My continued rant/seminar.. (LOL, I'm draining all the humor, FFS!)

This is also why many health insurance companies are trying to change their registration to "for profit" instead of non-profit (which I've always thought was a stupid and outright lie of a title, anyway).. which would basically allow them to be much more dynamic in their ability to keep up with costs vs. premiums. As it is, it takes 12-18 months for a rate change to take effect, and then it takes another 12-18 months for these changes to fully propogate through the system.. so we're talking of a lag time of 3-4 years in a lot of cases from the point at which the request is filed, plus the year or more of analysis before the fact to figure out it is needed in the first place.

I think medical care (and public education, for that matter) should all require people to pay up front for routine services so that there is a tangible interaction and an awareness of cost/benefit. In the public education sector, make it mandatory for people to spend their money (call it a voucher, or whatever), and have it returned to them via tax break or by whatever means works (the voucher system, again, is a decent way of doing this). On top of that, fund schools by county instead of neighborhood so that anyone can send their kid ANYWHERE in the county for the same cost.. and competition ensues to improve the quality of schools to attract the best students because money is no longer a factor.

Anyway, I digress.