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Employer health plans are getting pricier and skimpier

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Re: Employer health plans are getting pricier and skimpier

#171

This is absolutely the biggest story in America, and most people aren't talking about it. An entire generation is draining their savings to keep up with premium costs. Not to mention the millions of people locked into careers they would otherwise get out of, if not for the health coverage. This situation is probably going to lead to unbelievable outcomes.

I realize the avg YC visitor will not want to hear this, but when you are taking care of

1) literally tens of millions of foreign nationals that have washed up on America's shored with all manner of maladies and even diseases that never existed in the USA before, and others that have been eradicated for decades, and all those people bring in multiples of their family members with all manner of other maladies and are of elderly age, who then immediately go on medicare and social security. And illegals the emergency rooms for any and all maladies since all of them are of course criminals (regardless of whether you want to split legal hairs, they are still violators or both the rule of law and committing major offenses against the society and people they are parasitizing).

2) The population is full of clusters of immensely unhealthy populations like blacks that are wildly disproportionately affected by specific diseases like sickle cell and kidney diseases and also lead wildly disproportionately unhealthy lifestyles with obesity rates off the chart all around the south in particular.

3) Our corporation captured government is utterly corrupt and politicians and the health sector is too busy lining each others's pockets to actually provide any real leadership of the country neither have any loyalty to anymore and are just trying to get rich off faster than the next guy before the music stops.

Just look at the stocks of health industry companies before and after "Obamacare" passed that was a massive last minute bait and switch pork barrel profit maker for the health industry, while essentially plundering hard working Americans to pay for the healthcare of millions of foreigners that have been imported into the USA against the enslaved American population's will … because having the product of your work taken from you to support the life and lifestyle of others against your will and under threat of violence and ruin is nothing but slavery.

So here wer are, paying twice as much for half the health care we got just 10 years ago when it was said it was bad, but at least millions of foreign nationals are taken care of at the American tax slave's cost.

Re: Employer health plans are getting pricier and skimpier

#172

This is absolutely the biggest story in America, and most people aren't talking about it. An entire generation is draining their savings to keep up with premium costs. Not to mention the millions of people locked into careers they would otherwise get out of, if not for the health coverage. This situation is probably going to lead to unbelievable outcomes.

It's rather painful to watch from this side of the Atlantic. I guess that I need to acknowledge this is really what most people want in America.

It isn't what "most" people want. It's what the rich people in power want.

Re: Employer health plans are getting pricier and skimpier

#173
post #125

Sharing this idea in order to gather critique. The cost of healthcare in the USA is insane. Could we look for insight into the US Military? Example: This morning, a coworker told me she's going to have an operation on her back. The "cost of the tray" (I have no idea what this is) is $14,000. She has to pay $8,000 up-front two days before the operation, and the remainder will be financed over two years. To me, it's in…

Military healthcare sucks. You dont get a say you get told what to do.

Re: Employer health plans are getting pricier and skimpier

#174
post #148

The problem is that there is not a single reason that healthcare is so expensive. Even if you list the top 15 reasons, you still have to apply the "5 whys" to each of them to find root causes and possible solutions. - Doctor's are paid too much... why? - Well they need to be paid a lot because medical school debt is 250k or more... why? - Medical schools/the AMA are artificially limiting the number of students and re…

I don't think negotiating power is debunked.

Re: Employer health plans are getting pricier and skimpier

#175
post #152

Insurance companies need to be expropriated. The entire thing needs a restructure from the ground up, there are too many critical path issues that will keep things expensive if we try to have two systems at once (medicare for all + private) the US should get real medicare, then move to a public/private system where you get base coverage through medicare and pay extra for fancy coverage.

Simply removing insurance and letting the free market adjust would fix the issue. When I was a kid no one worried about hospital bankrupting the family. Now anything larger than a paper cut has the chance to bankrupt most families. Combine that with the accident rate in cars you have an almost certain chance for a large percentage of the US to be bankrupt

That would kill a lot of people as the market adjusts...

Re: Employer health plans are getting pricier and skimpier

#176
post #125

Sharing this idea in order to gather critique. The cost of healthcare in the USA is insane. Could we look for insight into the US Military? Example: This morning, a coworker told me she's going to have an operation on her back. The "cost of the tray" (I have no idea what this is) is $14,000. She has to pay $8,000 up-front two days before the operation, and the remainder will be financed over two years. To me, it's in…

The insurance companies are for profit corporations who pay politicians so they can keep taking your money when you're healthy and cutting you when you're not. The army is not, as far as I know, a for profit enterprise.

Insurance is socialism for profit

Re: Employer health plans are getting pricier and skimpier

#177
post #148

The problem is that there is not a single reason that healthcare is so expensive. Even if you list the top 15 reasons, you still have to apply the "5 whys" to each of them to find root causes and possible solutions. - Doctor's are paid too much... why? - Well they need to be paid a lot because medical school debt is 250k or more... why? - Medical schools/the AMA are artificially limiting the number of students and re…

> (I don't want to hear one thing about negotiating power. That is a debunked line of reasoning. Medicare/Medicaid cover more people than many single payer systems in other countries, and their costs are still outrageous)

It is illegal for Medicare to negotiate drug prices. That needs to be fixed.

Re: Employer health plans are getting pricier and skimpier

#178

What makes health insurance cheaper is a larger pool of people. There is no other mechanism by which costs can be reduced. This is why a single payer system is dramatically cheaper. It ensures complete coverage, reducing the cost of insurance to it's minimum. Furthermore, it leverages the collective bargaining power of all subscribers. There is no substitute for a national health insurance, and the United States slow…

That doesn't necessarily follow. Whether or not it gets cheaper or more expensive depends on how likely the new people are to get sick compared to the other people in the pool. Adding a bunch of sick people raises the costs for everyone, adding a bunch of healthy, young people (and making them pay) lowers the costs for everyone else.

I agree that at this point, we'd be far better off with a single payer system, but it's certainly not cheaper for everyone.

Re: Employer health plans are getting pricier and skimpier

#179
post #148

The problem is that there is not a single reason that healthcare is so expensive. Even if you list the top 15 reasons, you still have to apply the "5 whys" to each of them to find root causes and possible solutions. - Doctor's are paid too much... why? - Well they need to be paid a lot because medical school debt is 250k or more... why? - Medical schools/the AMA are artificially limiting the number of students and re…

Software Engineers in the US often make 2x as much as our European counterparts, yet we don't have any artificial limits on the number of people able to study Software Engineering. I'm not disagreeing with you the point on the AMA, but even if they removed their limits -- would many more people want to enter the field? It seems extremely intensive, not only during your education and residency, but on the job too. 12+ hours days, multiple days per week? No thanks.

Re: Employer health plans are getting pricier and skimpier

#180
post #148

The problem is that there is not a single reason that healthcare is so expensive. Even if you list the top 15 reasons, you still have to apply the "5 whys" to each of them to find root causes and possible solutions. - Doctor's are paid too much... why? - Well they need to be paid a lot because medical school debt is 250k or more... why? - Medical schools/the AMA are artificially limiting the number of students and re…

> Doctor's are paid too much... why?

You can also branch off here: because malpractice insurance is insanely expensive. Why? Because people sue over absolutely everything. Why? Because lawyers in this country are vultures.

If anything is overly expensive, you can usually track it back to insurance costs somewhere, which can typically be tracked back to the fact that we live in a litigious society.

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