What the fight between Anthem and anesthesiologists was really about.

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Private insurance companies have earned the public’s distrust. They routinely put profitability above their policyholders’ well-being. And a system of private health insurance provision also has higher administrative costs than a single-payer system, in which the government is the sole insurer.

But the avarice and inefficiencies of private insurers are not the sole — or even primary — reasons why vital medical services are often unaffordable and inaccessible in the United States. The bigger issue is that America’s health care providers — hospitals, physicians, and drug companies — charge much higher rates than their peers in other wealthy nations.

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  • @irotsomaEnglish
    10•2 days ago

    Yeah, but then anesthesiologists could then just say they can only work a certain amount of time because it costs them too much money in billing and appeals. Thus rushing a surgeon that then has a set time limit. Any time an insurance company makes a decision about what care a patient needs over the advice of doctors, it will result in problems. Sure there are going to be abuses, but instead of a blanket policy, it should be the responsibility of the insurance company to investigate fraud and waste.

    I mean what other job do they have to spend money on but reducing fraud and waste? Oh wait, they spend money on software that is designed to deny claims, so they can blame the software for being overzealous and not the policies.