Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Money Won’t Buy You Health Insurance

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 442 posts

Re: Money Won’t Buy You Health Insurance

#131

Post by dgabriel »

georgieporgie wrote: post #84

I'm 35, single, and paying something like $120 per month for Blue Cross coverage that I found on ehealthinsurance. I've used them each time I've not been actively employed, and I've always found an acceptable deal. Mind you, I took the high deductible route since I'm only concerned with catastrophic illness at right now. Also, the moment anything serious comes up, they can cleverly drop me, since they have ludicrous…

What's the point of catastrophic insurance if they can drop you when you need it? It seems like you're paying for nothing.

Re: Money Won’t Buy You Health Insurance

#132

Post by _delirium »

jrockway wrote: post #111
old-gregg wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doctors and nurses and supporting staff must exist I got a $800 bill for 10 minutes doctor visit (swollen toe). Not exaggerating a tiny bit. No insurance company involved. "Must exist" is not an argument. Something is broken in the system where a doctor charges you $4,800 per hour. Insurance companies, obesity, poor lifestyle choices (all usual BS reasons I hear on TV) do not explain why this particular ####le charge…

You went to the wrong doctor. When I get my bills for office visits, the rate is something like $300 on average (including lab tests). My insurance company then negotiates that down to something like $75, and then I pay the $10 co-pay. Now, all these numbers could be made up, but $300 seems about right for a doctor's visit when you consider how expensive it is to run a medical practice. It's not something I'd want to…

It's very difficult to price-shop, though, because unlike in most normal businesses, nobody seems to publish price lists, and they aren't very forthcoming giving quotes over the phone, either. So it's not too uncommon to end up with something absurd more or less by chance, especially if it's urgent to see a doctor.

Unless I've totally missed it, there's certainly no hipmunk for medicine, where I can put in that I want X service, and get a list of doctors and prices within a 50-mile radius.

Re: Money Won’t Buy You Health Insurance

#133

Post by muhfuhkuh »

Groxx wrote: post #117
muhfuhkuh wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Japan forces their doctors to charge only what's published in a book that the government issues and negotiates prices periodically. Simple price fixing in an otherwise private healthcare market. In return, Japanese doctors and hospitals (FYI, there are more private hospitals in Japan than the US) are allowed to set whatever prices for ancillary services (like private or semi-private rooms) that they want. BTW, the av…

That's an interesting way to do things, didn't know Japan did that. Thanks for the info! How much do things like emergency services cost? Do they fall under ancillary or not? Anything that's nigh-essential that does? Know if the hospitals are supported by the government, and how much taxes it takes?

For most insurance, patients pay 30% copay maximum for any procedure (emergency or standard), but the minimum monthly payment (yes, it's not due all at once, which I think should also be legislated here in the States) is capped according to income.

Hospitals are private, and both they and doctors negotiate every two years to set prices for everything from MRIs to stitches. The insurance industry is also private, but they have a public-run insurer for Japanese poor. AFAIK, taxes are taken just for the public-run insurance, to which only a small percentage of Japanese apply, but for private insurance (which the rest are mandated to have), it's paid through premiums per month, which is on average about $250/mo per family (and employers pay for almost all of that).

Re: Money Won’t Buy You Health Insurance

#134

Post by stellar678 »

georgieporgie wrote: post #84

I'm 35, single, and paying something like $120 per month for Blue Cross coverage that I found on ehealthinsurance. I've used them each time I've not been actively employed, and I've always found an acceptable deal. Mind you, I took the high deductible route since I'm only concerned with catastrophic illness at right now. Also, the moment anything serious comes up, they can cleverly drop me, since they have ludicrous…

Even most newborns were presumably born in a hospital. Guess that's a pre-existing condition too.

Re: Money Won’t Buy You Health Insurance

#136

Post by helmut_hed »

sportsTAKES wrote: post #77

I find it absolutely impossible to believe that her coverage was denied for the reasons she described - I have been approved for and paid for my own insurance for years (including my family's insurance) with medical issues far more serious than those. I concede that the system is totally messed up and the new health care bill makes it even worse. Employers shouldn't be required to provide health benefits - eliminate…

Your success in getting private health insurance may be due to the fact that you have "been approved for and paid for my own insurance for years". Bear in mind that the OP had group health insurance through her employer, and then tried to get private health insurance. I had much the same experience with minor things from the time I had group insurance being considered "pre-existing conditions" and justifying a denial of coverage.

After many long hours of paperwork and going through the appeal process (including getting letters from doctors certifying that my minor ailments were unlikely to require expensive surgery) I now have private health insurance. I never would have imagined it would be this hard.

Re: Money Won’t Buy You Health Insurance

#137

Post by gthank »

Groxx wrote: post #119
rdouble wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something is broken in the system where a doctor charges you $4,800 per hour That's about right. A few years ago, I thought I had food poisoning and 40 uninsured minutes in the ER set me back $3800. But I was "lucky." I've had friends who were in bicycle accidents and ended up with $13,000 and $37,000 hospital bills.

ER bills are absolutely insane. It's not hard to break a few dozen thousand dollars in almost no time for almost no treatment. It strikes me as opportunistic preying.

The way it works is they bill outrageous amounts in the expectation that they will either be totally stiffed or have to negotiate a much lower settlement (which is essentially what insurance companies do, AFAIK). In the rare case where somebody actually pays the full bill, they're subsidizing care for those who walk out on the bill (or part of it). This strikes me as an extremely broken way of doing things, but it seems to be the norm, so maybe it's a really, really bad Nash equilibrium.

Re: Money Won’t Buy You Health Insurance

#138

Post by ajays »

The irony is: the same Congresscritters who vote against universal health insurance get top-notch health insurance paid for by taxpayers: http://www.suite101.com/content/health-care-for-the-us-congr...

After 5 years of service, they get lifetime health insurance, the same as all federal employees and retirees:http://www.opm.gov/insure/retirees/index.asp?MainQuestionId=...

Re: Money Won’t Buy You Health Insurance

#139

Post by ChristianMarks »

I couldn't get surgery approved on my employer's health insurance. I eventually decided not to let that stop me from changing jobs and doing what I wanted to do, despite not being able to afford surgery out of pocket and despite an inferior choice of health insurance plans. I suppose I could emigrate to England if all else fails. I can do this as my mother was a British citizen otherwise than by descent, though it is an involved process.

The present system is designed to impose a huge negative externality on would-be entrepreneurs and others who might have left their jobs to pursue other opportunities. And you are subsidizing the profits of the industries that benefit from the relative immobility of labor. That negative externality you pay is someone else's subsidy. If it were up to me, I'd rather pay into a universal health care system than pay the negative externality to stay tied to an employer on account of health care coverage.

Another negative externality is the administrative burden imposed on companies to handle employee health care.

Re: Money Won’t Buy You Health Insurance

#140

Post by ajays »

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.…

+1

If the Republicans are serious about an economic recovery and want startups to flourish, then universal healthcare is a cornerstone of such an effort. I know of other people too who are afraid of leaving their (big-company) positions because they have a wife + young kids, and lack of health insurance terrifies them.

Post reply on HN