[medellin]

If this is the best they can do maybe capital markets don’t work best for insurance companies and they should be taken over.

Dealing with them right now feels like dealing with the government might as well just have the government run it

[lazide]

Don’t take it too much at face value.

This is the best they can do when all their incentives align so that being as opaque and disingenuous as possible about costs (and understaffing and often screwing it up helps with that!) helps them.

[ethbr0]

Not going to argue. In their defense, I'd say insurers are more innovative (especially on the operations side and post-ACA) than the federal government.

IMHO, best of both worlds would be the federal government taking over and centralizing the most core services (rates, interchange, data systems, etc) and allowing private insurance companies to build offerings on top of that (customer service, servicing, product mix, etc).

[rqtwteye]

"insurers are more innovative (especially on the operations side and post-ACA) than the federal government."

They are certainly very creative in making the system as expensive as possible. See Medicare Advantage.

"IMHO, best of both worlds would be the federal government taking over and centralizing the most core services (rates, interchange, data systems, etc) and allowing private insurance companies to build offerings on top of that (customer service, servicing, product mix, etc)."

This would be best. There is so much unnecessary bureaucracy at providers and insurers because the insurers have different setups. The medicare setup would be a good foundation .

[wolverine876]

> I'd say insurers are more innovative

In what way?

> especially on the operations side

If the US had national, universal health insurance, the operations would be much simpler.