This may be a really stupid question,

[polly7]

but could a Health Insurance Co-op be started? One that would charge reasonable rates and gather so many members that it would drive out all the other billion dollar profit makers? Also one that would take advantage of any and every gov't subsidy out there? Citizens consisting of doctors and health professionals on the board, etc.?

[frazzled]

1. Sure they could

But until there is a wide system in place of such coops, they are not an answer to achieving universal coverage. Co-ops was the solution the more conservative members of the Senate Finance Committee wanted. It's just that they don't exist in any sufficient number yet, and you can't snap your fingers and create them.

[polly7]

4. But why couldn't someone start one?

Advertize the heck out of it and assure people it would be ownded by the people. It would surely be better than having to buy into one of the large, established money-makers lobbying with their millions?

[napi21]

2. Yes, but you'd need some really BIG funders first! To start

anything like that, you would have to have a BIG pool of money to fund the claims before any premiuns could actually fund them. THEN you would have to have a large group of negotiators to achieve agreements with drs & hospitals all over the country and some source of processing claims.

I've actually thought about something like that but gave up after thinking it through.

[sharesunited]

3. Yes, with the following two limitations:

1. The provider participants need to accept as sufficient the reimbursements which the co-op is able to pay.

2. The co-op must be able to charge its members enough to make good on what it promises it will cover. Plus its administrative costs of operating the plan.

[polly7]

6. Any co-op starts off expensive, then they get cheaper.

I don't know, it just seems to me there's got to be a better way.

[H2O Man]

5. The only

stupid question is the one that remains unasked.

The answer to your good question is yes.

[polly7]

7. Aw, thank you. nt.

[applegrove]

8. The American private insurance industry has it made. They cover

only people who have no pre-existing conditions and then as soon as people get old (and thus actually start to take out of the system) they are transfer to medicare and the private health care industry washes its hands of them. The private health care plans are cash cows I would imagine. I doubt they would ever let co-ops get started unless they are mandated. And co-ops would have a hard time breaking even unless all the young kids were mandated to buy a health care plan (hopefully they would opt for co-ops).

[Cleita]

9. Theoretically, but the big interests would drive them out of business

in every underhanded way that they could come up with in an instant. There is a way to cut the nuts off the insurance companies though. Get your local pols to pass laws locally forcing them to be non-profit. If municipalities and counties do this, it opens the market to other non-profits as the profiteers move out. It's something that is easier to get done at a local level than across the nation.