Money Won’t Buy You Health Insurance • Hacker News Board

Re: Money Won’t Buy You Health Insurance

#151

Post by sammcd » Tue, Feb 22, 2011, 1:01 AM UTC

MoreMoschops wrote: post #23

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…

If the insurance company suspects that you've done something like this, they will wait until you need to claim (so they can take in the premiums) and then deny a payout on the basis that you formed a company purely to get round having been denied insurance. Every day, insurance companies look for ways to deny payouts, and they've thought of this one.

In no way did I say make a fake company. You'd have to start a real company to do this.

Re: Money Won’t Buy You Health Insurance

#152

Post by sammcd » Tue, Feb 22, 2011, 1:02 AM UTC

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.

I work at a company with a 2 person group and it fared much better than an individual plan.

Re: Money Won’t Buy You Health Insurance

#153

Post by andrewflnr » Tue, Feb 22, 2011, 1:04 AM UTC

muhfuhkuh wrote: post #110

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…

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…

Japan's hospitals are going into debt because they can't charge what things cost. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sickaroundtheworld/c...

Re: Money Won’t Buy You Health Insurance

#154

Post by anonymous246 » Tue, Feb 22, 2011, 1:05 AM UTC

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…

Doctors and hospitals bill you more if you're uninsured. TFA mentions this as one of the reasons to get a high-deductible plan in which you will be paying most of the cost out of pocket.

Re: Money Won’t Buy You Health Insurance

#155

Post by Groxx » Tue, Feb 22, 2011, 1:07 AM UTC

joe_the_user wrote: post #57

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…

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?

Part of the rapid and sustained rise in costs comes from that a) more things are being treated that existed before but got no treatment, and b) more availability of new drugs, because we're now able to create ones which were impossible / inconceivable back when costs were 5%.

Would you rather go back to colloidal silver someone sold you as a wonder-drug out of the back of their wagon? Or use the significantly more tested drugs the (fairly problematic and corrupt) FDA lets through? Antidepression drugs, for all their overprescribing (IMO, that's a debate for elsewhere), didn't exist before, and psychotherapy was largely viewed as in the realm of quackery and going to one was considered shameful (still is, but not as much).

Not that it accounts for all of the change. Or even a large portion. Just that the rise isn't entirely due to waste.

Re: Money Won’t Buy You Health Insurance

#156

Post by georgieporgie » Tue, Feb 22, 2011, 1:07 AM UTC

dgabriel wrote: post #131

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.

It's a gamble. I imagine that the risk of being dropped is directly proportional to the amount of attention I garner. Break a leg? Probably not a big deal. Get cancer? Better look out.

Re: Money Won’t Buy You Health Insurance

#157

Post by mikebike » Tue, Feb 22, 2011, 1:09 AM UTC

mrkurt wrote: post #106

> The difference is significant: my recent M.R.I. cost $1,300 at the “retail” rate, while the rate negotiated by the insurance company was $700. The shocking thing is, if you get an MRI at a cash only diagnostics facility it can cost as little as $300.

I've never understood the meaning of the "retail" rates. How many people are there who can afford to pay these rates and also don't have health insurance?

Re: Money Won’t Buy You Health Insurance

#158

Post by hnl2sea2nrt » Tue, Feb 22, 2011, 1:10 AM UTC

I've had some luck with hacking my family's healthcare expenses in the last couple of years. I am a healthy 26 y/o with a wife and son. We were living in Seattle and healthcare was the most expensive when I was employed full-time and my wife was pregnant.

Luckily, the company nearly tanked and let me go along with my entire department. I've been a self-employed consultant since then (almost 3 years) and went without insurance for about a year just so I could afford to pay for my wife and kid.

Then I figured out some hacks. I found a startup health practice called Qliance in Seattle which Michael Dell, Jeff Bezos and Drew Carey have funded (nice article about it here: http://www.techflash.com/seattle/2010/04/jeff_bezos_michael_...).

For about $50/month each for my wife and I and $40 for my kid (total of ~$140) were able to see a doctor any time we wanted for non-emergencies without co-pays.

I can't tell you how much weight this was off my back. Staff was friendly, service was great, modern offices, experienced doctors. Couldn't have asked for more. We got a high deductible family plan along with it which added about $200 to the costs. If you are in the Seattle area and are self-employed, this is probably your best option.

The second hack was that we moved to Japan about a year ago. As others have mentioned, they have a very consumer-friendly system over here. I had a big health scare when we first moved which required lots of medication and several doctor visits, but it didn't set us back more than a couple hundred bucks.

I'm really worried about moving back to the US now. I hope things get better before we move back in a couple of years.

Re: Money Won’t Buy You Health Insurance

#159

Post by muhfuhkuh » Tue, Feb 22, 2011, 1:13 AM UTC

andrewflnr wrote: post #153

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…

Japan's hospitals are going into debt because they can't charge what things cost. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sickaroundtheworld/c...

So, the solution to that in the US is for the patients to either die or go bankrupt rather than hospitals or insurers going into debt.

Everything has a price, but that seems a little lopsided.

Re: Money Won’t Buy You Health Insurance

#160

Post by georgieporgie » Tue, Feb 22, 2011, 1:18 AM UTC

muhfuhkuh wrote: post #110

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…

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…

> FYI, there are more private hospitals in Japan than the US

Incidentally, as near as I can tell, a hospital in Japan is equivalent to a clinic or doctor's office in the US. They also seem to be open weird hours. (example http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mi31MJrRjhE)