re f o cus health the big secret in article apr desire wright edu demon desire wright edu not a boomer writes in article apr isc br isc br com steveh thor isc br com steve hendricks writes in article apr desire wright edu demon desire wright edu not a boomer writes blue cross is the government health insurance provider oops oops blue cross may well be the insurer for government workers in massachusetts as it is for a number of state and local governments i don t know but blue cross is certainly not a government agency it is a private insurer yes it is a private insurer that has to deal with government regulations concerning how it s employees are to be covered processed etc there are a mountain of forms that gov employees have to go through sorry but this is a red herring are you contending that the mountain of forms are processed by blue cross having had blue cross insurance both as a government employee and as an employee of a private corporation i saw no difference between the two sets of forms moreover the administrative costs associated with medicare medicaid the two primary forms of government insurance are considerably lower than the average for private insurance companies versus if you have any evidence that blue cross bears a heavier burden in insuring government employees than private employees post it otherwise try to stick to factual assertions and as the original post implied it is private insurers in the us whose administrative costs are significantly higher than the administrative costs of tax supported health care systems in canada and elsewhere only those that remain paper bound and refuse to standardize well now that s an interesting defense of the free enterprise system are you contending that it is government intervention that prevents private insurance companies from standardizing in fact it is true that some of the red tape burden stems from the lack of standardization among the or so private insurers in the us but it s a little difficult to understand how this is anything other than free enterprise at work by the way barron s the bible of wall street this week admitted that administrative costs were significantly lower in canada because a single payer system is always cheaper guess even the free enterprise advocates are beginning to see the light try again why my hmo provides good service at a low cost and i don t have the government telling my doctors what they can and can not say about medical procedures sorry but you seem to be confusing proposals with health care reform with the bush administration s gag order on federally funded family planning clinics there are no proposals that would control what your doctor can and cannot say about medical procedures try again jsh steve hendricks domain steveh thor isc br com one thing about data it sure does cut uucp uunet isc br thor steveh the bulls t r hofferbert ma bell
