this post was submitted on 20 Aug 2023
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It’s true insurance companies need to take in adequate premiums in order to have the money the money to pay claims. And when done in balance, insurance is a great thing. Not all insurance in a scam, no doubting that.
But the current state of insurance, especially health insurance in the US, shows that these companies are making massive profits. How does this happen? Literally one way: They take in more premiums than they pay out in coverage. How? By either knowingly overcharging people or skirting out of paying covered claims through other means (such as baseless rejections).
That’s the problem with the entire insurance industry and why it must be properly regulated in any industry: It is a race to the bottom. The worse the insurer treats the people that buy insurance from them, the better the company does financially (charge a lot, pay out a little). Mix in the fact that (1) you cannot shop around at the time you need a claim and (2) the contracts are so intensive only a sophisticated legal team can interpret them, and it’s a recipe for disaster.
So you’re right that all insurance isn’t necessarily a scam. But if you can’t see that the US health insurance industry raking in profits shows serious dysfunction that could be considered a scam, it’s worth taking a second look.
Nobody works for free. In order to be a large effective and not out of business business you need to have a profit to cover overhead like staff.
Profit is revenue minus expenses
Did someone say people should work for free? No where am I saying that. Massive profits are not necessary to cover overhead - expenses like overheard and salaries are paid for by revenue - what’s leftover is profit.
This thread is about whether the current US healthcare insurance industry is a scam or not. Scam means “a dishonest scheme” and insurance saying it’s going to provide healthcare coverage but actually just takes your money, doesn’t provide coverage, and only pays investors/executives could be considered a dishonest scheme by many.
Insurance companies have a natural tendency to become worse and worse over time. This is called the race to the bottom and is an incredibly well-known phenomena in insurance. Like monopolies, insurance is one of the rare situations where experts are in damn-near universal agreement that heavy regulation is necessary.
Right now, insurance companies are objectively very bad to the people they provide coverage for. This isn’t an opinion, this is a fact that’s easily verified and well understood. They are not being effectively regulated and as such, are racing to the bottom by providing absolutely terrible coverage while taking in massive premiums. This is not good for anyone and is not fixed by a free market in any way. You cannot effectively shop for insurance and their behavior is not rectified, unless prohibited by law (regulation).
I only posted what I did because your post read like you expected insurance to run by paying out 100% of what they get in. The thread started with general insurance but many zeroed in on health insurance. Yes there are problems, obviously, but certain things like denying claims comes about from many people trying to scam payments and the insurers tightening security too much without enough oversight.
Everybody seems to think there's huge payments going to investors and C level executives but that comes from market confidence. So the stock price rises and those bonuses of stock options appreciate without the company paying a dime.
United Healthcare pulled in $20 BILLION dollars in PROFIT in 2022. The ceo was given $24 million in compensation for that year. Denying claims because of scams? They can afford it.
How was that compensation structured? Was it cash or stock? And how much money would they spend if they didn't act paranoid about false claims? Would that dissolve the 80 billion because it's possible.
Aside from that, did you notice this is a 2 month old post?
About $4 million was non-equity pay. Around $19 million was vested shares. He had a 331 : 1 ratio to the average employee. They can afford to pay people’s urgent medical bills without denying claims. If we are required to have insurance to be able to get BASIC needs met, that insurance better meet those basic needs. It’s especially rough for people with less money and less opportunity. Some people live paycheck to paycheck and their claim being denied means that hospital bill now forces them to choose between rent or food.
I do realize this is a 2 month old thread. There’s like 15 posts in my feed. Normally, I tend to lurk and not comment. Lemmy has a bit of a content drought, and I figured people would be happy with more comments or discussion, even on slightly older threads. If your opinion has changed I’d be happy to discuss that as well.
The point of my stance wasn't to say the world is perfect and nothing should change. Only to try and point out the potential reasons for how things are beyond "they're evil".
And I get that. And I think businesses should be able to make profit. And I think CEOs should make a decent salary. But I don’t think insurance should be handled by companies not affiliated with the government.
The fact is that insurance companies are publicly traded companies. Publicly traded companies have an obligation to shareholders to maximize profit. Maximizing profit isn’t something we want for something as necessary as our health. An individuals health is not a commodity. I’m not saying they are evil personally, but I do think the system is designed to benefit the companies and not the people. Which is not how democracy should work.