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A '''health insurance cooperative''' is a [[cooperative]] entity that has the goal of providing [[health insurance]] and is also owned by the people that the organization insures.<ref>[http://patients.about.com/od/healthcarereform/f/healthinsurancecoops.htm "What Is a Health Insurance Co-op? (Health Insurance Cooperative)" About.com: Patient Empowerment] Retrieved on August 17, 2009</ref> It is a form of [[mutual insurance]]. |
A '''health insurance cooperative''' is a [[cooperative]] entity that has the goal of providing [[health insurance]] and is also owned by the people that the organization insures.<ref>[http://patients.about.com/od/healthcarereform/f/healthinsurancecoops.htm "What Is a Health Insurance Co-op? (Health Insurance Cooperative)" About.com: Patient Empowerment] Retrieved on August 17, 2009</ref> It is a form of [[mutual insurance]]. |
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Revision as of 05:43, 21 September 2009
A health insurance cooperative is a cooperative entity that has the goal of providing health insurance and is also owned by the people that the organization insures.[1] It is a form of mutual insurance.
United States
In the debate over healthcare reform, health care cooperatives are an alternative to both publicly-funded health care and single-payer health care. There once were numerous rural health cooperatives established by the Farm Security Administration (FSA). They have nearly all died from lack of economy of scale, i.e., too small to compete.[2]
It has been proposed as part of the health care reform debate in the United States by the Barack Obama administration as a possible compromise with Republicans in the search for universal health care in the United States.[3][4][5] As it is being proposed by President Obama, a future health insurance cooperative would not be government owned or run, but would instead receive an initial government investment and would then be operated as a non-profit organization.[6]
While a health insurance co-op is not strictly run by the government, hence not making it a public entity, it has been described by Senator Max Baucus of Montana, who is also the chairman of the United States Senate Committee on Finance as "tough enough to keep insurance companies’ feet to the fire."[7] Others have suggested that this model has its own problems that should be closely studied before adoption.[8]
- "... such cooperatives would lack the scale and authority to negotiate lower rates with drug companies and other providers, collect wide data on outcomes, or effect major change in the system." and "Nonprofit health-care cooperatives won't have any real bargaining leverage to get lower prices because they'll be too small and too numerous. Pharma and Insurance know they can roll them." - former US Secretary of Labor and economics professor Robert Reich[9]
Max Baucus, the senior U.S. Senator from Montana and current chairman of the United States Senate Committee on Finance, has proposed a bill that includes a health insurance cooperative instead of the public option.[10]
- "... according to the Congressional Budget Office, they (health insurance cooperatives) 'seem unlikely to establish a significant market presence in many areas of the country.'" - 2008 Nobel Economics Laureate Paul Krugman[11]
Examples
See also
External links
References
- ^ "What Is a Health Insurance Co-op? (Health Insurance Cooperative)" About.com: Patient Empowerment Retrieved on August 17, 2009
- ^ Michael R. Grey. New Deal Medicine: The Rural Health Programs of the Farm Security Administration. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. 1999.
- ^ "White House appears ready to drop 'public option'" Retrieved on August 17, 2009
- ^ "White House Appears Open to Insurance Co-ops" New York Times Retrieved on August 17, 2009
- ^ "Chances Dim for a Public Plan" The Wall Street Journal Retrieved on August 18, 2009
- ^ "President Obama Considering Insurance Co-Op" KKTV.com Retrieved on August 17, 2009
- ^ "Co-op Health Plan Emerging as a Senate Option" New York Times Retrieved on August 17, 2009
- ^ "Co-ops: Rife with Corruption, Mismgt, Criminality." The Daily Kos Retrieved on August 20, 2009
- ^ Robert Reich's recent references to health insurance cooperatives
- ^ "Zen Health Reform" - Slate.com Retrieved September 18, 2009
- ^ Paul Krugman Baucus and the Threshold NYT Sept. 17, 2009