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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

#171

Post by nostrademons »

MaysonL wrote: post #115
Lewisham wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing to do, is if your health care is paid for by taxes (like the NHS), is for taxes to be levied proportionately on the higher-risk things that will hospitalize you. The UK already has sky-high taxation on tobacco. I rather like the idea of the Fat Tax as well. Placing a tax on fat content would increase the proportion of earnings used for the NHS by those who would use it the most. It would also provide a disi…

Fat content has virtually nothing to do with obesity. I get 20-30% of my calories from fat (mainly butter and cheese), weigh about 155 lb., 6-1, lipid levels good.

You could tax calories instead. Calories in - calories out seems to be a pretty good proxy for weight gain. And I bet I wouldn't drink quite so much soda if it couldn't be had for 75c per 2-liter bottle.

Re: Money Won’t Buy You Health Insurance

#172

Post by billjings »

Groxx wrote: post #121
cwp wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's not. I pay $120/month for a family of three, and get pretty good care for it. I know that smug Canadians are a cliche in any discussion of health care, but we are an existence proof that acabal's expectations are totally reasonable.

How much of that is subsidized by your taxes? That counts towards the final cost. Spreading it out doesn't make it less real. edit: answered for you: > In 2009, the government funded about 70% of Canadians' health care costs. > Per capita expenditure in 2009: 3,895 $227 per month, per person, comes from the government, which gets its funding from your taxes. So you're paying $801/month for that plan (three people). S…

Two points - one, is that odds are he's not paying $807/mo out of his taxes due to a progressive income tax. He's probably paying a good portion out of his taxes, but not $807/mo.

Point two - and this isn't a rebuttal of any kind against your claims, just an observation - that same graph shows that Canada spends a lower portion of government revenue on health care than we do. And we don't even have universal coverage!

Re: Money Won’t Buy You Health Insurance

#173

Post by hartror »

rdouble wrote: post #148
hartror wrote: post #129

I might be living in a socialist paradise (Australia) or some thing but my last visit to the doctor (broken toe) was free. I am truly horrified by the state of the US health system, sure Australia's might be a bit messed up at times but it is so much better than what Americans have to deal with. Move your startup to Australia! Seriously, cheap/free heathcare for minor->medium problems (the bad stuff is still going to…

There's no visa that will let you do this. Australia has a points based immigration system. If you're younger than 25 and have an engineering degree you just barely have enough points to get a self-sponsored work visa. If you're older than 25 it's impossible to get enough points and you have to work for someone else (or marry an Australian). I'd love to be wrong about this, corrections are welcome.

That is sad, given our current prosperity it would be great if we could leverage it to bring super talented entrepreneurs here to start more great businesses.

Re: Money Won’t Buy You Health Insurance

#174

Post by maguay »

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…

Thank you, thank you, thank you. Someone needed to say it!

And the funny thing is, Singapore and Japan both are rather well-off nations, not much different wage and price wise than the US. Biggest difference is medical cost...

Re: Money Won’t Buy You Health Insurance

#175

Post by potatolicious »

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…

> "($324.58 per month). Far in excess of $50-$100."

Invisible cost: Medicare/medicaid. You pay into it regardless of whether or not you use it - how much medicare/medicaid withholdings are in your paycheck?

Add that onto your actual private monthly premiums to get the real cost of health care.

I don't know about you, but mine works out to be considerably more expensive than $325 a month. And in the Canadian case I can be a bit happier knowing that everyone is covered.

Re: Money Won’t Buy You Health Insurance

#176

Post by SkyMarshal »

muhfuhkuh wrote: post #159
andrewflnr wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well neither is sustainable, so neither is a solution.

I generally trust a self-correcting free market over a government bureaucracy to solve such problems, but in this case it seems the fundamental problem is that there just isn't enough margin for for-profit insurance companies to prosper without turning the screws on either doctors & staff, patients, and/or taxpayers.

Re: Money Won’t Buy You Health Insurance

#177

Post by krschultz »

kgrin wrote: post #24
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've said it before and I'll say it again - the MA health care law ("RomneyCare", which is functionally very similar to "ObamaCare") is really what let me start a startup - the money wasn't the issue, but the ability to get an individual policy at a reasonable (not at all subsidized, just group-negotiated) rate was.

Good point, Boston is very high on my list of places to move for the startup scene (I currently live in eastern CT, previously worked in NYC, so I'm closer to Boston than SF.)

Re: Money Won’t Buy You Health Insurance

#178

Post by DougBTX »

hoprocker wrote: post #82
DougBTX wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

How many decades do you expect there to be twenty-somethings, period? (Isn't this also the operating principle behind social security?)

Isn't this also the operating principle behind social security?

Perhaps I'm mistaken, but I thought that the reason his age was brought up was to justify giving him a lower premium. The principle behind social security (or at least the variation where I live) is that everyone pays, and everyone gets healthcare. His age and his health don't come into it.

Re: Money Won’t Buy You Health Insurance

#179

Post by GFischer »

So, people in the U.S. are billed an astronomical sum for a MRI, even with insurance?

The most expensive MRI bill for someone in the "mutualism" system here in Uruguay is U$ 100.

I tried to explain the Uruguayan "mutualist" socialist health system here:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1627862

"Mutual organisations do not have external shareholders - they are controlled by their members. Members may be users of the mutual, employees, other stakeholders or a combination of these Mutual organisations are either owned by and run in the interests of existing members, as is the case in building societies, cooperatives and friendly societies, or, as in many public services, owned on behalf of the wider community and run in the interests of the wider community"

A HN member compared them to credit unions, I think it's a valid analogy.

The mutualist system is always near bankruptcy and is perfectible (and the government is always meddling), but it doesn't bankrupt it's users and it kind of works (life expectancy here in Uruguay is the same as in the U.S.).

Edit - funnily, it seems it's very similar to the Japanese case (and MRI's cost U$ 98 there too):

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2247969

Re: Money Won’t Buy You Health Insurance

#180

Post by krschultz »

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…

Have you actually tried getting a big claim paid by them. My GF is currently embroiled in a dispute with United Healthcare over a temporary insurance plan she bought to cover the gap between graduating college and when her full time position started covering her (wouldn't it have been great if the new healthcare law was in effect at the time and she could have stayed on her parents insurance). Anyway, she had a hospital visit for $3k and United Healthcare is denying her simply because she didn't stay overnight. We thought we had insurance, but as soon as push came to shove it really doesn't mean anything if you are an individual buyer because they will just screw you over and theres no reason not to.
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