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What Startups Need To Know About Health Insurance in 2013

blog.simplyinsured.com

181–185 of 185 posts

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

#181
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Second, is how to provide healthcare for the boomer generation. There absolutely has to be a dollar cap on how much the government will spend on health care on an individual . Then, we must absolutely stick to it. If the limit is reached, then no more money for that person. I'd support such a limit on baby boomers only since those idiots are the ones who got us into this mess but I can't think of a way to implement…

The boomers are not the ones who got us into this mess. It was actually their parents. They paid for their parents and then expected their children (us) to likewise pay for them. In that time, the average life expectancy and cost to prolong life grew enormously. I do not have hate for the baby boomers. What I have hate for is solutions which foist upon OTHER generations costs and expenses associated with THIS generat…

They paid for their parents and then expected their children (us) to likewise pay for them.

The first generation essentially got something for nothing. That does not sound right to me. If we follow the logic that we've been following, those who didn't pay into the system should not be able to extract back from it.

Perhaps, we the current generation ought to bite the bullet and double tax so we can pay for our parents and ourselves so we don't saddle the next generation with (what some people call) a ticking time bomb.

It is sad that we don't have anyone in the government call out what seems to me the perfect solution: both decreased spending and increased taxes. I guess we just have ourselves to blame for electing people who tell us what we want to hear.

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

#182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Net cost of what? Pregnancy with complications, chemotherapy, spinal surgery or teeth cleaning is all <$1,000 with deluxe package?

net of teeth cleaning, it is included in the $0 basic packages (paid by taxes, so of course you pay for it if you pay taxes. But you get it even if you never worked and are unemployed and never paid taxes. Also, the taxes are independent of any "pre-existing condition" or anything like that). Dental is not included in the $0 package. A dental package likely includes cleaning, for less than $1000 a year, yes.

Some provinces have emergency dental care for minors covered under their health plans, which is a nice thing, too. A root canal can be an expensive procedure.

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

#183
post #57
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

Give me a break. Republicans are anti-public health care because public care sets in motion a process that moves care decisions into federal bureaucracies, which is absolutely a problem that Canada and the UK have. Also, health care is ineluctably two things: a vital necessity and a commercial service. With a single payer, the commercial service objective is warped: patients and doctors are motivated to make care dec…

> Republicans are anti-public health care because public care sets in motion a process that > moves care decisions into federal bureaucracies...

Corporatists oppose "public care" because it's pro-labor. Insurers and pharma oppose anything that will lessen their profits.

I have no idea why any one else would oppose universal health care with a single payer using the capitation model. Probably something they heard on talk radio.

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

#184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have Canadian friends, and although they would do anything to preserve their health care, they complain about how long it takes them to make appointments for specialists, tests, etc. I live in the Bay Area, and I have Kaiser HMO, and I love them. They seem vastly superior to Canadian health care in every respect. Even in cost, my friends in Toronto have to pay $100/month each as a Health Tax. Case in point, I got a…

> My friend told me that the average wait time in Canada for an endoscopy is 9 months Wait times for specialist visits that are not life threatening are just as long in the US as in Canada. There is a persistent myth in Canada among people who have never had to get in depth medical care in Canada and the US that the Canadian system makes you wait until you are dying but in the US you just wave some bills and you see…

Geography is also a factor. In both US and Canada.

In the US jurisdiction is a factor, with local legislators enabling fruitcake care providers and pharmacists to impose their neolithic values onto their patients.

The only measure I care about is cost per capita and life expectancy.

Canada is cheaper and their people live longer. That's not an accident.

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

#185
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

David Goldhill wrote an excellent piece in The Atlantic a few years ago on this topic. The fix is quite simple, but nearly impossible to implement: Stop using insurance for health care, and buy actual insurance (you know, for catastrophes). How often do you use your car insurance? Fire insurance? That's because insurance is designed to never be used, by most people. Health insurance has been unfortunately recast into…

Ya the problem there is you'll pay 2-4x more per event because you don't get the health company negotiated rate.

I don't get the negotiated rate business. With a large enough pool (eg universal coverage) the costs level out. The divide and conquer scam played by US insurers is just a way to segment the market to maximize their profits.
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