xssve -> RE: Idiotic Demands of the Wall Street Protestors (10/7/2011 8:14:07 AM)
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i.e., when youfill out the form at the doctor or the emergency room, Medicare or Medicaid,is what you write in the space reserved for your health insure, the health provider then bills Medicare or Medicaid just like they would bill your private insurer. In most cases, the bill is actually sent to a private HMO, who contract their services to the government, and they apply to the government for reimbursement - that is how the thing works currently, i.e., HMO's are the middleman,a dn much of the debate surrounds the fact that HMO's overhead far exceeds the cost of direct government management, the "Public Option" which HMO's naturally find highly objectionable, since they can siphon of a portion of the reimbursment, before paying for the actual healthcare - the "profits" those HMO's generate from being in the middle are in fact taxpayer dollars when the government is acting as insurer, hence, "socialized helathcare", since in many cases, HMO's act as both middleman and healthcare provider. HMO's were originally designed as a one stop place for private insurance, geared more towards business, csicne business is mandated to provide healthcare for full time employees. Going to the public option would cut the HMO's out of the loop, payments would be direct from the government to the healthcare provider, HMO's would be forced to become more competitive (as it is, they more resemble a cabal run by insurance companies more than a competitive industry), businesses would not have to provide healthcare insurance for full time employees, which would remove much of the incentive for hiring temps and part time workers instead of full time workers and to save themselves the cost of benefits. Those saving would also presumably be passed on to the workers in the form of salaries, according to the law of supply and demand, as it's an established principle in economics that benefits costs, including payroll taxes, are ultimately passed on to the worker in the form of reduced wages.
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