Money Won’t Buy You Health Insurance • Hacker News Board

Re: Money Won’t Buy You Health Insurance

#91

Post by old-gregg » Tue, Feb 22, 2011, 12:01 AM UTC

Groxx wrote: post #22

acabal wrote: post #2

This really highlights how utterly insane our system is. I'm living off of my own business, which means that I don't have an employer to cover me under group insurance. But I really only make enough to live frugally and save a tiny amount each month--to me, an affordable health insurance plan would be between $50-$100 a month. Fat chance of that happening. And if it did, the deductible would be so high as to make the…

> to me, an affordable health insurance plan would be between $50-$100 a month. Fat chance of that happening. And if it did, the deductible would be so high as to make the plan worthless for anything short of a car-crash-emergency-type-situation. This fits a fair number of cost complaints I hear over healthcare. Who wouldn't like to pay $50-100/month to have something better than emergency healthcare support? But thi…

Doctors and nurses and supporting staff must exist

I got a $800 bill for 10 minutes doctor visit (swollen toe). Not exaggerating a tiny bit. No insurance company involved. "Must exist" is not an argument. Something is broken in the system where a doctor charges you $4,800 per hour. Insurance companies, obesity, poor lifestyle choices (all usual BS reasons I hear on TV) do not explain why this particular ####le charged me $4,800 per hour.

This saddens me hearing that most discussions about healthcare are circling around the question of "how?" instead of asking ourselves "why so much?".

Re: Money Won’t Buy You Health Insurance

#92

Post by marshray » Tue, Feb 22, 2011, 12:01 AM UTC

gnaritas wrote: post #62

marshray wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those "minor reforms" were 10,000 pages long and I doubt that anyone understands them except the lobbyists who wrote them.

> Those "minor reforms" were 10,000 pages long So what? We live in a litigious society, laws are verbose because they have to be. Make it too vague and you just force the issues to be resolved in the courts making it even more confusing because the rules become written in case law.

The "what" is that our so-called "lawmakers" hadn't written it, much less read it, understood it, and debated it in any rational way before they voted on it.

Call me an idealist, but I think that's bad.

Like a tax code, usually these kinds of things end up working out mostly to the benefit of the larger parties who pay the most lawyers and professional staff to find and execute on the loopholes.

Re: Money Won’t Buy You Health Insurance

#93

Post by rdouble » Tue, Feb 22, 2011, 12:03 AM UTC

old-gregg wrote: post #91

Groxx wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> to me, an affordable health insurance plan would be between $50-$100 a month. Fat chance of that happening. And if it did, the deductible would be so high as to make the plan worthless for anything short of a car-crash-emergency-type-situation. This fits a fair number of cost complaints I hear over healthcare. Who wouldn't like to pay $50-100/month to have something better than emergency healthcare support? But thi…

Doctors and nurses and supporting staff must exist I got a $800 bill for 10 minutes doctor visit (swollen toe). Not exaggerating a tiny bit. No insurance company involved. "Must exist" is not an argument. Something is broken in the system where a doctor charges you $4,800 per hour. Insurance companies, obesity, poor lifestyle choices (all usual BS reasons I hear on TV) do not explain why this particular ####le charge…

Something is broken in the system where a doctor charges you $4,800 per hour

That's about right. A few years ago, I thought I had food poisoning and 40 uninsured minutes in the ER set me back $3800. But I was "lucky." I've had friends who were in bicycle accidents and ended up with $13,000 and $37,000 hospital bills.

Re: Money Won’t Buy You Health Insurance

#94

Post by uygtfrgtyjuhk » Tue, Feb 22, 2011, 12:03 AM UTC

cookiecaper wrote: post #85

haploid wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can give you one perspective. Moral hazard and fairness. The vast majority of costs borne by and in the US healthcare system are the results of overeating, oversmoking, and underexercising. Period. Heart disease, many forms of cancer, diabetes, most forms of pancreatic, gallbladder, and adrenal conditions, are largely the result of personal choice . Setting aside for a moment the fact that congenital defects, hered…

The basic problem is the cost. The cost of health care is so outrageous the only way to make it bearable on the population is just to give the government a license to print unlimited money in order to pay everyone's health care bills. Insurance (which is a horrible system for health care, since insurance depends on people who buy it not to use it, and all of us need health care, usually multiple times per year) and g…

Ironically the US actually spends more $/person for health care than the UK or Canada do to cover everyone.

Simply because the insurance and billing drive costs so much higher

Re: Money Won’t Buy You Health Insurance

#95

Post by dalke » Tue, Feb 22, 2011, 12:03 AM UTC

Groxx wrote: post #68

acabal wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All good points, but the fact remains that at my income, it simply doesn't make financial sense for me to be insured. If I must declare bankruptcy in case of cataclysm, then the system just lost much more money than they would have were I paying an affordable (sliding?) amount per month over my lifespan. Anyway, this isn't the place to get in a discussion about how to fix the system. But as it stands now, it's just a…

Totally agree, for relatively healthy younger people willing to risk bankruptcy, it's a massively cheaper option. I'm merely saying that that kind of cost is nearly impossible to achieve, as reaching it would incur costs elsewhere. Distributing the cost doesn't make it less real.

You say it, but you don't back it up with evidence. How is it that the US already pays more money per person for health care but with measurably worse results (measured as life expectancy, infant mortality, etc).

How do they achieve what you call impossible?

Re: Money Won’t Buy You Health Insurance

#96

Post by wtracy » Tue, Feb 22, 2011, 12:06 AM UTC

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #42

acabal wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of my good friends is a mechanical engineer, young, single, and healthy, but with a thyroid problem. He requires pills every day for the rest of his life. He would not be able to afford those pills for long without insurance if he quit his cube job and tried to innovate in his field: high efficiency engines and biofuels. These aren't imaginary people.

I haven't had health insurance in over 10 years. I get sick, my family loses everything. During that time I've been self-employed and worked on several startups. You think telling me a story about your friend is somehow going to enlighten me on the subject of health insurance? How many anecdotes would we need to share to gain any ground in this discussion?

From your earlier post:

while people who want to strike out will, and figure out how to make it work.

You claim that anyone who wants to be self-employed is able to do so. The next post provides a counterexample to your blanket statement.

Then you get angry that he's telling an "anecdote"?

Re: Money Won’t Buy You Health Insurance

#97

Post by d_r » Tue, Feb 22, 2011, 12:06 AM UTC

krschultz wrote: post #6

The subtle but crazy part about this is at the bottom when it details the author: "Donna Dubinsky, a co-founder of Palm Computer and Handspring, is the chief executive of a computer software company." I'm going to go out on a limb and say money is not an issue for Donna, yet she still can't even buy insurance if she wants to. I've always thought healthcare access was a bigger hurdle for entrepreneurs than tax rates.…

I was also confused about that. I may be misunderstanding how the law works, but isn't it true that group coverage can deny pre-existing conditions only for a limited time (6 months)?

In California you need at least 2 employees to qualify for group coverage. So you start an actual company, perform business (presumably turning in some money to cover your costs), and also get coverage for your dependents. There's one caveat that the coverage does not start until your company has been around for 6 months (unrelated to the pre-existing 6 months figure above.)

Or was the author's post related to (presumably) retiring earlier and specifically not wanting to start a company again?

Re: Money Won’t Buy You Health Insurance

#98

Post by hoprocker » Tue, Feb 22, 2011, 12:07 AM UTC

wtracy wrote: post #73

krschultz wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not the difference between a family and a company, its the size of the group. Thus the costs for a company with 10,000 people is far different than a company with 10. Also, if you have a group of 2,5,10 or 20, the insurance company has an easier time denying you because if you get pissed and drop them, its not a big loss for them. In contrast, if you deny the right person at a 10,000 person company, they lose a…

Actually, has anyone tried banding a group of startups together until they have several thousand employees, then buy insurance as a bloc? Another idea I've kicked around: Create a sort-of incubator where, on paper, all of the startup founders and employees are employees of the incubator group. Then the incubator can handle the whole mess of both insurance and income taxes. (Bonus: Since the "incubator" now has a ton…

Haven't much looked into this (being as it now pertains to me, maybe I should!), but the Freelancers Union was making a bit of news last year[1].

Also, there are HR-outsourcing companies like TriNet that negotiate as a group for smaller/startup companies[2].

1. http://www.freelancersunion.org/

2. http://www.trinet.com/about_us/default.htm

Re: Money Won’t Buy You Health Insurance

#99

Post by cwp » Tue, Feb 22, 2011, 12:08 AM UTC

Groxx wrote: post #70

billjings wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are way, way above the amount of money health care should cost. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:International_Comparison_-... So as a matter of priority versus other spending outlays, we're way out of line. Here's per capita GDP: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=per+capita+GDP Spitballing from these numbers, it looks like we spend about as much in absolute terms as Switzerland, with everyone else way, way fa…

Nope, I'm pretty sure everyone agrees it's broken. And just to re-clarify: I'm not claiming we're not paying too much. I agree with everything you've said. Just that $50-100/month is un-doably low regardless of brokenness. I'll be reading through the links, I can always use more detailed info for future debates. Thanks! edit for repliers: before stating that location X has 100 or less per month, how much do your taxe…

No, it's not. I pay $120/month for a family of three, and get pretty good care for it.

I know that smug Canadians are a cliche in any discussion of health care, but we are an existence proof that acabal's expectations are totally reasonable.

Re: Money Won’t Buy You Health Insurance

#100

Post by dalke » Tue, Feb 22, 2011, 12:09 AM UTC

old-gregg wrote: post #91

Groxx wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> to me, an affordable health insurance plan would be between $50-$100 a month. Fat chance of that happening. And if it did, the deductible would be so high as to make the plan worthless for anything short of a car-crash-emergency-type-situation. This fits a fair number of cost complaints I hear over healthcare. Who wouldn't like to pay $50-100/month to have something better than emergency healthcare support? But thi…

Doctors and nurses and supporting staff must exist I got a $800 bill for 10 minutes doctor visit (swollen toe). Not exaggerating a tiny bit. No insurance company involved. "Must exist" is not an argument. Something is broken in the system where a doctor charges you $4,800 per hour. Insurance companies, obesity, poor lifestyle choices (all usual BS reasons I hear on TV) do not explain why this particular ####le charge…

Last year visiting California I was sick for over a week. 30 minutes for a prescription (which I knew would be the result of that visit) cost me $600. $300 for the doctor and the same for the hospital. In New Mexico (one of the poorest states in the US), the equivalent a few years previous cost me about $100.

I stopped getting insurance because as a self-employed person it was expensive and rising. I played the odds and won. Sure doesn't make me feel happy.