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Money Won’t Buy You Health Insurance

nytimes.com

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Re: Money Won’t Buy You Health Insurance

#51

Post by marshray »

cookiecaper wrote: post #19
sammcd wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think she could buy insurance if she really wanted. I've thought about this a lot because I could easily be in this situation. If I did anything on my own I would need a group plan quickly. You only need 2 people to create a group. So you can buy insurance its expensive, here is how you do it. 1) Start a company. 2) Hire another employee (this costs a lot) 3) Make a group health insurance policy for the company. Th…

A two-person group is not going to fare much better than an individual plan, and I'm not so sure that there are that many companies that accept two-person groups anyway.

Yeah I think you'd need to hire about 49 more people before you had a substantial group going.

Re: Money Won’t Buy You Health Insurance

#52

Post by wtn »

sammcd wrote: post #11
krschultz wrote: post #6

The subtle but crazy part about this is at the bottom when it details the author: "Donna Dubinsky, a co-founder of Palm Computer and Handspring, is the chief executive of a computer software company." I'm going to go out on a limb and say money is not an issue for Donna, yet she still can't even buy insurance if she wants to. I've always thought healthcare access was a bigger hurdle for entrepreneurs than tax rates.…

I think she could buy insurance if she really wanted. I've thought about this a lot because I could easily be in this situation. If I did anything on my own I would need a group plan quickly. You only need 2 people to create a group. So you can buy insurance its expensive, here is how you do it. 1) Start a company. 2) Hire another employee (this costs a lot) 3) Make a group health insurance policy for the company. Th…

My auto insurance company (it operates like a cooperative) provides a group plan for members to purchase health insurance. (Coverage is provided by an external company).

My auto insurance company also runs a savings bank for its members and offers loans at markedly better rates than retail banks.

Consumer cooperatives would seem the simplest way to alleviate this issue--no need for additional legislation. To confirm, I live in the US.

Re: Money Won’t Buy You Health Insurance

#53

Post by rapind »

krschultz wrote: post #18
sammcd wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think she could buy insurance if she really wanted. I've thought about this a lot because I could easily be in this situation. If I did anything on my own I would need a group plan quickly. You only need 2 people to create a group. So you can buy insurance its expensive, here is how you do it. 1) Start a company. 2) Hire another employee (this costs a lot) 3) Make a group health insurance policy for the company. Th…

It's not the difference between a family and a company, its the size of the group. Thus the costs for a company with 10,000 people is far different than a company with 10. Also, if you have a group of 2,5,10 or 20, the insurance company has an easier time denying you because if you get pissed and drop them, its not a big loss for them. In contrast, if you deny the right person at a 10,000 person company, they lose a…

As a group you have more leverage purchasing pretty much any service. I wonder what it would take to put together a group buy app for health insurance.

Re: Money Won’t Buy You Health Insurance

#54

Post by haploid »

jimbokun wrote: post #44
SandB0x wrote: post #32

I would have died at the age of 19 if it weren't for the help of the UK's National Health Service. My parents and I didn't have to worry about hospital bills, future insurance issues, being tied to a job, any of that crap. Just get some rest, get better, go out there and be productive again. The American system looks like a horrible joke from over here. I just can't understand any of it.

"I just can't understand any of it." Neither can those of us who live here. I mean, I can kind of understand the series of historical accidents of how we got here. What I can't understand are the politicians promising to fight tooth and nail to roll back the very minor reforms just enacted, and all of the people who enthusiastically just voted them into office last election, based on that platform.

I can give you one perspective. Moral hazard and fairness.

The vast majority of costs borne by and in the US healthcare system are the results of overeating, oversmoking, and underexercising. Period. Heart disease, many forms of cancer, diabetes, most forms of pancreatic, gallbladder, and adrenal conditions, are largely the result of personal choice.

Setting aside for a moment the fact that congenital defects, hereditary disorders, infections, and accidents are no fault of the victim/patient, it should be important to note that a system that REQUIRES those who take care of their health by eating and exercising properly to subsidize the consequences of the choices of those who do not, is taken by many Americans to be fundamentally unfair.

If legislative initiative were taken to find a way to exclude universal coverage of lifestyle diseases, while still permitting universal coverage of non-lifestyle conditions, many people would not have such a viscerally negative reaction to the notion of universal health care.

Re: Money Won’t Buy You Health Insurance

#55

Post by uygtfrgtyjuhk »

SandB0x wrote: post #32

I would have died at the age of 19 if it weren't for the help of the UK's National Health Service. My parents and I didn't have to worry about hospital bills, future insurance issues, being tied to a job, any of that crap. Just get some rest, get better, go out there and be productive again. The American system looks like a horrible joke from over here. I just can't understand any of it.

In the UK, or anywhere else in Europe, or Canada - or pretty much any other capitalist country - you can leave your job for a better paying one or to start your own wealth creating business. This allows the country to maximize the value of your labor.

In the US you can't leave your job to start your own business because your children might get sick and die. Even leaving for another employer is tricky because there is often a 6-12month gap before the new health coverage kicks in and anything you had treated in the past (like a broken leg in a childhood cycling accident) becomes a pre-existing condition and the new place denies you coverage.

This very effectively reduces wage costs since the whole 'importing people from africa' thing was banned.

Re: Money Won’t Buy You Health Insurance

#56

Post by marshray »

ryanwaggoner wrote: post #35

I'm no expert, but isn't this one of the major issues that the health care reform bill of 2010 is going to fix? Granted, it doesn't go into effect (for adults) until Jan 1, 2014, but I thought that insurance companies will be prohibited from denying coverage or charging higher rates based on pre-existing medical conditions. Am I mistaken? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patient_Protection_and_Affordab...

I'll believe it when I see it.

Re: Money Won’t Buy You Health Insurance

#57

Post by joe_the_user »

Groxx wrote: post #22
acabal wrote: post #2

This really highlights how utterly insane our system is. I'm living off of my own business, which means that I don't have an employer to cover me under group insurance. But I really only make enough to live frugally and save a tiny amount each month--to me, an affordable health insurance plan would be between $50-$100 a month. Fat chance of that happening. And if it did, the deductible would be so high as to make the…

> to me, an affordable health insurance plan would be between $50-$100 a month. Fat chance of that happening. And if it did, the deductible would be so high as to make the plan worthless for anything short of a car-crash-emergency-type-situation. This fits a fair number of cost complaints I hear over healthcare. Who wouldn't like to pay $50-100/month to have something better than emergency healthcare support? But thi…

What explains the rapid and sustained rise in costs?

Health care might have cost thirty years ago but not the same degree.

Further, Health care is approaching twenty percent of GDP where once is was less than five. Wouldn't that be large factor in costs? And doesn't that seem a tad less than necessary?

Re: Money Won’t Buy You Health Insurance

#58

Post by DougBTX »

marshray wrote: post #47
Groxx wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> to me, an affordable health insurance plan would be between $50-$100 a month. Fat chance of that happening. And if it did, the deductible would be so high as to make the plan worthless for anything short of a car-crash-emergency-type-situation. This fits a fair number of cost complaints I hear over healthcare. Who wouldn't like to pay $50-100/month to have something better than emergency healthcare support? But thi…

At $50-100/month, they would have to sap you for nearly a decade to make up a single surgery. How many surgeries per decade do you think typical healthy nonsmoking twenty-somethings are having?

How many decades you expect him to be a twenty-something?

Re: Money Won’t Buy You Health Insurance

#59

Post by protomyth »

SandB0x wrote: post #32

I would have died at the age of 19 if it weren't for the help of the UK's National Health Service. My parents and I didn't have to worry about hospital bills, future insurance issues, being tied to a job, any of that crap. Just get some rest, get better, go out there and be productive again. The American system looks like a horrible joke from over here. I just can't understand any of it.

Some segments do have government provided health insurance in the US, but they are horror stories aplenty (I have some personal ones that only turned out well by divine providence or an amazing series of coincidences depending on your view on such things).

The problem is the government is broke and the health care bill was so bad that many supporters already have exemptions (including a few unions that backed the bill). Worse it really didn't address the big problem of why health care costs so much. It also had unwarranted optimism on cost savings.

At some point, I hope that the government will address: tort reform, drug trial costs, cost of medical training, bulk drug purchasing, "catastrophic" government backed insurance, and better medical savings accounts. I really expect more talking heads yelling at each other first.

Re: Money Won’t Buy You Health Insurance

#60

Post by billjings »

Groxx wrote: post #22
acabal wrote: post #2

This really highlights how utterly insane our system is. I'm living off of my own business, which means that I don't have an employer to cover me under group insurance. But I really only make enough to live frugally and save a tiny amount each month--to me, an affordable health insurance plan would be between $50-$100 a month. Fat chance of that happening. And if it did, the deductible would be so high as to make the…

> to me, an affordable health insurance plan would be between $50-$100 a month. Fat chance of that happening. And if it did, the deductible would be so high as to make the plan worthless for anything short of a car-crash-emergency-type-situation. This fits a fair number of cost complaints I hear over healthcare. Who wouldn't like to pay $50-100/month to have something better than emergency healthcare support? But thi…

We are way, way above the amount of money health care should cost.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:International_Comparison_-...

So as a matter of priority versus other spending outlays, we're way out of line.

Here's per capita GDP: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=per+capita+GDP

Spitballing from these numbers, it looks like we spend about as much in absolute terms as Switzerland, with everyone else way, way far behind.

Here's another interesting graph, since I seem to be on a roll here:

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/16/medicare-and-med...

The degree to which our government is in the red is in no small part a result of the degree to which we're invested in the health care money pit.

The amount of money that is going to health care should blow your mind. People go bankrupt every day due to health care expenses, and even if you don't go bankrupt your tax dollars are supporting this nonsense.

I was talking to a gentleman the other day who works for a medical hardware company. He said they had a radiation treatment device that costs one hundred million dollars. A tenth of a billion dollars for one machine! "Jeez," I said, "How long does it take to pay off such a thing?"

About a year.

There is, of course, a debate on how to fix health care. Is there really a debate on whether it's broken?

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