[midtake]

Is that why healthcare costs are up, or is it because of the insurance mafia?

[jimbokun]

It’s the doctors.

Insurance company profit margins are capped by law and if anything their incentives are to pay the hospitals less.

US physician salaries are astronomical compared to anywhere else in the world.

[cpburns2009]

Profit margins are capped by percentage. That creates the perverse intensive for insurance companies to pursue ever increasing costs in order to increase profits.

[ars]

You are forgetting about competition, increasing costs means directly increasing premiums, and higher premiums means lower business.

[cpburns2009]

What competition? When enrollment comes around or you switch jobs you get maybe two insurance providers to choose from.

[jimbokun]

But they don’t do this.

They fight tooth and nail to keep the claims paid to doctors and hospitals low.