Amazon-Berkshire-JPMorgan venture to disrupt health care, is disbanding

BigPeePee

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/04/haven-the-amazon-berkshire-jpmorgan-venture-to-disrupt-healthcare-is-disbanding-after-3-years.html

I've said it many times but no one listens. Healthcare costs are high due to overpaid medical personnel.
Any Bernie Bros who thought this venture would have succeeded must be devastated by the news that throws more cold water at their belief that health insurance companies are the problem.

I believe universal health care should happen, but not until we fix healthcare pay. There is no reason why doctors should be making CEO-level pay. There is no reason for nurses to be making 6-figure income. They all need a paycut.

CalebWetherell

The article basically says: "They're going to do it on their own instead of together." I wouldn't say this is a big win for health care insurers. Amazon and other massive companies should have doctor's on staff in large offices for primary care and they should pay most, or all, of costs of primary care visits. Then they can have health insurance for any specialty/emergency services.

Healthcare pay is an interesting question I haven't really thought about before. Doctors are very valuable to society, and we require a lot of hard work to get there. But should I see doctors driving $400k Bugatti's on TikTok? Not sure about that... Maybe it's a tax bracket problem and not a gross pay problem.

BigPeePee

CalebWetherell

If this venture produced any noteworthy savings compared to whatever arrangement they already have with their insurance carriers, they would have succeeded. Their failure is proof that they couldn't produce much savings to justify this venture's existence.

Anyone could have predicted these guys would have failed. These guys are probably under a self-insured arrangement with their insurance carriers, so they're paying claims + admin fee. Profits on the admin fees are very minimal.

BigPeePee

Doctors are very valuable to society, and we require a lot of hard work to get there. But should I see doctors driving $400k Bugatti's on TikTok? Not sure about that... Maybe it's a tax bracket problem and not a gross pay problem.

Garbagemen are also valuable to society. They clean up trash on the streets and prevent plague and disease from spreading. Should they also be paid $500k / year?

Sure, doctors have a lot of student debt, but why can't we reform the system? Let anyone take medical school exams without having gone to medical school similar to how anyone can take actuarial exams. If they can pass them, they should only be responsible for the lab portion of their education. We can accredit community colleges across the country with lab education for a fraction of the price. Sounds like an easy way to make medical school education affordable. The only ones in the way are doctors.

Also, I doubt medical school education is difficult at all considering that even affirmative action enrollees with mediocre MCAT scores graduate just fine. It's probably way easier than the actuarial exams, and we only make 150k. Without doctors squeezing the funnel of new doctor accreditation, their pay would fall below 100k. Doesn't matter how 'valuable' they are to society. Anyone would be able to pass the medical school exams and pay for lab education at community colleges for $5k.

BigPeePee

Oh yeah, and Biden's idea of a public option is also stupid and will fail just like Haven. The issue is overpaid providers who are ass raping the entire country with no lube.

Kerfluffles

I can't recall if it was ACOs or a different type of organization when the ACA was passed. They believed they could do insurance better than the common health insurers and about two years later, over half closed down because they could not sustain themselves. In the state of New York, it was so bad that the state removed those members and placed them with reputable plans instead of letting them remain with the ACO for the remainder of their coverage period.

I came across this article trying to search for it:
https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/30/the-end-of-health-insurance-companies/

Notice that prediction? LOL

Here’s a bold prediction for the new year. By 2020, the American health insurance industry will be extinct. Insurance companies will be replaced by accountable care organizations — groups of doctors, hospitals and other health care providers who come together to provide the full range of medical care for patients.

BigPeePee

Kerfluffles

I can at least excuse the ignorance from Bernie Bros and socialists, because they don't know any better, but I found the same kind of shitposting from actuaries on the AO. The exams really do a poor job at selecting good actuaries if even fellows think health insurance companies are pulling 30% profit margins.

Now it's nearly impossible to talk about healthcare personnel paycuts because of COVID. Dumbasses are deifying doctors and nurses, and if you even question their pay you'll get a flood of death threats.

CalebWetherell

I haven't received any death threats for my Bugatti comment! I don't have much formal education on the health care industry, aside from what would carryover from P&C. @Kerfluffles in that NYT opinion article true he says most companies are self-insured. Is that true, and if so, is the right that most health insurers are just processing bills (i.e. claims)?

Why couldn't the government do that - standardize all the forms, codes, etc. And if companies are self-insuring anyways, what's the difference between that and the government paying for things with tax money, and the employers paying employees more directly (instead of premium credits).

The system would be more efficient - less overhead, more efficient processes - save dat money. Let's provide health care to everyone.

BigPeePee

CalebWetherell
Everyone keeps trying to find bullshit reasons why health insurance is so expensive like administrative overhead.
If everything was unified, admin may go down slightly, but the major cause of overpriced healthcare is providers anally raping us with no lube. Unless that is addressed, government or no government, Healthcare will remain unaffordable.