Originally Posted by djplong

Here's what gets me about private insurers and why my opinions changed of them over the years.

As many know, I used to work for Boston's Beth Israel Hospital (now Beth Israel Deaconess). We were getting squeezed in the late 1980s and early 1990s. I remember, in particular, one meeting where the discussion was our 'gain sharing' plan (like profit-sharing, but for non-profits).

At this time, health insurance premiums were skyrocketing. Yet those same insurance companies were CUTTING what they were paying the hospital. As an example, one company had a contract that they would pay $1600/night for an inpatient. This was considered a bare-bones price. But, now that the contract was up for renewal, they were offerring $1200/night. You can imagine our reaction. The insurance company basically said "Take the offer or we remove your hospital from our list of approved (in-network) hospitals".

Think about that. I mean, never mind the fact that no matter WHAT was done to a patient - the number of procedures, attending physicians, nursing staff - you were billed BY THE NIGHT. Whether you were constantly being revived by a trauma team or slept peacefully through the night - didn't matter.

The hospital was making less money. The patients were being billed MORE money. Where was it going? Well, as the saying goes - follow the money. Shareholders. The owners of the corporation.

Capitalism collides with health-care and we don't have a system in place that really works.