> I want to offer that one key part of our health care problem is a simple conflict of interest, which is letting payers and providers be owned by the same entities.
Combining payer (insurer) and provider (hospital/clinic) appeared great for patients. It aligns the interest of keeping the patient healthy (so they keep paying premiums), and costs are kept low (no pointless/dangerous diagnostics or interventions). As a customer of Kaiser Permanente, I couldn't be happier. Feels totally natural that I pay for someone to keep me healthy, and they do.
But having read the article, I'm wondering if Kaiser Permanente is structured different from UHG/Optum, creating different incentives, and leading to the problems discussed. Or maybe they’re just less greedy than UHG?
From the outside looking in, I have to admit that the article's reasoning makes a lot more sense than this claim. They can raise prices and there's nothing the client can do but pay higher premiums.
Combining payer (insurer) and provider (hospital/clinic) appeared great for patients. It aligns the interest of keeping the patient healthy (so they keep paying premiums), and costs are kept low (no pointless/dangerous diagnostics or interventions). As a customer of Kaiser Permanente, I couldn't be happier. Feels totally natural that I pay for someone to keep me healthy, and they do.
But having read the article, I'm wondering if Kaiser Permanente is structured different from UHG/Optum, creating different incentives, and leading to the problems discussed. Or maybe they’re just less greedy than UHG?