped the cost of healthcare. In fact, doing the wrong care to begin with creates cost.

I think it has a possible potential to work. Here, the issue would be: Hospitals etc. know they are getting paid for the reimbursable rate from the insurance company. This creates a steady cash flow. Without the cash flow, prices would drop but some players would opt out of the industry creating shortages. With supply and demand, a shortgage may reinflate prices.

But, I would really like the state insurance commissions to really look at the benefits of the health insurance companies.
There is a problem when companies ask to raise rates because they can't afford not to but give employees both 401ks and pension plans etc.
Never mind the executive payoffs.. Give me a break.

I'd rather have the mob in charge.

You're on the right track, but there is actually a better idea than that because there ARE some folks who couldn't afford a "reasonably priced" doc--most folks can't pay for cancer, stroke, or a heart attack even if costs are substantially lowered. What if someone has a child born with a serious defect? We can't expect surgeons and so forth to DONATE their services, so the better way is THIS plan:

The ONE comprehensive, VOLUNTARY solution I've found for the health care mess in the US:
http://www.booklocker.com/books/3068.htm...
Nathan has a way to reform the system--logically:
enforce CONTRACT law--right now too many legit claims are denied by companies with impunity because paying what they OWE would be "expensive"--see http://www.thenationalcoalition.org/DrPe... for one person who came clean on just that subject

enforce ANTITRUST law--in about half the 300 major markets there is one large insurer who CONTROLS the market and basically sets prices including what we taxpayers fork over for Medicaid, etc.

Nathan would require PRICE TRANSPARENCY which no honest man need fear or should object to. All those prices HIDDEN from the patient in the computer--let us see them NOW. We should shop around, especially the uninsured. The only game you can play where you get to charge whatever you FEEL like AFTER THE FACT instead of providing honest info up front. There's a MAJOR cause of bankruptcies right there. More than half the bankruptcies are over medical bills AND 75% of those folks HAVE insurance.

Nathan would also like to offer up a plan that stops the hemorraghing of taxpayer money and FIX the broken systems of Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP and END the problem of the uninsured and more importantly the uninsurABLE (folks who can't get insurance at ANY price). It's a VOLUNTARY, NO fines, NO employer mandates, NO new taxes on people.

It's catastrophic care PLUS. The plus is that EVERYONE on the plan gets:
a physical with follow up each year for a co-pay. They can have discounted prescription meds. They can have one NEEDED ER visit (ending ER abuse is important) per year with co-pay. Better than the other plans out there by far.
It's AFFORDABLE. How? Means-tested with a sliding fee scale--no way you can't afford it. The co-pays are based on what you can afford. The CATASTROPHIC LEVEL is also set by that. The working poor may only be able to shell out $2K in a year on med expenses--THEN the insurance would kick in. Someone making good money might have to shell out $10K before it kicked in. It's fair because it's going to save the well-off anyway because now they get robbed with every paycheck for BS like Medicaid which leaves lots of folks with NO coverage options and sends them into bankruptcy which COSTS US ALL.
Also by catching things early, which WOULD happen with a physical each year, we'll cut costs.
By making people pay their own way UNLESS and UNTIL they hit a catastrophic level of med expense, the nonsense of running to the doc for the sniffles or the ER for a stubbed toe ENDS because they have to pay for that themselves. This happens now with people who either have overly generous insurance plans or with illegals who use the ER as a doctor's office and because of spineless administrators, the abuse continues. Spineless administrators because federal law requires LIFE THREATENING conditions to be treated and stabilized without regard to payment. It does NOT, NOT, NOT say that any jerk who shows up at the ER and says "my toe hurts" gets seen at an ER. It is misapplied that way all the time, but that is the FAULT of spineless fools. Once the nonsense stops--or the administrator has to pay for that so it WILL stop--we'll see a reduction in who is going to the ER.

Then and this is KEY: Nathan says we need to greatly increase the number of doctors, nurses, and other allied health care professionals in the US. Right now we IDIOTICALLY turn away THOUSANDS of well-qualified students for NO good reason at all--then we rely on 25% of our RESIDENCIES to be filled by grads of foreign med schools--STEALING students from poor countries who provided those people with a free to them ed in many cases. They now get NOTHING for that expense they can ill afford.
Because of this we DENY a legit ed to qualified students in the US as well by relying on the fact that we will always have thousands of foreign med students who want to live HERE instead of their home country.
Just stupid as well as immoral.

Nathan's plan if implemented as she describes it would likely address more than 90% of ALL the problems with health care in the US and drop prices substantially. And ALL legit docs and facilities are automatically ON the plan so patients can see the doc or go to the facility of their choice. Funding IS explained.

It's doable, but there is no graft or patronage, no FORCE against the public, so no one seems interested. Go figure.