The Greening of America: Health Care Co=Op Option

What if you could “join” a medical center co-op? What if you didn’t have to have an “insurance policy” per sea, what if you paid the clinic directly a monthly fee + the $25 for the doctor visit?

Imagine if you will a small care clinic with 6 doctors, 2 interns (1-2 yrs exp) 2 mid level (2-5 yrs exp) and 2 senior (5 yrs & up). The clinic would also employee 2 medical receptionists and 2 medical assistants.

6 doctors seeing 8 patients a day for 365 days = 17520 patients over a year. However, some of these patients will be seen more then once a year. Lets break down the patients like this:

3000 individual
2000 spouse
1500 1st child
1250 2nd child
500 3rd child
250 4th + child

Let’s charge per person on the plan – This means a family of 4 or more could get General Medical Care for $475 mo

100 individual
75 spouse
90 1st child
80 2nd child
70 3rd child
60 4th + child

If you wanted to be covered for Hospital stays/Surgery/ER you could choose to pay an extra premium: – This means a family of 4 or more could get General Medical Care & Hospital for $689 mo

45 individual
34 spouse
41 1st child
36 2nd child
31 3rd child
27 4th + child

So the premiums would breakdown like so:

Gen Hospital Total

Individual                  100                 45                       145
Ind + Sp                   175                 34                       209
Family 1c                 265                 120                      385
family 2c                  345                 156                       501
family 3c                  415                 187                       602

family 4c+ 475 214 689

Now this coverage would not include prescriptions, but I went on line and you can get a prescription card with Tiers at $10, $20 & $50 that match or exceed current insurance prescription coverage – single coverage was $20 family coverage was $35. This means a family of 4 or more could get General Medical Care & Hospital & Prescription for $724 mo. (currently I checked for this type of coverage for myself and 2 children and it would cost over $800)

Gen Hospital Ins card Total

Individual 100 45 20 165
Ind + Sp 175 34 30 239

Family 1c 265 120 35 420

family 2c 345 156 35 536

family 3c 415 187 35 637

family 4c+ 475 214 35 724

If this plan was offered thru the workplace employers could pay some of the monthly fee bringing the cost down even more.

Is this even possible….yes, how…. by making a private – non-profit – co-op Medical care facility.

As you know you pay your insurance premium to Company A, but you get your care thru Doctor B, but the payments have to processed by Company C, and approvals have to go thru Company D ect….. Lots of fingers in the pot taking out money.

Most insurance companies and medical facilities and hospitals are FOR PROFIT facilities with share holders, stock, ect… all looking for higher stock prices and dividends.

In this scenario, a medical facility would bought as a non-profit facility, the costs associated would be the facility, medical staff, administrative staff, medical equipment, lab.

Since the monthly fee would be paid directly to the co-op there would not be any middle men, since the doctors would be in charge of the healthcare there would be no need for “referrals”. The money would go from the consumer directly to co-op for healthcare. Since the coop is a non-profit there would be no stockholders to worry about making money off the sick.

In addition if a family pays for extra “hospital” policy and no one uses the policy that year they could receive a 2% “dividend” that would be applied to the next years premium.

I think this is a more viable plan then the one just passed by Obama.