61–70 of 91 posts
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I'm in pretty much the same situation, and it's absurd and also should be obvious.
Ditto here. About to run out of COBRA, working fulltime as a freelancer, and unable to get coverage because of chronic conditions.
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You beat me to it! (For those who don't know, the PPACA is sometimes called "Obamacare" although it should be noted that the name is more a result of political maneuvering than the result of particularly close affiliation with Obama.) I still think we should go all the way to single-payer. Other countries have had such success with this model that it's becoming very difficult to argue that it's inherently flawed (rat…
> Other countries have had such success with this model that it's becoming very difficult to argue that it's inherently flawed ... The British NHS discovered that by not feeding hospitalized patients they could realize tremendous savings in food, shortened length of hospital stay, followup costs, etc. > half the price per person Health care spending will dramatically increase under Obamacare. Americans spend a lot on…
I have nothing against defense contractors, but I do hate ones that have hypocritical small government, conservative political views. Please feel free to put your money where your mouth is and go work in a free market industry. The taxpayers pay your company, and therefore your salary and health insurance.
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> The British NHS discovered that by not feeding hospitalized patients they could realize tremendous savings in food, shortened length of hospital stay, followup costs, etc. That's a lie. Try checking your facts next time: http://fullfact.org/factchecks/nhs_malnutrition_death-28806 Oh, and by the way, the NHS costs us less than US public healthcare costs. Meanwhile, I can get zero deduction, all additions, money for…
The story was covered extensively by bloggers over 5 years ago, and appeared in the press periodically since. Basically, the local NHS trusts fired a lot of hospital staff to save money. They replaced them with service contractors. So instead of a trained nurse feeding helpless patients, a gormless food deliverer drops a tray off at the patient and leaves. On paper they are still being fed, but in reality patients we…
I know that they had some problems with some NHS trusts as they went more "efficient private sector", mainly with cleanliness, but this was not pervasive throughout the NHS and suggesting it was commonplace is a flat out lie.
The larger the employer, the better the deal they can work out with the insurance provider for their employees. This is definitely one of the reasons why jobs with IBM or UBS, say, are more desirable to most folks than the assured struggle called entrepreneurship.
Profits are possibly maximized but value provided to customers and society is destroyed. I think this is pretty much reflected in the roughly 2x per capita costs for private healthcare in the US vs costs for universal care in many other first world nations.
Anecdotally, when we started hiring for Matasano, availability of health insurance was the #1 concern we heard from candidates. It even beat salary. Also: I almost didn't get to do Matasano, because private health insurance refused to cover my wife and my daughter.
Imagine if your house and car and food were all paid for by your employer. And with a tax subsidy that makes it seem cheaper to do it that way than pay for these things on your own. Yes, leaving an employer would be a complicated choice.
I'm also not convinced employer insurance is the deal people think it is. When I left my last full time job and continued the insurance using COBRA, it cost me $400 a month. I think you wind up subsidizing everyone having a baby or that do have major health problems.
I'm in my late forties and have a high deductible policy that only cost me $150 a month before Obamacare made it go up to $260. I don't see it as much of an impediment, even now. People can spend more on coffee.
Granted, if you have poor health or a family, this can cost quite a bit more. But these things by themselves can often be a greater barrier to entrepreneurship than the cost of insurance.
I am from France and moved to the US over five years ago. I have been altering between working for an employer and taking time off to work on my projects. Within the first 2 years, I realized how cumbersome it was to switch healthcare and be covered between jobs, so I signed up for a private healthcare at once. I chose to have a low general coverage but a good one for accidents, I pay $20-40 for a doctor visit, nothi…
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> The British NHS discovered that by not feeding hospitalized patients they could realize tremendous savings in food, shortened length of hospital stay, followup costs, etc. That's a lie. Try checking your facts next time: http://fullfact.org/factchecks/nhs_malnutrition_death-28806 Oh, and by the way, the NHS costs us less than US public healthcare costs. Meanwhile, I can get zero deduction, all additions, money for…
The story was covered extensively by bloggers over 5 years ago, and appeared in the press periodically since. Basically, the local NHS trusts fired a lot of hospital staff to save money. They replaced them with service contractors. So instead of a trained nurse feeding helpless patients, a gormless food deliverer drops a tray off at the patient and leaves. On paper they are still being fed, but in reality patients we…
When looking at whole system costs and value delivery, it's really difficult to conclude that the American healthcare system is anywhere near as efficient as other national universal health care systems.
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That sounds interesting. Can you explain more about the bubble angle?
Government officials find something popular, promise unlimited amounts of it to get votes, then create a program to deliver it with total disregard for economic consequences. Last decade they bought votes with easy mortgages. After all, even an idiot could see that home ownership was a sound investment. They won two or three rounds of elections with mortgage policy. This decade it is health care for all! Even an idio…
[1] About 80% of Americans who died in 1997 were covered by Medicare at the time of death: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1282187/
Yes. It's a hindrance to most life paths that don't involve full-time employment. As someone with a chronic auto-immune condition I'm effectively tethered to an employer or a spouse if I want health coverage. Should I choose pursue an art as my vocation or start a company I'd have to be willing to endure a lag in my insurance until whatever I was pursuing became successful enough that I was eligible to be covered by…
I've read in /r/paleo that some have managed to improve auto-immune conditions through a modified paleo diet: http://paleospirit.com/2013/what-is-the-autoimmune-paleo-pro...
Anyway, good luck. Hopefully someday our society views health care as infrastructure rather than entitlement, and persons in your situation can start a business without fear.