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People Lose Their Employer-Sponsored Insurance Constantly

peoplespolicyproject.org

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Re: People Lose Their Employer-Sponsored Insurance Constantly

#211

Post by Scoundreller »

munk-a wrote: post #210
Scoundreller wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You get some agent to do the heavy lifting in agreement with your parameters. It’s a solution to the problem of “I continued to choose to live in an environment without health insurance, how do I handle the situation of not being in a position to negotiate?”

The agent I choose it the government, which I am proposing becomes the common agent of all Americans and advocates for all of us - since the expertise to act as a rational agent in this setting is unavailable to most citizens. This extreme libretarianism stuff is pure BS, health care services in an emergency cannot exist as a free market.

Oh, I agree. But most Americans actively vote against that system.

As for those uninsured that just broke their ____ and are not in a position to start calling around, having pre-negotiated rates for the best pricing against all hospitals within a reasonable time’s transport would save a pile of cash. There’s no shortage of hospitals or excess capacity in the US.

Re: People Lose Their Employer-Sponsored Insurance Constantly

#212

Post by conanbatt »

helen___keller wrote: post #205
conanbatt wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Etc cetera. There's no end to the nuisance. If I could choose to just pay more in taxes (hell I'll pay way more than my current premiums) and never deal with insurance again, I would do it in a heartbeat. If you have a high deductible, you already chose to pay less. Revealed preferences and all that.

I'm not sure I follow your logic.

You can choose to have less insurance hassle by choosing a more expensive insurance plan where you don't haggle for the deductible.

Re: People Lose Their Employer-Sponsored Insurance Constantly

#213

Post by conanbatt »

u801e wrote: post #63
imgabe wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If private insurance is going to work, then every healthcare provider has to accept payment from every insurance. This clusterfuck we have where you have in-network providers with one price and out-of-network providers with a different price just has to stop. Oh you went to an in-network hospital, but this one doctor walked into the room for five minutes and she was out-of-network, so now your bill is 10x higher than…

I've always wanted to add a clause to those consent forms stating that my consent is conditional to the provider being in-network for the insurance information I provided the hospital. It is their responsibility to make that determination before they start treatment. If they provide treatment and find that they're not in network, then they forgo the right to bill for that service.

Only that insurance takes 3 weeks to process the claim. Delaying care 3 weeks for that guarantee would have caustic medical implications.

Re: People Lose Their Employer-Sponsored Insurance Constantly

#214

Post by conanbatt »

fzeroracer wrote: post #66
imgabe wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If private insurance is going to work, then every healthcare provider has to accept payment from every insurance. This clusterfuck we have where you have in-network providers with one price and out-of-network providers with a different price just has to stop. Oh you went to an in-network hospital, but this one doctor walked into the room for five minutes and she was out-of-network, so now your bill is 10x higher than…

I agree, however this is the unfortunate reality of the private healthcare system maximizing for profit. Consumers rarely have proper choice in shopping around or choosing doctors and insurance providers take advantage of this by inventing as many different systems as they can to avoid paying out. That's why I think full free market healthcare simply won't work. It's far too much at odds with people that need medical…

> unfortunate reality of the private healthcare system maximizing for profit > Consumers rarely have proper choice in shopping around

If you have a M4A, you have less choices not more.

> That's why I think full free market healthcare simply won't work

The last thing I would call healthcare in the us is free market.

Re: People Lose Their Employer-Sponsored Insurance Constantly

#215

Post by conanbatt »

coldtea wrote: post #94
helen___keller wrote: post #37

The point of health insurance is to pay into a risk pool as a collective so that the small percentage of people who end up needing the largest percentage of health care, nobody dies or goes into monumental debt. This can be done via taxes but insurance is a private market solution which should in theory make it more efficient for the sake of maximizing profit. So then if it's supposedly more efficient, why do I waste…

> This can be done via taxes but insurance is a private market solution which should in theory make it more efficient for the sake of maximizing profit. Imagine there's a single, private, insurance company, A. Wouldn't the natural interest of A be to maximize health costs (i.e. make paying for health coverage expensive, as thus their insurance more desirable and more expensive in return)? And if there were more small…

> Wouldn't the natural interest of A be to maximize health costs

A, an insurance company, is the one fighting to get the cost down from B, the healthcare provider.

> And if there were more smaller insurance companies competing with A, wouldn't it make sense for A to just eat them up to eliminate competition

Monopolization is more dangerous from the healthcare provider side, though it happens both ways. Basically, insurances compete against each other at state levels, while hospitals only fight the nearest hospital, maybe.

> And if there were several equally large insurance companies aside A (say, B, C, D), wouldn't it make sense for them to collude and keep prices and profits high?

You can see that health insurnace companies are not really profitable. They have lower margins than auto-insurance.

> And since A (a single large) or A+B+C+D (several large) companies surely have considerable clout (money gives you that) isn't it their natural interest to spend on buying politicians, media, etc, to make sure things get even more in their favor?

Noone has more interest than to implement national health insurnace than politicans. It's the biggest political boon plus almost unlimited spending they could get. If something like M4A passed, the state would grow in the order of 10% of GDP.

> ow would insurance being a private market make it "make it more efficient for the sake of maximizing profit"?

By keeping at bay provision costs vs quality. In Healthcare there is something called the Iron Triangle: Access vs Quality vs Cost. If you unleash access, you need to lower quality or increase cost.

Re: People Lose Their Employer-Sponsored Insurance Constantly

#216

Post by conanbatt »

smileysteve wrote: post #204
conanbatt wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can fund private insurance via taxes as well. That's not a limit to private market insurances. But I tell you one thing that really affects why insurance sucks: that you get sweet tax exemptions if you get it through an employer, and to be an insurance that works through an employer you need to overcome massive regulatory hurdles. Welcome to the world of regulatory capture.

I wonder if the increases in the gig economy (ride sharing, charging, food delivery) will lead to more people eligible to file these incomes as sole proprietorships, allowing them to deduct health insurance.

Even M4A includes removing the tax exemption. But it will not be popular when workers get a Marginal tax rate jump on their entire income.

That subsidy should die and healthcare should be finally decoupled from the employer. That would unleash massive market forces.

Re: People Lose Their Employer-Sponsored Insurance Constantly

#217

Post by conanbatt »

davidw wrote: post #21
aNoob7000 wrote: post #5

Health insurance in the United States is a shit show. The Medicare for all that Bernie is proposing is a reaction to the inability of Congress to meaningfully fix the issue. I personally would prefer a market based approach to fixing the issues with obtaining medical care, but Congress can't do anything because there's just too much money and influence involved.

Italy has a thriving market based private health care industry. You can call in and get prices and everything. Just that it's in addition to the single payer system, which means the private one is cheap because the competition is 'free'. As a % of GDP, Italy spends a lot less than the US in health care, and people live long and productive lives. I mention Italy because 1) I lived there and 2) it's not some perfectly…

> Just that it's in addition to the single payer system, which means the private one is cheap because the competition is 'free'

Eek. This is also called crowding out. It means expensive but efficient health services can't survive. It might be a decent compromise but I would call it a success.

Re: People Lose Their Employer-Sponsored Insurance Constantly

#218

Post by bitcoinmoney »

ThrustVectoring wrote: post #180
bitcoinmoney wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s special about Texas? And how can you put everything in retirement account?? 401k is 19k/year and IRA is 5k? What do you do with the rest of your money? Do you setup and LLC or trust? Can you elaborate?

>What’s special about Texas? Debt collection follows a combination of state and federal law, and Texas state law is unusually favorable to debtors. Specific important pieces: 1. Your primary residence is protected from forced sale to satisfy general creditors, up to 10 acres (urban) or 100 acres (rural). 2. Garnishment of wages is limited to certain special circumstances, such as nonpayment of taxes or child support.…

I see. What if you want to FIRE? You can’t have all your $ tied up in a house.

Re: People Lose Their Employer-Sponsored Insurance Constantly

#219

Post by conanbatt »

luckydata wrote: post #36
aNoob7000 wrote: post #5

Health insurance in the United States is a shit show. The Medicare for all that Bernie is proposing is a reaction to the inability of Congress to meaningfully fix the issue. I personally would prefer a market based approach to fixing the issues with obtaining medical care, but Congress can't do anything because there's just too much money and influence involved.

There's no market based approach that can "fix" healthcare. Market self regulates around substitute goods, but healthcare is in the business of health and there's no substitute for that. Very few humans will say "all considered, the ROI/statistical likelhood of this procedure is not positive so I will pick death instead", it just doesn't happen. Single payer is the only way to go.

> but healthcare is in the business of health and there's no substitute for that

There's plenty of substitutes, and there are plenty of things that have little to no substitutes and don't have these issues (food, clothing..housing does have some of the same issues).

Healthcare is a mess because it is the most regulated market there is.

Re: People Lose Their Employer-Sponsored Insurance Constantly

#220

Post by conanbatt »

gorbachev wrote: post #10
aNoob7000 wrote: post #5

Health insurance in the United States is a shit show. The Medicare for all that Bernie is proposing is a reaction to the inability of Congress to meaningfully fix the issue. I personally would prefer a market based approach to fixing the issues with obtaining medical care, but Congress can't do anything because there's just too much money and influence involved.

The insurance companies have had years (decades?) to come up with one. Instead they've invested in lobbying to keep the status quo.

One honest question: if you believe the system as it is, is broken because of lobbying, why would a socialized medicine system be immune to lobbying?
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