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Amazon, Berkshire, JPMorgan to Create Healthcare Company

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Re: Amazon, Berkshire, JPMorgan to Create Healthcare Company

#391

Post by collyw »

11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #152
WisNorCan wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nothing wrong with “lining your own pockets” as a motivation. It is the fundamental driver of capitalism and the motivation for most entrepreneurs.

I believe that insurance companies welcome legislation and regulation. It requires them to hire more people and buy more equipment and services. All of that cost then gives them added justification to raise prices, because ‘we are a public company and have a duty to return profit to our shareholders.’ All of that regulation is expensive to start with, and needs a profit on top of it. Another true story, even with a H…

My girlfriend is a doctor and says that working for the private care system she spends more time fighting with the insurance companies that treating patients - they want to pay for the cheapest drugs she wants to prescribe what is best.

Fortunately we have the option of publicly funded health care here in Europe which is what she recommends for anything serious.

Re: Amazon, Berkshire, JPMorgan to Create Healthcare Company

#392

Post by collyw »

OpenDrapery wrote: post #194
WisNorCan wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nothing wrong with “lining your own pockets” as a motivation. It is the fundamental driver of capitalism and the motivation for most entrepreneurs.

If you profit off sick people, are you motivated to move toward a world with no sick people? If you profit from prisons, then you need to fill you prisons. Problem is, that as a society, we should aim toward not needing prisons at all. Therein lies the rub. If I profit off of you being sick, then I need to keep you sick.

Two areas where the "free market" capitalism of America seems like a stupid idea.

Re: Amazon, Berkshire, JPMorgan to Create Healthcare Company

#393

Post by collyw »

stale2002 wrote: post #317
OpenDrapery wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you profit off sick people, are you motivated to move toward a world with no sick people? If you profit from prisons, then you need to fill you prisons. Problem is, that as a society, we should aim toward not needing prisons at all. Therein lies the rub. If I profit off of you being sick, then I need to keep you sick.

Insurance companies are more like gyms, actually. They profit much more if you pay them money but never use their service.

My friend had an insurance company that reduced his premiums if he checked in at the gym a certain amount of times per month.

Re: Amazon, Berkshire, JPMorgan to Create Healthcare Company

#394

Post by mbesto »

erispoe wrote: post #373
mbesto wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This happened to my family as well. My wife broke her ankle and is an avid amateur sports nut. She wanted to go see a top sports doctor (KP has none) and couldn't get KP to cover any of it. To pay out of pocket was anywhere between $20k-$30k. We ended up flying to the UK because it was cheaper and she had a trusted top tier sports injury surgeon she knew there.

Well that's how it works. If you want healthcare to work for everyone, you cannot expect that insurance will reimburse treatment from top doctors outside of rare conditions (where top doctors are the only doctors). Sport related injuries are extremely common. Why should an insurance reimburse an incredibly costly treatment when a normal treatment is good enough for most people? By definition, you cannot have an insur…

I'm not discrediting that notion. My point was to echo the sentiment that a closed-loop healthcare system has it's downsides when it hits edge cases.

For the record, I pay the same for healthcare from UHC now and it would cover the $25k cost for the specialist because they're in the UHC network.

Re: Amazon, Berkshire, JPMorgan to Create Healthcare Company

#396

Post by dkonofalski »

sizzle wrote: post #355
dkonofalski wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This echoes my experience during the mortgage crash so much it gave me flashbacks. - Bank of America messes up my loan because the person doing my paperwork was a newbie. No biggie, right? - Branch manager offers to fix the issue and prioritize it so that we can close in time. - Branch manager is unable to fix it in time so offers to pay our closing costs and re-finance the loan afterwards. - Branch manager leaves th…

How has foreclosure been? Hard to get new loans? Hope you bounce back.

Already have, thanks. Actually bought another house after the 3 year mark when I was eligible for an FHA loan. Luckily, my credit score is pretty excellent.

This was back in the early 2000's just before the actual market crash. It was insane to me that banks were willing to work with people that bought houses they couldn't afford but that they wouldn't work with me on a loan modification because I wasn't delinquent.

Re: Amazon, Berkshire, JPMorgan to Create Healthcare Company

#397

Post by dkonofalski »

weka wrote: post #385
dkonofalski wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This echoes my experience during the mortgage crash so much it gave me flashbacks. - Bank of America messes up my loan because the person doing my paperwork was a newbie. No biggie, right? - Branch manager offers to fix the issue and prioritize it so that we can close in time. - Branch manager is unable to fix it in time so offers to pay our closing costs and re-finance the loan afterwards. - Branch manager leaves th…

That sucks. I hope you bounce back... I don't understand why it should take days to "update" a system. Now, I now next to nothing about how their current system works but information updated should not take so long. The insurance industry needs a technological overhaul but I doubt it will happen.

Thanks, I have. This was a while ago near the beginning of the housing crash and I've since been able to get a house with a local mortgage provider.

Re: Amazon, Berkshire, JPMorgan to Create Healthcare Company

#398

Post by vobios »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #336
aero142 wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this is true at all. The doctors have to justify their costs and the insurance companies have to validate that they are worth covering. Neither of those seem simple unless the insurance companies simply said, "Whatever the doctor wants to do, and whatever they charge is fine."

How do you come to that conclusion? I've seen a number of articles and cases like [1] where a company decides to charge apparently "what ever it wants" and the insurance company said "fine" and paid it. This article[2] talks about the wide range of prices for the exact same procedure within the same area. Is it your understanding that each of those different doctors justified their costs and the insurance company val…

Each doctor offers hundreds of services/procedures. Each one has a different price. The insurance company needs a certain number of doctors in the network to be competitive and they can't really have hard cutoffs for every single item. It's not that surprising that there are outliers.

Additionally, lots of doctors often bill incorrectly on purpose so that a particular services/procedure gets covered, so I am not sure we should keep "justified" and "validated" in these discussions.

Re: Amazon, Berkshire, JPMorgan to Create Healthcare Company

#399

Post by guelo »

briffle wrote: post #319
guelo wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm with Kaiser and my favorite thing compared to the PPOs I've been with in the past is the integrated IT health records. Any doctor, specialists, ER, can see my whole history of ailments and drugs and lab test results. When my doctor orders up a specialist or a pharmacy I don't have to re-explain anything, it's all in the system. I'm sure it helps reduce medical errors.

They were the first 'big' client of Epic Software. Many other hospital systems around the US now use Epic, and have similar features.

The difference is when you're on something like BlueCross you have a "network" of hospitals and independent doctors and labs and pharmacies that you can choose from. But those are not on all on one IT system and a lot of times they have no way of communicating with each other. With Kaiser it's all vertically integrated under one company that can impose a system-wide IT system.

Re: Amazon, Berkshire, JPMorgan to Create Healthcare Company

#400

Post by astrange »

briffle wrote: post #319
guelo wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm with Kaiser and my favorite thing compared to the PPOs I've been with in the past is the integrated IT health records. Any doctor, specialists, ER, can see my whole history of ailments and drugs and lab test results. When my doctor orders up a specialist or a pharmacy I don't have to re-explain anything, it's all in the system. I'm sure it helps reduce medical errors.

They were the first 'big' client of Epic Software. Many other hospital systems around the US now use Epic, and have similar features.

You may be amused to hear about the programming language they use.

https://thedailywtf.com/articles/A_Case_of_the_MUMPS

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