Reply #17: Do you happen to know if the overhead costs people use are those of the insurance company alone?

[PA Democrat]

What about the overhead that individual doctors, hospitals and other health care providers incur to process the ridiculous amount of paperwork all of the different insurers require? How much time do doctors and their staffs spend fighting with the insurance companies to get paid, or to advocate for their patients?

My former insurance company buried my doctors alive with bullshit paperwork in an attempt to deny payment by proving that my claim was for a preexisting condition. I was outraged at the expense they incurred to AVOID payment. And I am learning that this is not an uncommon practice. This same company has been playing this little game in other states and has been cited and fined for this exact practice. But they continue to do it, because it's MORE PROFITABLE to run the risk of unfairly denying claims and delaying payment rather than paying them.

So we have departments of insurance in every single state which we the taxpayers fund to try to keep up with corrupt insurance companies.

It would seem that there's a LOT more waste in our current system than just the insurance companies' overhead.

Oh, and another little tidbit. The US should ban all direct consumer marketing (think of all of those drug ads on TV) of pharmaceuticals. The US is one of only two developed countries who permit this. Want to cut the cost of drugs in the US? Outlaw those stinking commercials. The pharmaceutical industry will cry that our drug prices are so high because of the money they are spending on research, yet the truth is that they spend 2 and 1/2 times as much on marketing as they do on R&D.

http://www.motherjones.com/news/qa/2004/09/09_401.html