Rachel Maddow Discusses Health Insurance with HHS Kathleen Sebelius And the Public Option

Kathleen Sebelius discussed the current health insurance requests for rate increases. She discusses the profits made in the 4th quarter. As I have always said this is a good reason to go non profit. She is “not so much” happy with their answer, quote, huh?

People are locked out of the market as they can’t change with pre-existing conditions. Under the current bills States would still manage insurance carriers. Carriers would have a medical loss ratio requiring 85% be spent on healthcare cost and not CEO raises, etc. but she left out technology and they are putting a lot of money in these efforts with venture capital investment.

Is Distraction Getting in the Way of HealthCare Reform?

Rachel wants the public option, she asks if Kathleen understands why the public wants the “public option”. Rachel gets a round about answer and people with rate hikes are discussed, and says an option is needed, but what is the option? Competition and choice, but will this bring affordability? I didn’t hear much back bone here. This video from TED perhaps sheds some light on some new focuses and I felt better after watching it than I did Rachel’s interview.

Are We Ever Going to Get Some Algorithm Centric Laws for Healthcare

What is not being addressed is how technology is creating all of this, the algorithms and we have folks who are not perhaps IT savvy enough and thus we get the same old thing. A year ago I said who ever took over this position needed to have some Health IT background as about 70% of the job revolves around it and I don’t see it being discussed at all and the solutions it could provide with giving the SEC some real jurisdiction, tech denial and old methodologies still stifling progress.

Would Someone Explain Data Aggregation and “High Frequency Healthcare” to the US Congress

With current economic conditions it sounds like we are using swords and daggers when the competition is running wild with machine guns, the health insurers as they can model, create and manipulate their business in 24 hours or less to adjust to what ever they feel they need to do and show figures and everyone just buys in, sad. How do you think they made all that money, software and algorithms folks, carving out sources of revenue where they did not exist before. Again, Rachel was questioning but without somebody challenging this, we lose.