51–60 of 314 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> These are enormously beneficial to insurance companies (they essentially have unlimited liability without them) and there is a ton of money to have the caps reinstated. I don't understand why you'd phrase it this way. Under the ACA, 80% of premiums have to go to medical care. A dollar saved providing care disproportionately benefits the premium payers, not the company. People act like all this money comes out of in…
The scenario the parent poster is describing is where ACA is repealed and replaced, and presumably that replacement would also do away with the 80% medical loss ratio. In that scenario the insurance companies will likely just not reduce premiums from what they are today, netting them a huge windfall. This is also why states like Alaska have seen ACA premiums fall over the past year or two. They instituted a state-wid…
> According to an April 2010 report prepared by the Democratic staff of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, the nation’s largest health insurers in 2009 had medical loss ratios ranging from 68 percent to 88 percent in the individual market; 78 percent to 84 percent in the small-group market; and 83 percent to 88 percent in the large-group market.
Thanks, capitalism. Snarky as that may sound, it's a simple statement of fact: our society places a higher value on capital allocation than human life, and so the most vulnerable people are stripped of their assets and dignity to satisfy the demand for wealth. Frankly, I think socialized medicine would also reduce violence in society if deployed as part of a larger economic realignment.
Excepting some intrinsic value to life, in the grand scheme of things most people's lives are not worth very much.
Perhaps the real problem is that chemo, radiation, and surgery don't really cure cancer, in most cases. There is a lot of bad science in cancer research. The "science" that bothers me the most is the use of 5-year survival rates. Suppose that a cancer that starts at age 60 becomes symptomatic at age 65, and kills the patient at age 70. Scenario 1: you are 60 years old, get screened, and opt for treatment (who wouldn'…
Scenario 2 implies you don't have cancer. If you have it and don't get treated, you'll probably die by 62 in your scenario.
If you scan every man over the age of 55 you'll pick up a lot of prostate cancer. If you then do nothing else at all your country's 5 year survival rate improves because you have a bunch of people who'll die with, from from, cancer.
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> (A Crowdpac campaign has funded close to $4 million dollars to challenge Susan Collins when she's up for reelection due to her supreme court vote; that most likely won't scale) This sort of thing should be illegal, particularly when it is out-of-state interests injecting money. If you live in another state, vote out your own reps you don't like. The harassment the poor woman has been put through lately is obscene.
Money is considered speech. The legislative and judicial branches condone such actions, and the example you take issue with is the result of representatives having national impact (in this case, voting for the appointment of a supreme court judge).
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You're being very misleading when you say "in most cases". There are a lot of very common cancers that respond very well to treatment. "If you or your child has cancer, could you bring yourself to not spend every penny you have?" This is what health insurance is for. You buy insurance so that you don't have to worry about monetary decisions and can make decisions based on quality of life.
That's not really true. A few cancers can be put into permanent remission (eg Hodgkins'), but most cancers kill you regardless of what you do.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> These are enormously beneficial to insurance companies (they essentially have unlimited liability without them) and there is a ton of money to have the caps reinstated. I don't understand why you'd phrase it this way. Under the ACA, 80% of premiums have to go to medical care. A dollar saved providing care disproportionately benefits the premium payers, not the company. People act like all this money comes out of in…
The entire point of insurance is to pool risk so that a bunch of people together pay reasonable amounts, instead of a few people paying enormous amounts and the others paying less. Lifetime limits give you lower rates in exchange for making the insurance much less like actual insurance. If we’re talking about “don’t piss on my leg and tell me its raining,” don’t sell me “health insurance” that will leave me high and…
Again, I'm not arguing against having health insurance be unlimited. I'm taking exception to your rhetorical mode, which I think is dishonest. By making the issue about the "big greedy insurance company," you obscure the fact that the public will be paying for these benefits. You're selling the public something as a "you can have your cake and eat it too" but that's a bill of goods.
What we need is price ceilings on medical procedures, something reasonable. Perhaps, cap procedures cost in some way, maybe 1k to 4k based on what it is (make it illegal to charge more and hold hospitals financially accountable). There has to be some kind of cost control, either from the government or the insurance companies. We can't expect patients to choose these cost controls. I realize this means that some procedures won't be done but it's better than bankrupting everyone left and right.
Perhaps the real problem is that chemo, radiation, and surgery don't really cure cancer, in most cases. There is a lot of bad science in cancer research. The "science" that bothers me the most is the use of 5-year survival rates. Suppose that a cancer that starts at age 60 becomes symptomatic at age 65, and kills the patient at age 70. Scenario 1: you are 60 years old, get screened, and opt for treatment (who wouldn'…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're being very misleading when you say "in most cases". There are a lot of very common cancers that respond very well to treatment. "If you or your child has cancer, could you bring yourself to not spend every penny you have?" This is what health insurance is for. You buy insurance so that you don't have to worry about monetary decisions and can make decisions based on quality of life.
> This is what health insurance is for. You buy insurance so that you don't have to worry about monetary decisions and can make decisions based on quality of life. When it comes to big medical problems, health insurance is rarely 100% effective against monetary problems.