71–80 of 314 posts
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Half the population have below average IQ's, and even people with above average IQ's still struggle with abstractions. These topics are complex and it's easy to frame the negative state in a way for low IQ and poorly educated people to grasp, so they tend to side with what they "think" they understand.
Half the population have below median IQs.
I am sympathetic. From HN stories, the US health care situations seems abysmal. BUT, i want to make 3 counter points, if only for the sake of discussion. a. Cancer for many is a terminal disease. There are always some very very expensive and experimental or marginal treatments. If u have money, and are going to die, and decide to spend all you can to squeeze an extra year of life , i am very sympathetic but even the…
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It's absurd to say that imposing a limit is somehow misleading for something sold as "insurance." "Actual insurance" almost always has a policy limit. Everything from car insurance to corporate liability insurance has a limit. I can't think of any "actual insurance" besides health insurance that doesn't have a limit. Again, I'm not arguing against having health insurance be unlimited. I'm taking exception to your rhe…
Car insurance has no lifetime limit. The limit is either per year or per event.
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Money is considered speech. The legislative and judicial branches condone such actions, and the example you take issue with is the result of representatives having national impact (in this case, voting for the appointment of a supreme court judge).
And the judges she have been voting for (not just the supreme court, but across the federal judiciary where she's voted to confirm virtually every one of Trump's judge nominations) are generally in favor of fewer limits on campaign finance laws. I think if you vote by proxy for less campaign finance regulation, you should be fine with facing the results.
I think if I get cancer I'm just going to have to die. I can't leave my wife destitute.
Here's the thing. Cancer comes in basically two types. That which is treatable, and that which isn't. This can be either because of the type of cancer, or based on how early/late it was detected. A lot of (possibly most of?) the money spent treating cancer is spent in cases that have very little chance for long term success. I don't think it really is, but it almost seems like a deliberate attempt to extract all the…
Medical services are an inelastic good. If someone has a problem that's a serious threat to life or happiness, they will spend every penny they have and some they don't on the slightest chance to avoid it. Competition, for various reasons[2], doesn't work well.
[1] In some cases where the intervention has slight mean/median benefit. In other cases, the outcomes are no better than control/placebo, even on average, but studies funded by drug companies or medical suppliers suggest that the intervention outcomes are better than controls, due to scientific mistakes or even intentional fraud (starting with bad experimental design, then cherry-picking data and cherry-picking studies).
[2] Comparison shopping works well for choosing suppliers of standardized drugs and services, in non-emergencies, but even that's usually torpedoed by what your insurance will cover; If you have the luxury, you can compare various brands of drugs that have generic versions. You can comparison shop for prices for blood draws and scans (CT/MRI). Beyond simple things like that, the treatments are not identical so comparing costs is difficult. Also, patents. Nobody will raise the price of a drug 100% in a day, but companies build in fatter and fatter margins because they have a patent monopoly, and everyone else is doing it to. There is no price control through competition except where there are genuine equivalent goods. Since healthcare is largely price-inelastic, without strong competition on the supply side, you get runaway costs. This shouldn't be a surprise.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's absurd to say that imposing a limit is somehow misleading for something sold as "insurance." "Actual insurance" almost always has a policy limit. Everything from car insurance to corporate liability insurance has a limit. I can't think of any "actual insurance" besides health insurance that doesn't have a limit. Again, I'm not arguing against having health insurance be unlimited. I'm taking exception to your rhe…
Car insurance has no lifetime limit. The limit is either per year or per event.
Perhaps the real problem is that chemo, radiation, and surgery don't really cure cancer, in most cases. There is a lot of bad science in cancer research. The "science" that bothers me the most is the use of 5-year survival rates. Suppose that a cancer that starts at age 60 becomes symptomatic at age 65, and kills the patient at age 70. Scenario 1: you are 60 years old, get screened, and opt for treatment (who wouldn'…
In the 70ties survival rates for cancer was 25% today it's 50%. You think that's because we discover it sooner and tweak statistics.
Sure statistics can be made misleading, but overall stats comparing survivor rates across decades can be expected to correct for stages and time of discovery.
I am sympathetic. From HN stories, the US health care situations seems abysmal. BUT, i want to make 3 counter points, if only for the sake of discussion. a. Cancer for many is a terminal disease. There are always some very very expensive and experimental or marginal treatments. If u have money, and are going to die, and decide to spend all you can to squeeze an extra year of life , i am very sympathetic but even the…
Except that net US personal taxation isn't far off that found across the EU.
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The scenario the parent poster is describing is where ACA is repealed and replaced, and presumably that replacement would also do away with the 80% medical loss ratio. In that scenario the insurance companies will likely just not reduce premiums from what they are today, netting them a huge windfall. This is also why states like Alaska have seen ACA premiums fall over the past year or two. They instituted a state-wid…
Even before the ACA, most money from premiums was paid out in benefits: https://www.healthaffairs.org/do/10.1377/hpb20101124.949788/... > According to an April 2010 report prepared by the Democratic staff of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, the nation’s largest health insurers in 2009 had medical loss ratios ranging from 68 percent to 88 percent in the individual market; 78 percent to 84…
Also keep in mind, prior to ACA buying a major medical plan without through a large group required one to have no preexisting conditions. If you had one you were either denied or got an exception written into your policy that said they didn't have to cover anything related to that thing. That's one of the other major things that ACA did away with, and another reason premiums are higher.