42 percent of new cancer patients lose their life savings • Hacker News Board

Re: 42 percent of new cancer patients lose their life savings

#301

Post by cabaalis » Sat, Oct 20, 2018, 4:16 PM UTC

sjg007 wrote: post #269

cabaalis wrote: post #212

I am a moderate conservative. I believe in self-reliance, fiscal responsibility, limited government. But receiving a death sentence like this one, physically and financially, is something I believe society could easily work together to create a parachute for. It seems reasonable to me that not all healthcare should be covered by the government. Individuals need skin in the game for their own care. But catastrophic, l…

>Individuals need skin in the game for their own care. So smokers who get cancer? People who are obese? A car accident? How do you decide? What's the skin? A deductible?

I don't know the answer. The government does make low-interest loans available when there are natural disasters, as one example.

Re: 42 percent of new cancer patients lose their life savings

#302

Post by dang » Sat, Oct 20, 2018, 4:44 PM UTC

tunesmith wrote: post #134

rayiner wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These are enormously beneficial to insurance companies (they essentially have unlimited liability without them) and there is a ton of money to have the caps reinstated. I don't understand why you'd phrase it this way. Under the ACA, 80% of premiums have to go to medical care. A dollar saved providing care disproportionately benefits the premium payers, not the company. People act like all this money comes out of in…

[flagged]

This comment breaks the site guidelines, which ask you to assume good faith, among other things. Please don't cross into personal attack, regardless of how wrong someone else is.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: 42 percent of new cancer patients lose their life savings

#303

Post by dev_dull » Sat, Oct 20, 2018, 5:25 PM UTC

krapp wrote: post #300

dev_dull wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people are like you. Myself included. Which is why this topic is a front-and-center part of the democratic strategy for 2020. And if there isn’t a working alternative proposed by Republicans I don’t see much hope for them.

I think Republicans were caught off guard by the initial negative reaction (even amongst their own constituents) to potentially repealing the ACA without an alternative. Having painted themselves into an ideologically extreme corner, they never anticipated that the public wouldn't consider "repeal and replace with literally anything" to be sufficient.

Healthcare gets an emotional reaction from people. And honestly it should. What’s A budget balance when someone you love has cancer and can’t afford treatment? Nobody cares at that point.

Most of the public conservatives (talk show, tv) that I follow seem really out of touch with this. They should talk to their base. I think they would realize how dire the situation is and how easily it can sway 2020.

Re: 42 percent of new cancer patients lose their life savings

#304

Post by sdegutis » Sat, Oct 20, 2018, 6:25 PM UTC

dev_dull wrote: post #297

lawn wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some instances of insurance can be yes but insurance in general can make sense for both buyer and issuer.

When used as insurance. However health insurance is really just the way we pay for healthcare.

Health insurance drives the prices up for both patients and health care providers by thousands of percent. It's purely a malicious middleman that steals from both sides and does absolutely nothing beneficial at all. Except create jobs I guess, but is an inherently unethical job worth creating?

Other insurances like car insurance and renters insurance seem slightly more reasonable (although they're all inherently a form of gambling) and I haven't heard any horror stories about them, but I wonder, if I had saved the money I put into car insurance, would it be sufficient by now to pay damages for any car accident I may be at fault for?

Re: 42 percent of new cancer patients lose their life savings

#305

Post by kevintb » Sat, Oct 20, 2018, 8:08 PM UTC

kbos87 wrote: post #118

I recently watched a family member go through this. A few things that were sobering to see: - Three weeks in she was buried in paperwork. One chemo treatment would turn into 4-5 invoices from different subcontractors at a single hospital, some covered by her insurance, others not covered. Her insurer denied claims arbitrarily and made her go through a bunch of invasive and unnecessary procedures to prove her illness.…

That’s terrible. I really feel for low-income cancer patients in the US. I’ve dealt with cancer in the family (in Canada) and found it difficult enough, and never had to deal with insurance paperwork.

Re: 42 percent of new cancer patients lose their life savings

#306

Post by joelx » Sun, Oct 21, 2018, 1:32 PM UTC

platz wrote: post #180

Bjorkbat wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious to find out what it would take for someone to create a service that counters some of these dark patterns. The abundance of companies using dark patterns in their subscriptions to prevent subscription cancellations has led to other companies offering services that allow you to manage your various subscriptions with ease and cancel subscriptions with even greater ease. I'm wondering what it would take to ap…

It's called medical tourism

Insurance companies are often used as the punching bag for healthcare costs. In reality, insurance companies are just a payment method for the true cost - enormously expensive doctors. Insurance companies are portrayed as having crazy profits, but in reality the insurance company Cigna has a profit margin of 6%.

The American Medical Association realized a century ago that medical care demand is inelastic... Basically if you need medical care, you will pay any price to get it. Doctors took advantage of the situation by passing laws and regulations limiting the number of new doctors allowed each year, who can practice medicine, and the types of businesses that can compete. This greatly limited the supply of doctors. There are not enough doctors to fully meet demand. The basic laws of economics say that when you have strong and inelastic demand, and a limited supply then prices will go through the roof.

I propose we remove these artificial limits that are grossly enriching doctors. If you allow anyone to practice medicine, just like we allow anyone to prepare and serve food or distribute goods then you will end up with a lot more competition. This will result in far better patient outcomes at a far lower price.

The AMA will argue that without limits on who can practice medicine huge numbers of people will die. This is false. Our lives rely on many businesses that if they screw up would kill us. Everything from farming to distribution to food prep to construction needs to perform and deliver for us to survive. The AMA is self serving and greedy. There is no reason an individual surgeon should make hundreds of thousands of dollars. There is no reason certain business types should be legally prevented from competing. Imagine if you had the efficiencies of a business like Amazon or Google in healthcare.

Imagine if you could see statistics on the performance of every doctor and hospital in the country, then decide where you wanted to get treated.

Allow competition in healthcare by removing limits on the number of doctors each year and by allowing new business types that can take advantage of scale and specialization. This will drive down healthcare costs a hundredfold and allow everyone in America access to top healthcare at reasonable prices

Re: 42 percent of new cancer patients lose their life savings

#307

Post by joelx » Sun, Oct 21, 2018, 2:02 PM UTC

mythrwy wrote: post #248

andrewprock wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I somehow read that as "medical terrorism".

No that's the topic of the article.

I found this article extraordinarily helpful in understanding the high cost of US care - https://mises.org/library/how-government-helped-create-comin...

Re: 42 percent of new cancer patients lose their life savings

#308

Post by selimthegrim » Sun, Oct 21, 2018, 4:29 PM UTC

joelx wrote: post #306

platz wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's called medical tourism

Insurance companies are often used as the punching bag for healthcare costs. In reality, insurance companies are just a payment method for the true cost - enormously expensive doctors. Insurance companies are portrayed as having crazy profits, but in reality the insurance company Cigna has a profit margin of 6%. The American Medical Association realized a century ago that medical care demand is inelastic... Basically…

What’s top healthcare defined as - my doctor was nice to me? My doctor made me feel better? My doctor was better?

Re: 42 percent of new cancer patients lose their life savings

#309

Post by selimthegrim » Sun, Oct 21, 2018, 4:35 PM UTC

kxyvr wrote: post #209

kbos87 wrote: post #118

I recently watched a family member go through this. A few things that were sobering to see: - Three weeks in she was buried in paperwork. One chemo treatment would turn into 4-5 invoices from different subcontractors at a single hospital, some covered by her insurance, others not covered. Her insurer denied claims arbitrarily and made her go through a bunch of invasive and unnecessary procedures to prove her illness.…

I'm sorry your family member went through this. That's terrible and no one should have to deal with that kind of treatment. I'll echo much of what you said. When I was 21, I was diagnosed and treated for malignant melanoma (skin cancer) that had metastasized to my lymph nodes. The treatment worked and I've been healthy for many years. That said, it changed the way and manner in which I deal with billing and insurance…

Why are the health sharing ministries bad ideas?

Re: 42 percent of new cancer patients lose their life savings

#310

Post by ashildr » Sun, Oct 21, 2018, 7:31 PM UTC

anonuser123456 wrote: post #246

mikeash wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are all inherently limited by the replacement cost of the insured item. With health insurance, there is no replacement cost.

So you want the insurer to provide insurance with unbounded downside? OK. But don't be surprised when the price of this insurance is very high.

I don’t understand why this is only a problem in the US. Are people so sick over there, are they continuously poisoning or shooting each other? Heck, even their life expectancy is not top notch.