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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

#241

Post by RK »

DanI-S wrote: post #107
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 moved to the US from the UK over a year ago and I can't find words to describe the feeling of not having the NHS to rely on. This whole new world of potential disaster has opened up. It's something you've never had to think about before that is now at the forefront of your consciousness. You can be young, fit and healthy, but get hit by a car and your life is over. Once you're bankrupted by medical fees, you'll nev…

Just out of curiosity, does your NHS insurance cover you while you're in the US?

Re: Money Won’t Buy You Health Insurance

#242

Post by joe_the_user »

mattjaynes wrote: post #226
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…

"instead of doing anything serious about it, we've done almost the worst possible option: require every one of us to be a customer of these monstrous companies, with little regulation on cost or other government oversight" This is a common misunderstanding of the economics of this situation. The principle involved here is "Adverse Selection". To illustrate, let's look at automobile liability insurance. The reason thi…

Argumentum ad nauseum is getting too common here.

All that space for a fallacious argument.

1) Do you really think only sick people want health insurance? 2) Not everyone has to buy car insurance. Only people who drive. High rates will force people not to drive. There's nothing people can do against high mandatory health insurance premiums. 3) We've tried incentivizing people to be healthier seven ways from Sunday but somehow they getting sick. So, like Bullwinkle said to Rocky, "this time fur-sure".

-- The beatings will continue until morale improves.

Re: Money Won’t Buy You Health Insurance

#243

Post by Groxx »

jbri wrote: post #221
Groxx wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Corporate taxes come out of paychecks. Unless all that is refunded if that's their income, then they're still paying something for it in addition to their direct monthly bill. It can be carried further: money they get refunded comes out of other areas' funding, as the difference gets made up somehow. Their property taxes go up, the cost of food goes up because others are carrying a heavier burden, jobs across the boa…

And breaking a window stimulates the economy because it means the window-fitter gets more business.

I don't see how it's possible to have a cost of less than $50-100/month for healthcare. And all forms of cost have to be accounted for - direct + taxes being by far the easiest to measure, but when people start claiming that it "costs nothing" they're ignoring the bigger picture of the economy as a whole. Especially when $60k/year is your bottom margin - that includes a lot of people => a lot of drain on the rest if it doesn't come from them.

Nice reply, btw :)

Re: Money Won’t Buy You Health Insurance

#244

Post by kgrin »

maguay wrote: post #236
kgrin wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Amazing. I just looked over MA's health care info, and it's much more affordable (and covers much more) than the average insurance plan in other states. Congress, THIS is what we need for all of America (or something that's at least that level of coverage for that price...)

The beauty of large groups negotiating!

That said, that's roughly what the ACA ("ObamaCare") will likely end up with, if it doesn't get derailed, except that it'll take a few years to get there because 50 states is more complicated than one.

Actually, it could scale reasonably well, but for political reasons wasn't set up that way. So instead, each state will set up its own exchange; I suspect some will be MA-quality, some will be better, some will be poorer.

Re: Money Won’t Buy You Health Insurance

#245

Post by rprasad »

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…

Funny. I have plenty of family and friends in the medical field (doctors, nurses, and hospital administrators), and I have yet to find one who believes the health care bill is a bad idea. In fact, most of them agree that its long overdue.

You know what they love most about the bill? It would prevent insurers from dropping coverage. Insurer-instigated billing disputes are the biggest obstacles to health service provider getting paid.

Also, allowing insurance companies to sell across state lines without adhering to the laws of the states in which they are selling coverage violates states rights to control insurance coverage within the state. Insurers can already sell across state lines; the only impediment is that they adhere to the laws of each state.

Re: Money Won’t Buy You Health Insurance

#246

Post by mikebike »

tptacek wrote: post #200
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…

This is basically a recap of the Japan segment of the Frontline special "Sick Around The World", which you can watch online at: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sickaroundtheworld/ . The Japanese system is not without its problems. More importantly, the "price fixing" approach to health insurance simply isn't going to happen in the US. What parts of it do you think we really can adopt? Because nobody is going…

Isn't price fixing is done for U.S. Medicare payments to doctors, hence the constant wailing over the "doc fix" issue?

I can imagine a scenario where the age for Medicare was lowered slowly over time to cover more and more people. (Unlikely, but not beyond the realm of possibility).

Re: Money Won’t Buy You Health Insurance

#247

Post by mikebike »

pessimizer wrote: post #215
mikebike wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I had a bad asthma attack while uninsured and got hit with a bill that took me 7 years to pay off.

Yipe! Were you able to negotiate the bill down at all when working out a payment plan, or did the hospital end up charging you the full amount?

Re: Money Won’t Buy You Health Insurance

#248

Post by jbri »

Groxx wrote: post #243
jbri wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And breaking a window stimulates the economy because it means the window-fitter gets more business.

I don't see how it's possible to have a cost of less than $50-100/month for healthcare. And all forms of cost have to be accounted for - direct + taxes being by far the easiest to measure, but when people start claiming that it "costs nothing" they're ignoring the bigger picture of the economy as a whole. Especially when $60k/year is your bottom margin - that includes a lot of people => a lot of drain on the rest if…

The issue, I think, is that government spending is really in a different boat to private expenditure when it comes to the effect on the economy. Trying to model it as "you spend $X in taxes to pay for that healthcare" is a drastic oversimplification.

If you instead look at all government spending as economic stimulus, and all taxation as a factor in inflation management, you get quite a different picture.

Re: Money Won’t Buy You Health Insurance

#249

Post by klenwell »

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.

Been in this situation. Asked myself this question.

You're basically paying for the privilege, in the event of a large medical expense, to say, "Don't blame me, I paid for the insurance."

It will make no practical difference, as some of the follow-up comments have already suggested. You're just spared the indignity of those ignorant of the realities of the American health care market (or, worse, fully conscious of them), asking: "Why didn't you buy insurance? There's this website/company I see advertised on cable news all the time where you could have gotten a really reasonable deal. So you've got no one to blame but yourself."

Re: Money Won’t Buy You Health Insurance

#250

Post by hoprocker »

Groxx wrote: post #203
Vivtek wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The takeaway - you're actually paying for what should be your healthcare in your taxes as an American, but you're not actually getting the healthcare, because that would be socialism.

> that would be socialism. That is a massively incorrect statement, which pops up every time government-mandated healthcare debates appear, which I wish to squash ASAP: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism Universal healthcare != socialism. Not even remotely . It's a political mud-slinging attempt to equate healthcare changes with the historical fear of the USSR that seems to have infected far more people than it s…

Oh yeah -- the fear-mongering against "Obamacare" has definitely pulled heavily from imagery surrounding breadlines and gulags. But I imagine vivtek's comment was a sarcastic jab at the acceptance of pouring money into the health care industry w/o getting a commensurate benefit out of it. (Correct me if I'm wrong.)
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