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New health insurance “transparency data” looks suspiciously wrong

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Re: New health insurance “transparency data” looks suspiciously wrong

#61

Post by lostlogin »

xupybd wrote: post #45
maxwell wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And why federal governments make the best health insurance carriers. Brokers, medical billing staff, and other middlemen serve no purpose other than increasing cost (in order for an inefficient, openly colluding private cabal to invest premiums, deny claims, and collect profit) because everybody needs access to medical treatment.

I live with free healthcare. The last three trips to the emergency department have been over eight hour waits. My father's cancer treatment was not covered so the last year of his life cost him everything. On the other side my child's healthcare is amazing and all free. We get instant access to great services.

I have both, and the wait at the paid clinic is long, as is the wait at the free clinic.

It’s not whether the cost is socialised or not that decides how long the wait will be.

It also doesn’t help that the private system is incentivised to undermine the ‘free’ system at every turn.

Re: New health insurance “transparency data” looks suspiciously wrong

#62

Post by fellowniusmonk »

xupybd wrote: post #45
maxwell wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And why federal governments make the best health insurance carriers. Brokers, medical billing staff, and other middlemen serve no purpose other than increasing cost (in order for an inefficient, openly colluding private cabal to invest premiums, deny claims, and collect profit) because everybody needs access to medical treatment.

I live with free healthcare. The last three trips to the emergency department have been over eight hour waits. My father's cancer treatment was not covered so the last year of his life cost him everything. On the other side my child's healthcare is amazing and all free. We get instant access to great services.

I think another component to the equation in wait times is also doctors per capita and GDP per capita.

It's hard to compare apples to oranges but with high doctors per capita, low wait times for speciality services, long lived citizens and a far lower percentage of GDP spent on health, I wonder if there are any serious holes to poke in Italy's system when compared to the U.S. or if they simply just beat us on every metric.

https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org//sites/242e3c8c-en/1/3/2/index...

Re: New health insurance “transparency data” looks suspiciously wrong

#63

Post by ecommerceguy »

xupybd wrote: post #45
maxwell wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And why federal governments make the best health insurance carriers. Brokers, medical billing staff, and other middlemen serve no purpose other than increasing cost (in order for an inefficient, openly colluding private cabal to invest premiums, deny claims, and collect profit) because everybody needs access to medical treatment.

I live with free healthcare. The last three trips to the emergency department have been over eight hour waits. My father's cancer treatment was not covered so the last year of his life cost him everything. On the other side my child's healthcare is amazing and all free. We get instant access to great services.

I just had kidney stones, while extremely painful not very high on the er totem pole. Got in, got a bed, IV all within 10 minutes of walking in. There's at least 30 hospitals in my metro and hundreds of urgent cares.

$1500 on my HSA plan, which btw right now is returning 4.6% in a money market. How awesome is that?

Great deal. Worst pain ever.

Re: New health insurance “transparency data” looks suspiciously wrong

#64

Post by pessimizer »

maxwell wrote: post #31
JPws_Prntr_Fngr wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> seems like it's just insurance companies that can weaponize this data for better rates. That’s because their negotiating power is mainly due to the size of their buying power, not special knowledge or skills. Health “insurance” is basically the lamest, most economically perverted form of collective bargaining ever.

And why federal governments make the best health insurance carriers. Brokers, medical billing staff, and other middlemen serve no purpose other than increasing cost (in order for an inefficient, openly colluding private cabal to invest premiums, deny claims, and collect profit) because everybody needs access to medical treatment.

Insuring massive populations isn't really insurance because of large numbers (there's no risk involved.) It's just an economic rent. It's a poker game where most of the players are cooperating.

Re: New health insurance “transparency data” looks suspiciously wrong

#65

Post by BoorishBears »

eftychis wrote: post #48
Alupis wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Imagine a world where Yes, and let's also imagine all of the existing single-payer systems (de facto or otherwise) work as advertised and didn't have elites-with-means flee to other nations for quality care. Let's also imagine these systems provide stellar quality care and more importantly, timely care. We can daydream all we want - but the reality isn't so obvious or absolute. For those who are really in the know.…

My personal experience as a European citizen living in the U.S. is drastically different. I flee the U.S. to have all my medical related tests and work, out of pocket, in the E.U. And it is cheaper and much much better experience. (And I don't get different treatment compared to any members of my family that are insured in Europe for paying out of pocket.) First of all: I speak with a doctor. Not a nurse, an administ…

Not a solution for everyone... but I have to ask, since you have the time to go to the EU for routine medical work, why not move to somewhere in the US that has doctors?

Also looking at a primary care wait time is fine, but what is broken in most single player systems is specialists and "non-emergency surgery"... which is often stuff that significantly affects your quality of life.

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/health-ca...

(the colors represent a primary care, but actually hover over each country...)

-

I ruptured a ligament in my knee and since it wasn't a traumatic injury, the surgery to repair it was considered a non-emergency and I was sent home from the ER.

My uncle is an orthopedic surgeon in Norway and was shocked to hear I was already scheduled for surgery to repair within a week. He said in Norway that would easily have been a month or two wait, which is alarming to me.

At the end of the day the US system is broken, but I think this illusion that single player is some strictly better concept that the US is just rejecting is also wrong. Care is noticeably worse in many EU countries when you look past the singular measure of "Time to see your primary care"

Re: New health insurance “transparency data” looks suspiciously wrong

#66

Post by christophilus »

xupybd wrote: post #45
maxwell wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And why federal governments make the best health insurance carriers. Brokers, medical billing staff, and other middlemen serve no purpose other than increasing cost (in order for an inefficient, openly colluding private cabal to invest premiums, deny claims, and collect profit) because everybody needs access to medical treatment.

I live with free healthcare. The last three trips to the emergency department have been over eight hour waits. My father's cancer treatment was not covered so the last year of his life cost him everything. On the other side my child's healthcare is amazing and all free. We get instant access to great services.

I live with private healthcare. The last few trips to the ER have been 8 hour waits, too. This is an under capacity thing. I live in a place that has boomed, and the mismanaged hospital hasn’t remotely kept up. They fired a bunch of folks during COVID, then shocked pikachu found themselves understaffed.

The point is, the entire thing is broken nearly everywhere you look. I don’t know what a better alternative is, but we sure need one.

Re: New health insurance “transparency data” looks suspiciously wrong

#67

Post by bhawks »

pessimizer wrote: post #64
maxwell wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And why federal governments make the best health insurance carriers. Brokers, medical billing staff, and other middlemen serve no purpose other than increasing cost (in order for an inefficient, openly colluding private cabal to invest premiums, deny claims, and collect profit) because everybody needs access to medical treatment.

Insuring massive populations isn't really insurance because of large numbers (there's no risk involved.) It's just an economic rent. It's a poker game where most of the players are cooperating.

Senior / elderly care can be enormously expensive. Especially towards end of life. I could agree with you if the population was all teen to 45 year olds but that is not realistic.

The same dynamics play out with pension schemes. Declining birth rates play havoc with proposals that rely on a large, young employed base who's work supports a small, retired set of pensioners.

My own perspective is that healthcare is extremely limited on the provider side. Professional organizations have been limiting the supply of doctors / doctor equivalents for decades. Not to minimize the work a family medicine or general practitioner puts in, but many important health services/early interventiona can be safely and reliably provided by a nurse practitioner or physicians assistant (what a horrible name) on a much larger and affordable scale then exists today.

Re: New health insurance “transparency data” looks suspiciously wrong

#68

Post by aintgonnatakeit »

civilized wrote: post #34
aintgonnatakeit wrote: post #10

There are two problems here: 1) Hanlon’s razor 2) The author doesn’t understand health insurance data. I’m not trying to excuse the other bad behavior, but within the data itself, he’s experiencing a combination of health insurers’ incompetence, the kludged up data models they’ve had to build to represent the output of the multiple generations of claims processing systems and other administrative processes, and the g…

The point of the author's exercise is to see if the requirement of public transparency enacted by Congress actually means anything. If the meaning of these prices is only decipherable by an elite priesthood that is too busy to work on the problem, there is no real public transparency.

I agree with you. It is a failure on multiple fronts.

Re: New health insurance “transparency data” looks suspiciously wrong

#69

Post by chrisweekly »

christophilus wrote: post #66
xupybd wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live with free healthcare. The last three trips to the emergency department have been over eight hour waits. My father's cancer treatment was not covered so the last year of his life cost him everything. On the other side my child's healthcare is amazing and all free. We get instant access to great services.

I live with private healthcare. The last few trips to the ER have been 8 hour waits, too. This is an under capacity thing. I live in a place that has boomed, and the mismanaged hospital hasn’t remotely kept up. They fired a bunch of folks during COVID, then shocked pikachu found themselves understaffed. The point is, the entire thing is broken nearly everywhere you look. I don’t know what a better alternative is, but…

My visit to the Mass General ER in 2012 involved waiting 25 hours for a ready room.

Re: New health insurance “transparency data” looks suspiciously wrong

#70

Post by dsfyu404ed »

pessimizer wrote: post #64
maxwell wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And why federal governments make the best health insurance carriers. Brokers, medical billing staff, and other middlemen serve no purpose other than increasing cost (in order for an inefficient, openly colluding private cabal to invest premiums, deny claims, and collect profit) because everybody needs access to medical treatment.

Insuring massive populations isn't really insurance because of large numbers (there's no risk involved.) It's just an economic rent. It's a poker game where most of the players are cooperating.

Insuring populations that are too small/niche/finite or over which you have too much information and ability to price discriminate (i.e. charge them exactly the cost of insuring them) isn't insurance either.

It's a perverted cross between escrow and welfare in which the population basically pays their own way in the long run plus supports all the people who make their living by being "administrative overhead" along the way.

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