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Its crazy that there are laws against offering health insurance in the open market. There is no reason you couldn't shop around for a plan just like you do for car or home owners insurance.
Its crazy that there are laws against offering health insurance in the open market. There is no reason you couldn't shop around for a plan just like you do for car or home owners insurance.
Is that not what I do when comparing plans on healthcare.gov?
The law is basically written by the insurers, and favors them. It allows them to segregate people based on who they work for, etc.
In an ethical system, there would be just a single, non-segregated pool of people called a 'market', and anyone would be able to purchase any plan they want from that market, regardless of which state they lived in and regardless of who they did or did not work for.
Federal employees have such a system, and prior to obamacare, there was actually bipartisan agreement forming around enabling everyone to participate in that system. It's probably why obamacare was rushed through quickly by the insurance companies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6SlJZk5guI&list=PLEyPgwIPkH...
One of the more interesting discussions was how they handled covid.
I worked in insurance for over five years. This is a very good read. 1. They keep costs down in part by pursuing home remedies for a lot of things instead of seeing a doctor. They have established sources of information and support for this practice. 2. When it comes to medical care, they are not Luddites and are willing to use cutting edge technologies to care for medical issues. 3. I was struck by the repeated ment…
"They keep costs down in part by pursuing home remedies for a lot of things instead of seeing a doctor." Two other factors for low cost would be their healthy lifestyle and end of life care choices. The Amish get about 20k steps in per day - double the recommended 10k steps that most English fail to meet. Rates of many chronic diseases are lower. When they do get old, they don't drag things out and they generally don…
> Amish mortality patterns were not systematically higher or lower than those of the non-Amish, but differed by age, sex, and cause. Amish males had slightly higher all-cause MRs as children and significantly lower MRs over the age of 40, due primarily to lower rates of cancer (MR = 0.44, age 40-69), and cardiovascular diseases (MR = 0.65, age 40-69). Amish females MRs for all causes of death were lower from age 10-39, not different from 40-69, and higher over age 69. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7315833/
Basically, Amish boys are more likely to die young. There are no long term lifestyle benefits for Amish women.
And "English" by which I assume you mean Americans don't have infinite funds.
Its crazy that there are laws against offering health insurance in the open market. There is no reason you couldn't shop around for a plan just like you do for car or home owners insurance.
There has to be some kind of oversight. Otherwise, you get thousands of people victimized by fraud who the rest of us have to bail out.
What I mean by that is if I work for a large company, I can get access to health insurance that I cannot buy on the market myself. If that company changes insurers to a crappy one, my only choice is to change employers to one that provides access to a better insurer. If I self employ, I cannot get access to those plans.
Insurers should be forced to sell in a single market all the plans they offer. Insurer like to talk about "economy of scale" with large employers, but that is an artificial limit. Why should insurance pools be limited to who works at a company?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is that not what I do when comparing plans on healthcare.gov?
You cannot purchase plans across state lines. You cannot purchase the same plan you would get if you worked at a large company. The law is basically written by the insurers, and favors them. It allows them to segregate people based on who they work for, etc. In an ethical system, there would be just a single, non-segregated pool of people called a 'market', and anyone would be able to purchase any plan they want from…
It should be quite evident that everything about this system is broken, but this is part of how broken systems get entrenched.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There has to be some kind of oversight. Otherwise, you get thousands of people victimized by fraud who the rest of us have to bail out.
I can buy car insurance or pretty much any kind of insurance on the market, and there is suitable oversight. This does not exist for medical insurance. What I mean by that is if I work for a large company, I can get access to health insurance that I cannot buy on the market myself. If that company changes insurers to a crappy one, my only choice is to change employers to one that provides access to a better insurer.…
Very true. There should be one insurance pool. Either state or nationwide.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"They keep costs down in part by pursuing home remedies for a lot of things instead of seeing a doctor." Two other factors for low cost would be their healthy lifestyle and end of life care choices. The Amish get about 20k steps in per day - double the recommended 10k steps that most English fail to meet. Rates of many chronic diseases are lower. When they do get old, they don't drag things out and they generally don…
Not really > Amish mortality patterns were not systematically higher or lower than those of the non-Amish, but differed by age, sex, and cause. Amish males had slightly higher all-cause MRs as children and significantly lower MRs over the age of 40, due primarily to lower rates of cancer (MR = 0.44, age 40-69), and cardiovascular diseases (MR = 0.65, age 40-69). Amish females MRs for all causes of death were lower fr…
"significantly lower MRs over the age of 40, due primarily to lower rates of cancer (MR = 0.44, age 40-69), and cardiovascular diseases (MR = 0.65, age 40-69)"
As they said, cause differs. When looking at costs, causes are very important. Things like cancer and cardiovascular diseases tend to cost a lot of money to treat as they drag on. If you die young in an accident, it's likely to cost less.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"They keep costs down in part by pursuing home remedies for a lot of things instead of seeing a doctor." Two other factors for low cost would be their healthy lifestyle and end of life care choices. The Amish get about 20k steps in per day - double the recommended 10k steps that most English fail to meet. Rates of many chronic diseases are lower. When they do get old, they don't drag things out and they generally don…
Not really > Amish mortality patterns were not systematically higher or lower than those of the non-Amish, but differed by age, sex, and cause. Amish males had slightly higher all-cause MRs as children and significantly lower MRs over the age of 40, due primarily to lower rates of cancer (MR = 0.44, age 40-69), and cardiovascular diseases (MR = 0.65, age 40-69). Amish females MRs for all causes of death were lower fr…
Rates of many chronic diseases are lower.
Amish males had ...significantly lower MRs over the age of 40, due primarily to lower rates of cancer (MR = 0.44, age 40-69), and cardiovascular diseases (MR = 0.65, age 40-69).
Also, mortality rates and costs are not synonyms.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not really > Amish mortality patterns were not systematically higher or lower than those of the non-Amish, but differed by age, sex, and cause. Amish males had slightly higher all-cause MRs as children and significantly lower MRs over the age of 40, due primarily to lower rates of cancer (MR = 0.44, age 40-69), and cardiovascular diseases (MR = 0.65, age 40-69). Amish females MRs for all causes of death were lower fr…
Your quote agrees with the thing you are rebutting: Rates of many chronic diseases are lower. Amish males had ...significantly lower MRs over the age of 40, due primarily to lower rates of cancer (MR = 0.44, age 40-69), and cardiovascular diseases (MR = 0.65, age 40-69). Also, mortality rates and costs are not synonyms.
The men over 40 subset of population has slightly lower mortality and no one else. The numbers even out.
That is not consistent with "healthier lifestyle overall" as if they generally got benefits.