FROM 2012 INTO 2013 POLITICS THREAD

Re: THE 2012 POLITICS THREAD

You summed it up just perfectly what's wrong with US health insurance.

 

Re: THE 2012 POLITICS THREAD




Won't someone think of the insurance companies?

 

Re: THE 2012 POLITICS THREAD

Okay. I'll think about them. Thought about them. Greedy scumbags. Give me single payer.

 

Re: THE 2012 POLITICS THREAD

Which is my point. Instead of just being out $10, you'd be out $750.

Apply that to ordinary doctor's visits. Visits to my primary care doctor costs something like $150 with the insurance, with a $20 co-pay. Take away that insurance, and odds are, I'd be paying more than $20. Maybe not $150, but I'd think it'd be more than $20.

After all, YF said he charged something like $50 or $75 just to walk in the door to fix his coffee machines, plus any other expenses and labor. I'd think that a doctor would be charging even more for his time, plus for the costs of maintaining an office and staff.

 

Re: THE 2012 POLITICS THREAD

Does anyone besides me think Sen. Robert Menendez is one of the most corrupt politicians on the planet?

 

Re: THE 2012 POLITICS THREAD

Let's assume your physician bills someone a total of $170 for a generic office visit (routine poking, prodding and frowning followed by the writing of a prescription or two). In one scenario, you have health insurance paying for it, so you cough up a $20 co-pay and your insurance covers the rest (we'll ignore yearly deductibles and insurance-negotiated rates and the like). In the other scenario, you pay for the whole thing out of pocket. Let's assume that in that scenario it costs exactly the same (which goes against all evidence, but I'm a right-winger and we all know right-wingers aren't much for evidence). So, you as an individual are $150 worse off without the insurance than with it, right? Wrong. You have to also factor in how much you pay the insurance company for the privilege of it covering $150 worth of your doctor's visit. How much do you think you paid for that?

Before you say "nothing, because I get health insurance from my company," remember that your company is only willing to compensate you with cash and benefits to a certain point. On an individual basis it might be hard to pin down exactly how much lower your cash compensation is as a result of your having health insurance, but it is folly to suggest that, in general, you're not paying for that health insurance one way or another. So how much do you think you paid? Because, as you rightly note, health insurance companies are not routinely altruistic, it seems reasonable to think that you paid way the hell more than $150.

You rightly point out that people often have no choice with regards to insurance. They either take advantage of what their employer provides or they don't. But I have also argued all along that we should sever health care financing from employment. That is, your health care (or insurance) should be something that you pay for, not your employer. I've argued this because: 1) it would make you a more cost-conscious consumer of health care; 2) it would eliminate the wholly unfair subsidy (via the tax code) that some firms get that others (and the self-employed) don't; and 3) it would minimize concerns, such as those voiced by Lancey Howard, about being one layoff away from not being able to afford any health care.

Now I am a big believer in consumer choices. So I think people should be free to buy whatever insurance they choose. You want a prepaid health care policy? Have at it. You want true insurance to cover catastrophic loss only? Well, we got that, too.

 

Re: THE 2012 POLITICS THREAD

Then surely you'd advocate passing along the money employers save by not purchasing insurance as salary increases to the employees, right?

That's the problem with all the GOP's pie in the sky nonsense about free markets and tort reform and CHOICE!!!!

"I'm sure if freed of the burden of government interference companies will react in a way that benefits the consumer," said no one ever.

 

Re: THE 2012 POLITICS THREAD

Oh, so companies have to pay for health insurance now? And they've been forced to for so many decades? Hmmmmm ... one would think that, if that money were just sitting there waiting to be taken, those evil companies would have taken it already.

 

Re: THE 2012 POLITICS THREAD

I'm sure that was a response to something. But it wasn't a response to my post.

 

Re: THE 2012 POLITICS THREAD

Sure it was. Your post ridiculed the idea that companies, freed of having to pay for health insurance, would pass on those savings to their employees in the form of higher wages. My response was that companies are already free to not pay for health insurance. There must be some reason why they choose to do so. That reason, it seems obvious, would also lead them to increase wages if they got out of the health care business.

 

Re: THE 2012 POLITICS THREAD

Using health insurance as pre-paid routine medical care only encourages people with insurance to over-use it. Why not take your kid to get an antibiotic when they pop a 103 fever, even though the antibiotic won't touch the virus and actually may make the child's immune system less able to fight off future invaders? My wife and I used to take ours to the doc all the time when they were small. We acted as if we waited, they'd die. And with a $10-15-20 co-pay, it wasn't economically punitive to take a "better safe than sorry" approach.

The problem is that all the people like me and my wife -- and there are a lot of us worry warts out there -- have driven up the price of routine health care until it is too expensive for most people to pay out of pocket.

It would take some time, but if you get health insurance companies out of the mix, the price for routine health care would necessarily come down. Because if we were all paying out of pocket, we'd think twice about taking themselves or their kids to the doctor. And while it's been a while since I took Econ 101, pretty sure if demand for routine health care goes down and the supply of doctors remains static, the price will fall.

This wouldn't just save money for all of the people who formerly would've paid for these office visits with insurance. It saves an enormous amount of cash throughout the Medicare system based on all of the currently uninsured who take their kids to the ER instead of a doctor's office when they get those same stupid viruses.

Take those savings and subsidize (for those under a certain income threshold) the purchase of a major/catastrophic insurance plan that would cover the total price tag for the type of heart procedure JR referenced. Turn the screws on the insurance companies to stop all the amoral denials of coverage based on "pre-existing" conditions that are sketchy at best and totally fraudulent at worst. Introduce real competition into the system. Then I think we're finally getting somewhere.

 

Re: THE 2012 POLITICS THREAD



Who is it that wants to keep the health insurance companies in the middle of American health care, driving up costs and prices on all sides?

Health insurance companies.