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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

#191

Post by chooseaname »

greenonions wrote: post #138

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…

> What makes health insurance cheaper is a larger pool of people. There is no other mechanism by which costs can be reduced.

They will just take the extra money and return it to shareholders. They won't reduce costs to people.

Re: Employer health plans are getting pricier and skimpier

#192

Post by JMTQp8lwXL »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #170
nickgrosvenor wrote: post #110

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.

> An entire generation is draining their savings to keep up with premium costs. Knock on wood but, myself and pretty much everybody I know has insurance covered ~75% through our full time employers. I think my portion of my insurance is about... $100/mo? I've never had to use it way/shape/form in the past... 5-10 years. Isn't the truth that the most unhealthy people are what drives health care costs? It'd be interest…

It seems to be more the exception, rather than the rule, that you will continue to be fine without medical coverage for eternity. One day, something is going to happen. Consumption of health care tends to be back-loaded in life.

Re: Employer health plans are getting pricier and skimpier

#193

Post by geddy »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #170
nickgrosvenor wrote: post #110

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.

> An entire generation is draining their savings to keep up with premium costs. Knock on wood but, myself and pretty much everybody I know has insurance covered ~75% through our full time employers. I think my portion of my insurance is about... $100/mo? I've never had to use it way/shape/form in the past... 5-10 years. Isn't the truth that the most unhealthy people are what drives health care costs? It'd be interest…

Yeah, I really wonder where that $10,000/person figure comes from when you remove obesity and smoking related illnesses, so, the two highest and most preventable causes of death in this country.

I always believed you should be able to qualify for lower costs (or be charged higher) depending on how you take care of yourself. Annual physical fitness test. I'm a little sick and tired of paying high premiums for people to have healthcare that don't take care of themselves.

Re: Employer health plans are getting pricier and skimpier

#194

Post by robbrit »

JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #179
eric_b wrote: 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+…

Speaking for Canada rather than Europe but I imagine the argument is mostly the same. The supply and demand ratios are different. Canada has very few pure software firms like Google or Amazon compared to the US, so there is significantly less competition for the engineers that work there. This drives prices down - or rather, prevents prices from being driven up.

Re: Employer health plans are getting pricier and skimpier

#195

Post by geggam »

weeksie wrote: post #165
geggam wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Free markets don't work with the information asymmetries involved in healthcare.

Odd how it worked before insurance took over the healthcare system.

Care to share what you see would be different ?

Re: Employer health plans are getting pricier and skimpier

#196

Post by ambernightcruse »

eric_b wrote: 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…

Part of the problem is that Medicare/Medicaid pays market prices. Its a pricetaker not a pricesetter, because of poor regulation, in spite of its larger position. If you pay market prices, expect inflation every year on top.

Re: Employer health plans are getting pricier and skimpier

#197

Post by erichocean »

throwaway66920 wrote: post #130
erichocean wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Getting insurance as an individual is expensive because you’re not part of a group plan. I see people say this constantly. Insurance by definition is literally always a "group plan"—everyone who buys insurance is in the same group. That's literally the point of insurance. It's why it exists. That's what it is . That is fundamentally how insurance works . All insurance, in every category, of every type. There are no…

You see it constantly because it is true. A group plan is a thing. Yes you’re still in a “group” when you register as an individual, but it is an “individual plan” and semantics doesn’t really help you out. The difference is that if I know the mean and variance of expected health costs for the group, I can offer a lower premium to every individual member because the variance of total actual cost goes down by n^(-1/2)…

> There’s more retired old people.

Medicare is mandatory in the US for retired old people. It's universal, it's mandatory, and it covers everything. They're literally not in the insurance pools, so I don't know what you're talking about.

As for the "group plans", those "groups" are too small for insurance purposes—they do not spread risk effectively. The entire "group plan" thing is a scam, and it would be trivial for gov't to just outlaw them entirely in the US, and force individual pricing on business-purchased health insurance like we do for every other kind of insurance we have. Costs would go down for everyone, and individual plans would no longer "suck dickballs".

That said, that is not how I would "fix" the health insurance issues we have. But it's at least better than what we do now...

Re: Employer health plans are getting pricier and skimpier

#198

Post by eric_b »

ergothus wrote: post #181
eric_b wrote: 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…

> Medicare/Medicaid cover more people than many single payer systems in other countries, and their costs are still outrageous I appreciate your reasonable breakdown, but I don't understand this one. I've seen many reports talking about how the costs of basic supplies and procedures are dramatically higher in the US (and vary wildly within the US). Things like X-Rays, MRIs, etc, being off by an order of magnitude or m…

I think we agree. I'm just saying it's not a single fundamental difference between the US system and other systems, it's myriad differences that combine to make things way more expensive in the US.

Re: Employer health plans are getting pricier and skimpier

#199

Post by sarcasmOrTears »

Open the market. Liberalize the selling and buying of healing goods and services. Abolish patents. You can even keep some certification of ability and quality, as long as they're on point (no 6 years training for stitches), specific, free and unlimited in number.

Put current psychopats behind the medical industry under death penalty as a warning for future generations. Seems harsh but they killed hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, and all for unjust profit. They deserve it.

80% cancers cured in max 20 years. No more threads on hacker news about people going around like dogs begging for a decent diagnosys. Stem cells for every need at costco, top quality. Problem solved.

Re: Employer health plans are getting pricier and skimpier

#200

Post by JMTQp8lwXL »

throwaway22424 wrote: post #186
nickgrosvenor wrote: post #110

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.

> Not to mention the millions of people locked into careers they would otherwise get out of, if not for the health coverage. Replying with a throwaway for obvious reasons. I work at one of the big tech companies -- I'm paid well, but the benefits are very good. I just got an offer from a startup that I really like. It's a job I would like to take. I'm going to have to turn down the offer. Part of the reason I'm going…

Sounds like this could be solved, if the startup could offer a higher base salary, bonus, or a combination.
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