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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

#71

Post by oleganza »

3825 wrote: post #20
paulhauggis wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

So certain people point guns at everybody else to extract money and pay for health care. It suddenly diminishes motivation to stay healthy and we need even more guns pointing to some other people so some third category of people would feel that motivation has been justly restored and everybody is moving towards brighter future.

And please don't even start with an argument that "you can go away if you don't like it". It is you, not me, have to prove that some people have a right to point a gun at us while we cannot do the same towards them. Either that, or there is no difference between initiation of force and self-defense, but then it does not prove why somebody has an exclusive right to use guns.

To those who are going to downvote me: are you able to come with a valid argument why it is me, not people with guns should prove a position before taking action?

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

#73

Post by grecy »

baddox wrote: post #65
grecy wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't suggest you model it after Canada's system. It's good, but it could be better. I moved to Canada from Australia, so I'll compare the two systems for you. Canada: "healthcare for all" provides basic coverage of everything you need. Works pretty well. Even homeless / out of work people are fully covered. Things like dental and chiropractor are not covered, so you pay for those. Employers give "health care" whic…

Does anything legally tie your optional health insurance to your employment in Canada and legally prohibit Australian employers from providing private health insurance, or is that simply the way the two markets have developed?

I don't know about Canada, but I believe in Australia it's illegal for an employer to have anything to do with your health care.

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

#74

Post by colmvp »

kjackson2012 wrote: post #36
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 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…

FWIW, I got my MRI done in Toronto in less than a few days.

I also got my specific medication for free. In the U.S. without insurance it would've cost me over $75k. Thankfully I had insurance.

Healthcare in the U.S. seems amazing except when you aren't fortunate enough to have a great health insurance.

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

#75

Post by maxerickson »

dalore wrote: post #47
EvanAnderson wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Insuring against inevitability is silly, and health insurance shouldn't cover those events. A friend of mine uses the analogy of "food insurance" to describe the dysfunctional nature of attempts to insure against the inevitable.

So life/death insurance is silly? No, insuring against an inevitability isn't silly because there are other factors to consider. Like when the inevitable occurs. Insurers are taking a risk that you put more in before that happens.

Lots of times insurance companies only end up making a profit from investing (that is, they pay out more in claims than they take in premiums but make up the difference by investing wisely).

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

#76

Post by bitcartel »

DennisP wrote: post #42
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.

A good book to continue your reading is The Healing of America by T.R. Reid. The author traveled to eight countries, checking out treatment options for his bum shoulder and learning about their healthcare systems. Canada was one and did have some advantages. He also went to the U.K. But the best systems were in France, Germany, and Japan. They all have private (but nonprofit) insurance, a mandate, and no exclusions f…

The UK should have outsourced to Germany:

"£12.7bn computer scheme to create patient record system is to be scrapped after years of delays" http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/sep/22/nhs-it-project...

Instead they outsourced to people who outsourced to people...

"Accenture; Computer Sciences Corporation, or CSC; Fujitsu and BT. They were known as local service providers, or LSPs. BT and Fujitsu picked a US software firm, IDX, to work with, while Accenture and CSC both picked a British software company called iSoft. iSoft who offered a software system called Lorenzo, a program that had "achieved significant acclaim from healthcare providers”.

"However, the program was not finished..."

"CSC had to continue on its own, while the other two providers, BT and Fujitsu, were having their own problems. They were trying to implement American software, which is not such an easy thing to do in a British hospital, because American hospitals rely on billing for each and every activity and do not, conversely, expect to have to handle waiting lists."

http://news.techeye.net/business/nhs-it-debacle-debated-in-p...

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

#77

Post by MichaelSalib »

kjackson2012 wrote: post #36
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 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…

There are two different issues here: how to structure your healthcare system and how much of society's resources to devote to it. Canada (and even more so the UK) have a nationalized healthcare system AND they've decided to spend very little money on it. Both countries spend substantially less on healthcare than the US or other advanced economies with similar healthcare systems. As a result, they have long lines sometimes. But that's a separate decision.

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

#78

Post by EvanAnderson »

tptacek wrote: post #59
EvanAnderson wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We need to get rid of the unregulated, manifest "socialist" medical system that the United States has today and replace it with something that is a known quantity. A public system is one option (and one that I'm in favor of), but there could be other solutions too. In general, the current system doesn't stop people who can't pay from receiving care. If we agree that allowing someone to die because they can't pay isn'…

"Socialist" is a bad term for what we have. The insured do pay for the uninsured (mostly via taxes), but the uninsured don't get free rides: the system we have bankrupts them, often repeatedly, when they have health problems.

That's why I said "socialist" (in quotes) instead of socialist. It's not a true socialist system-- it's just a big ball of mud that's grown up over time rather than being something that is designed. Different interest groups have exerted influence over the years to shape that ball of mud in such a way that it benefits them, but it's still a ball of mud. It has the effect of spreading the cost to those who can pay (or who don't have the leverage to get discounts), much the same way that a socialist system would, but without the benefits of having a well thought-out socialist system that is subject to public scrutiny and regulation.

I don't know what part of my taxes go to paying for the uninsured. I have anecdotal experience of seeing rather large hospital bills for emergency written-off because the person receiving care didn't have adequate insurance. I would agree that someone with health problems is likely to end up with no assets or credit, bankrupt, and receiving some kind of public assistance.

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

#79

Post by euroclydon »

tptacek wrote: post #57
[deleted] wrote: 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…

I don't think the size and investment costs of physicians and pharma are incomparable to natural resources. Oil companies have great investment costs, their market is huge. Rather I would say it's the complexity, dynamic nature and innovation of healthcare that make it unfit for a command economy.

Advanced technology is the single biggest problem in healthcare today. Expense is damn near the only natural limit on quality of service that can be provided. It's impossible to have a rational conversation over how much we should spend to keep someone alive in their last months.

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

#80

Post by r0s »

mniejiki wrote: post #43
ultraswank wrote: post #17

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…

You can get COBRA so it's not that you won't have insurance but rather that you will pay for it yourself. And have 18 months to find a longer term option if you can. It's what I did although I am single without kids so my rate was significantly lower. Of course that is exactly what your employer paid on your behalf before. So you're basically complaining that other people will now no longer be subsidizing your medica…

> other people ... subsidizing your medical costs.

That is the definition of insurance.

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