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What Startups Need To Know About Health Insurance in 2013

blog.simplyinsured.com

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Re: What Startups Need To Know About Health Insurance in 2013

#11

Post by yaks_hairbrush »

rayiner wrote: post #8
kzahel wrote: post #2

Everything I read about healthcare recently just reinforces the notion that we need public health care. Let's just model our system after say, Canada's, and call it done.

I don't even need public healthcare. I just want something that does away with the current employer-sponsored system. We should make it easier, not harder, for people to move between jobs, take gaps to start companies or get new training, etc. We shouldn't be discouraging younger workers from getting preventative care so they can stay healthy and keep contributing to the economy.

Absolutely, yes! I was and still am upset with PPACA because it reinforces the horrid employer-provided care model.

Re: What Startups Need To Know About Health Insurance in 2013

#12

Post by rayiner »

wheaties wrote: post #9
kzahel wrote: post #2

Everything I read about healthcare recently just reinforces the notion that we need public health care. Let's just model our system after say, Canada's, and call it done.

You do realize that this is a recipe for inordinate amounts of public debt that you and I will never have to pay but our children and grandchildren will. Much like Social Security, Cananda's unfunded liabilities are long term too great: http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/05/31/us-health-idUSTRE6...

Really, we have two separate problems that unfortunately get lumped together. First, is how to provide healthcare for the working age population and children. Nearly all the evidence points to public healthcare being better for this problem. Insurance discourages people from getting preventative care and ultimately costs more in the long run. Second, is how to provide healthcare for the boomer generation. I don't think there is a solution to this problem, that we can stomach, that doesn't ultimately involve working age people paying out the nose either in insurance premiums or taxes.

Re: What Startups Need To Know About Health Insurance in 2013

#13

Post by rquantz »

paulhauggis wrote: post #6
kzahel wrote: post #2

Everything I read about healthcare recently just reinforces the notion that we need public health care. Let's just model our system after say, Canada's, and call it done.

Issues I have with public health care: 1) The government hasn't been able to run anything efficiently as long as I've been alive. It's not like we can just go back if UHC doesn't work out. 2) The more the government runs our lives (especially something like health care), the more they will be able to dictate our choices (what we eat, risky behavior, etc). 3) I haven't seen one person that supports public health care…

Do you have these issues with Medicare, Medicaid, and Veteran's healthcare?

Re: What Startups Need To Know About Health Insurance in 2013

#14

Post by natrius »

eli wrote: post #5
kzahel wrote: post #2

Everything I read about healthcare recently just reinforces the notion that we need public health care. Let's just model our system after say, Canada's, and call it done.

Easier said than done. If you recall, the relatively modest improvements in the Affordable Care Act were narrowly approved by Congress and then narrowly avoided being struck down by the Supreme Court.

Canada's system would be as constitutional as Medicare is. The Affordable Care Act introduced a novel (to U.S. case law) mechanism for getting everyone insured.

Re: What Startups Need To Know About Health Insurance in 2013

#15

Post by smokinjoe »

paulhauggis wrote: post #6
kzahel wrote: post #2

Everything I read about healthcare recently just reinforces the notion that we need public health care. Let's just model our system after say, Canada's, and call it done.

Issues I have with public health care: 1) The government hasn't been able to run anything efficiently as long as I've been alive. It's not like we can just go back if UHC doesn't work out. 2) The more the government runs our lives (especially something like health care), the more they will be able to dictate our choices (what we eat, risky behavior, etc). 3) I haven't seen one person that supports public health care…

1) Can this just stop until someone presents a direct (and accurate) comparison? You make it sound like it will be a fourth branch of Government. There are several Government Agencies that don't hemorrhage money and actually accomplish what they set out to do. Look at Medicaid - people were saying essentially the same exact things about it and now people probably couldn't imagine not having the program.

2) Please explain.

3) Probably because a wider availability to care and an overall increase in average quality of life is a good, if not great thing for a society.

Re: What Startups Need To Know About Health Insurance in 2013

#16

Post by corry »

paulhauggis wrote: post #6
kzahel wrote: post #2

Everything I read about healthcare recently just reinforces the notion that we need public health care. Let's just model our system after say, Canada's, and call it done.

Issues I have with public health care: 1) The government hasn't been able to run anything efficiently as long as I've been alive. It's not like we can just go back if UHC doesn't work out. 2) The more the government runs our lives (especially something like health care), the more they will be able to dictate our choices (what we eat, risky behavior, etc). 3) I haven't seen one person that supports public health care…

Regarding (1): The question isn't whether gov can run it 'efficiently', but if gov can run it MORE efficiently than the current system.

Based on the US's position as highest per-capita spender on healthcare + the underwhelming quality of care that $$$ gets you, more gov intervention seems like a pretty valid thing to look into.

Re: What Startups Need To Know About Health Insurance in 2013

#17

Post by ultraswank »

I've been hearing a lot of anecdotal evidence lately that the costs of private health insurance are stopping people, especially those with kids, from making the leap into their own start ups. Is anyone else getting that same impression? In my own experience on the topic I've become increasingly frustrated with the U.S. system of employer provided health care. Either give us a public option with universal coverage, or a true private system with the benefits of market efficiencies and a standard tax policy. This muddled middle ground seems to give us the worst of both, and the only people who benefit are large employers who have one more thing to prevent employees from jumping ship.

Re: What Startups Need To Know About Health Insurance in 2013

#18

Post by eloisius »

kzahel wrote: post #2

Everything I read about healthcare recently just reinforces the notion that we need public health care. Let's just model our system after say, Canada's, and call it done.

I think bundling most healthcare under the idea of insurance is a big problem. Insurance works because there's profitability in calculated risk. Everyone doesn't get in a wreck every day, everyone's house doesn't burn down regularly.

Dissimilarly, everyone gets old, everyone gets sick, everyone is going to need healthcare.

Re: What Startups Need To Know About Health Insurance in 2013

#20

Post by 3825 »

paulhauggis wrote: post #6
kzahel wrote: post #2

Everything I read about healthcare recently just reinforces the notion that we need public health care. Let's just model our system after say, Canada's, and call it done.

Issues I have with public health care: 1) The government hasn't been able to run anything efficiently as long as I've been alive. It's not like we can just go back if UHC doesn't work out. 2) The more the government runs our lives (especially something like health care), the more they will be able to dictate our choices (what we eat, risky behavior, etc). 3) I haven't seen one person that supports public health care…

> 2) The more the government runs our lives (especially something like health care), the more they will be able to dictate our choices (what we eat, risky behavior, etc).

I know I will be pushing for change towards less and not more freedom. It makes no sense that you have to pay for my reckless high-risk behavior such as jumping out of a second floor window "for shits and giggles".

Another thing in particular that I want to call out attention to is food. If I retarded enough to eat nothing but McDonalds every day for a year, why should you just not let me die? Why should you pay for my surgery? If you are going to pay for it, over time you will gravitate towards a "high-risk fee" on activities that are just plain dumb.

Let's increase taxes on cigarettes, alcohol, (and implement new ones on ecstacy, marijuana, and all drugs... I don't know how that's possible without legalization but there is no way I am paying for someone rehab for something that has not been taxed)

The idea is that nobody should have to pay for someone else's high risk activities. Over time, the high risk activities will become expensive enough. Money will be a driving force that will drive people towards a better lifestyle. Think about it. Money will be a force for good for once.

Just take McDonalds. People say McD is a cheaper to healthier food. If a McD meal is a dollar and causes a health maintenance fee of twenty dollars, what do we do? We tack that twenty dollars to the cost of the meal. Bam! The McDonalds meal is now $21. That $2.49 price tag on the celery at Aldi's is suddenly not so expensive by comparison.

Yes, there are downsides but if enough people are annoyed you will get real reform. Please don't do anything stupid like the last time when conservatives tried to "starve the beast"[1]. We have solid evidence that starve the beast does not work.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast

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