3/19/10 Health Insurance Blog Posting

How about the unhappy customers of the current insurance companies form
together to create a new insurance company with elected leadership,
checks and balances, and branches of governance. We could then create a
new company that's primary goal was providing the best health product at
the best price for its customers (what a novel idea). It would be
relatively easy to create a new company (no legislative initiative
needed) because insurance companies, like banks, have none of their own
money.

What if this Collaborative Insurance Company (CIC) created Population
Care Units (PCUs). For instance, my county has 100,000 people and two
hospitals with combined budgets of $100 million. At the $500 a month I
currently pay for insurance, this PCU would generate $600 million in
annual premiums. This CIC could negotiate with the hospitals to take
care of the 100,000 person PCU with no billing, no administration, no
overhead. The insurance company could probably operate on less than a
$1 million budget.

This would take our current system, where hospitals, doctors, etc become
richer the sicker people are, and instantly change it to them making
bigger profits the healthier the PCU is. You could also get the
government to put every dollar spent on healthcare (medicare, worker's
comp, disability, etc) into the pot to drive down the costs of
premiums. From a business point of view you could say, "Move your
business to our county and you don't need to buy insurance for your
workers because we are all covered anyway". This would drive up
property values and have lots of benefit for the community.

Also, the internal pressure on the real cost saving factors like smoking
and obesity would be huge. If I knew that my chance to have heart
surgery at 70 would depend on whether my friend was over weight, then I
would be saying, "Hey, Joe. Do you want to take a walk with me at lunch?"

We need to stop thinking that government can solve these problems, but
instead we must look to ourselves and build new collaborative
corporations that are accountable and self-regulating.

Sparkplug Mike
www.Sumpeople.org