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Absolutely. The health and lives of the less-well-off are of equal value, yet the system we currently have clearly doesn't reflect that belief.

The filmmaker is misinformed. He talks about the “pure profit” incentive of private health insurers and their “investors” – yet most health insurance companies are non-profit organizations. For instance, in California, the largest insurers are all not-for-profit enterprises (Kaiser, Blue Cross, Blue Shield, WHA, etc.).

The best reform arguments I've heard call for mandating that all private health insurers become non-profit entities with certain regulations on maximum executive salaries and business interests. For the practice and payment of medicine, a “public utility” model seems more appropriate than total government control.

John, I have to strongly disagree. The largest health insurance companies in the US are all public.

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_are_the_largest_…

Actually, the video expresses a widely held myth about insurance companies … namely, that they exist to pool our resources in case we need the money to pay for health care.

One of my first jobs out of college was as a secretary in the corporate banking department at a large bank here in DC. I supported three VPs whose job it was to bring in accounts from companies which had more than a million dollars in assets (or something like that). I had to prepare the paperwork when they took lines of credit, etc.before the Credit Committee. So I got to see the insides of some very interesting corporations (e.g. M&M Mars was one). One such corporation was an insurance company. Back then I too believed that insurance companies existed to help us. That we paid in our money and got “insurance” … that is peace of mind, against future calamity. Not so. That is not at all why insurance companies exist. They exist purely for the purpose of generating profit. There is no other product which they create.

In this they differ from many other industries. Let's use a shoe manufacturer as an example. The shoe manufacturer makes shoes and the profit generated roughly accounted is the difference between the cost of producing and selling the shoes and the price at which the shoes may be sold. But the insurance company isn't producing anything, it's costs are ghosts and … umm … it's using our money and telling us when we can and cannot have it back, so that the insurance company can maximize it's own profit. Hmmmm … there is a lot that's wrong with that picture. And a lot that needs to be changed/reformed. The current bill does hardly anything to move in the right direction.

Jonathan, roughly 1/2 to 2/3 of all U.S. health insurance coverage is provided by non-profit organizations (depending on how you interpret the statistics.) About 50% of all people with health insurance are enrolled in non-profit plans. About 84 of the 138 private health plans (61 percent) in the United States with at least 100,000 enrollees are non-profit.

http://www.nonprofithealthcare.org/resources/

The film doesn't mention any of this. Rather, it gives the impression that all private health insurers are investor-driven, profit-focused corporations that squander 10-20% of their premiums on unessentials. I found a study on health insurer expenditures which gives a more balanced picture, here:

http://www.ahip.org/content/default.aspx?docid=…

Switzerland has an enlightened solution. They encourage private health insurance, but require ALL private insurance companies to be non-profit, with restrictions on denial of coverage for preexisting conditions, etc., along with fair limits to executive compensation and bonuses, and a “surplus sharing” program that reduces premiums in good years. It's modeled much like a private, non-profit “public utility,” which I think is often the best solution for complex shared systems like medicine, higher education, etc..

I guess I'm not quite following you Sonja. Insurance provides a measure of relief should a catastrophic event take place, such as cancer which can cost upwards of a million dollars.

And they do provide a management service, as opposed to a specific product, so they are doing something.

In the end I think we're saying different things. One of the things the statistics doesn't say is the size of the companies. And even if the for-profits (the other 39%) are larger its still a huge chunk of the environment. I think it's fair to say they didn't say for-profit, but its fair to say that what they're saying is part of the problem.

The statistics you provide don't contradict the video. If you add the PriceWatersCooper data it comes to .13. The video says, “10 to 20 percent.”

Also, I'm actually not even opposed to public utility programs. I'm not even doubting that non-profits provide service or better service. But I had Kaiser for the last ten years and as a service it was actually very good. But it was expensive. I paid $11,000 per year. I actually had to dilute my plan to a huge deductible payment, essentially deeming it a catastrophy plan. And I make money. Something is just wrong with the system.

Watch what the film maker actually thinks …

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kk1kL4hqcGs

As well as consider some other potential facts … “Nearly nine out of 10 Americans say they have coverage — and large majorities of them are happy with it. Of the 46 million uninsured, 9.7 million are not U.S. citizens; 17.6 million have annual incomes of more than $50,000; and 14 million already qualify for Medicaid or other programs. That leaves less than five million people truly uncovered out of a population of 307 million.”

All I can think of when I hear that is…”The least of these.”

don't think jesus was talking to the government and that aside, it wasn't the point of your original post …

Actually it was Rick. I asked the question, “Is this a social justice issue?”

you got some point regarding social justice from the video? I and you other commenters missed that … sorry.

Yes, health care is expensive. Millennia is paying around $6,000 per employee HSA, no dental, high deductable. So there's the real issue. Health care costs. The film infers that admin costs would be reduced by roughly 10-15% via a government insurance plan. Let’s explore that.

First, we’ve learned that for-profit admin costs are roughly 13%. Second, we’ve learned that at least half of all health insurers are NON-profit, which brings aggregate private admin costs down significantly. Third, the film’s claim for 2-3% government administrative costs is suspect. I found a number of studies which address the true costs of government run health insurance. The real (net) overhead of government health insurance is roughly equivalent with today's private, non-profit insurers.

http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/mpr_05.htm
http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2009/07/does-med…
http://www.heritage.org/Research/HealthCare/wm2…
http://www.americanhealthsolution.org/assets/Up…
http://www.cahi.org/cahi_contents/resources/pdf…
http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~cook/movabletype/…

Granted, there is a lot of hand-waving on both sides of this issue (see Krugman / NYT). There are seemingly endless ways to parse the data to one’s political advantage. But when it comes to managing money, I (like Jefferson, Madison, and most of the Constitutional founders of this country) generally distrust the Federal government. Today's govt is sick with debt. The social security insurance program is heading towards bankruptcy. Govt spending is wildly out of control.

Virtually all hospitals (roughly 90%) are non-profit. I’ve often wondered why we, as a country, have allowed profit incentives into our health insurance industry. I remain that the best solution would be to mandate ALL private health insurance as private, non-profit enterprise with reasonable controls on costs, coverage, and executive compensation – a variation on the Swiss model.

A physician’s advocacy group summarizes it this way: “…the issue is not and should not be which segment, private sector insurers or government-run plans, has the lowest administrative costs. The issue should be which does the best job of providing quality health insurance coverage for the best price. When one looks at all of the money pouring into Medicare, even with the price controls imposed by the government, the answer has to be the private sector.”