On Sat, 16 May 2009, Chuck Grimes wrote:
>> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/15/AR2009051503667_pf.html
>>
> The real story is that with greater access to medical records and
> histories, the insurance industry can figure out more sophisticated and
> efficient way to deny service, and therefore save themselves money...
That's absolutely right. To the extent there are any real saving available (and this isn't simply a crock made up to justify huge government contracts) they will come from data-mining. And so long as we have a private run system, that data mining will be done by private insurance companies, for their own purposes, which is to keep down their costs by denying care.
That's the one point that was missing from James Ridgeway's excellent article on the why the 1.5% pledge was bogus: even if it were reached, it could be reached by denying that much care.
Michael