People who oppose health care reform. (Kaiser, Ohio, Vermont, supplemental)

[golfgal]

Originally Posted by runswithscissors

Well first of all you aren't addressing what we would LOSE with that form of healthcare. But that's another story.

People are keenly aware of the value of their benefits when accepting a job. It is another form of COMPENSATION.

I chose my career and stayed there in part FOR THE BENEFITS. I had OPTIONS to go elsewhere and make more in simple salary. I GAVE UP that salary, as did UNIONS in EXCHANGE for benefits. Some years we gave up COLA for keeping our benefits. Every year my company printed out the MONETARY VALUE of each of our benefits to burn it into our brain. And those benefits also were lower cost than street value of me having to purchase them myself independently.

Your point is better suited, IMO to people who have NOTHING TO LOSE.

Why would anyone who is getting government healthcare vis a vis other people paying for them, CARE about those of us losing OUR healthcare? Or the costs and reasons to bring costs down? Or fraud? Or mismanagement? They have no stake in it whatsoever.

They DON"T CARE. As we have seen. Even when shown, the partisan view is "So what, we got our Progressive milestone accomplishment."

The point is the BIG LIE has been uncovered. "If you like your plan you can keep your plan. PERIOD." (and 30 iterations of the same foundation)

That's the ONLY WAY Obamacare was enacted. And given their lying and complete inability to roll it out and pretending they are OH SO SHOCKED about everything...after three years just proves that government is a mess.

I had to LMAO when Obama said "it's hard" "sometimes people have to go through 40 pages of requrements" "oh we're going to have real people use the system and tell us what they like and don't like".

HAHAHAHAHAHA Anybody who has worked in IT knows that everything he said is the nursery school version of system development and user interface. Hilariously once again proving he never ran anything in his life or was just shuffling words in the speech that only the most naive or partisan person would accept.

What about the bogus statement that insurance companies can just run DUAL SYSTEMS for DUALING competitive offers, at the flip of a switch, after CANCELLING people blah blah blah? OH and for just a year. Whether that was political COVER or just stupidity is irrelevant. It just proves government cannot be trusted - most of them are too corrupt or clueless.

The FIRST reform we need is GOVERNMENT reform, starting with term limits. The way our healthcare system got screwed up to BEGIN with was government control - it has not been a free market system for a very long time - if EVER.

Why can't I buy insurance from another state? A SIMPLE CONCEPT. Oh - just like Amazon and Travelocity LOL.

First, I disagree that people are keenly aware of benefits...yes, many are, but most are NOT. I deal with that daily and you would be surprised how many people have no idea if they are even offered benefits, nor what those benefits mean to them. I think the older you get the more aware you are, but even then people don't understand them or the importance of maybe taking a smaller salary in place of better benefits.

It is NOT a simple concept to just "buy from other states"..if it was, it would be happening already. Insurance laws vary from state to state. In order to even do business in a state the insurance company has to go through a lengthy application/approval process. Then, each year, they have to submit rates for the policies offered in that state for approval. They would have to tailor each policy to each state, get ratings in each state and get approval in each state....It's a very complicated process actually. It's the same for health insurance, car insurance, homeowner's insurance, etc. Since you are crying for government reform, the two just won't work together. The insurance industry is HIGHLY regulated...if you would like to go back to a time where the government did not regulate the actions of insurance companies I think you would find that this system is better....feel free to google the difference....

[Travelassie]

Originally Posted by Ariadne22

LOL - I can't resist. If we were writing a check for this number, this is how it would read:

Methinks you'd need a check as big as a dining room table to get all those figures and words on it!

[MrRational]

Originally Posted by golfgal

...if you would like to go back to a time where the government did not regulate the actions
of insurance companies I think you would find that this system is better....
feel free to google the difference....

tsk tsk golfgal
Why insist on avoiding the obvious in between step?

How about we keep the oversight and appropriate (mostly helpful) regulation...
and just eliminate the pattern of doing that in 50 separate but not all that different ways?

Maintaining the illusion that a model of government based on 17th century colonies,
each with it's own notion of sovereignty, is even remotely appropriate 400 years later is absurd.
The sooner we rid ourselves of that albatross the better off everything will be.

[Mircea]

Originally Posted by Weichert

A couple of states tried it. GA I think was one. Nothing came of it.

I'm not aware of that, but I'll look into it.

The issue is that healthcare is intra-State Commerce. That means the federal government has no power or authority to take any action about healthcare, except in the form of taxes and tax policies.

Each State has its own rules and regulations as they relate to commercial insurance ---- as it should be.

Anyone seen any hurricanes in Montana or North Dakota lately? No....so it is up to those States to decide the capitalization rates for hurricane insurance funds sold in each of those States, not the federal government.

Suppose you started an health insurance company and your first client is a medium-size business with 100 employees. You issued....

50 family polices cost $2,000 per year.
30 married-no-children policies cost $3,000 annually.
20 single-person policies cost $4,000 annually.
The employer pays 50% of the employee cost.

Life is beautiful, right? Wrong.... You just committed 100 counts of criminal fraud.

In the first month, you collected $22,500 in premiums and then the wife of one of the employees went into premature labor...the doctors worked feverishly to save the life of the premature infant, availing themselves of a Level III NICU which cost $700,000.....in spite of the most heroic efforts of the doctors, and the fact that they spent an additional $3,000 per day trying to keep the premature infant alive, it died two months later becoming a statistic on the Infant Mortality Index, and then ACA supporters scream the US has the most horrible healthcare system in the world, because doctors couldn't save the life of an infant who was effectively born dead.

$22,500 is not $700,000+

50 family polices @ $2,000 = $100,000
30 married-no-children policies @ $3,000 = $90,000
The 20 single-person policies @ $4,000 = $80,000

Total premiums collected for the year = $100,000 + $90,000 + $80,000 = $270,000

$270,000 is not $700,000+

Did "pooling" lower the cost of healthcare? No......I have forever destroyed that nonsensical argument posited by ACA supporters.

Hopefully, everyone now understands the function of State insurance commissions and insurance regulators....they exist to protect you.....the consumer.....from fraud, like selling worthless insurance policies.

Just as the federal government has no constitutional authority over intra-State Commerce, the several States have no authority over other States.

If Georgia permitted the purchase of out-of-State health plan coverage, then a reasonable assumption is that Georgia either entered into reciprocal agreements with those States to monitor and regulate insurance, or Georgia simply told buyers "you're own your own."

Nonetheless, in our example, we still have a shortfall of $430,000.

Where does that money come from?

Investors.

The State is going to ask you to attach an assumed cash value to your policies....

50 family polices with a cash surrender value of $500,000 each; and
30 married-no-children policies with a cash surrender value of $300,000 each; and
20 single-person policies with a cash surrender value of $250,000 each.

50 family polices @ $500,000 each = $25,000,000
30 married-no-children policies @ $300,000 each = $9,000,000
20 single-person policies @ $250,000 each = $5,000,000

Total value = $25,000,000 + $9,000,000 + $5,000,000 = $39,000,000

If those 100 employees, or their spouses or children each consumed the maximum amount in a year, then they would consume $39 Million in healthcare.

Is that possible? Oh, yes, but is it likely? No, the probability is quite low.

Accordingly, your State insurance regulators might tell you that you need to be capitalized at 40%, meaning you need $15,600,000 in cash to pay off potential claims.

Where does that $15,600,000 come from?

Investors.

You could, of course, charge each of the 100 employees $390,000 per year, but that wouldn't work out so well.

You could do like Sweden or Britain or Germany and charge a flat rate...the 100 employees and their employer contribute $270,000....let us not forget what the former German Minister of Health said....


Virtual budgets are also set up at the regional levels; these ensure that all participants in the system—including the health insurance funds and providers— know from the beginning of the year onward how much money can be spent. -- Franz Knieps German Minister of Health (2009)

Source: How Germany is reining in health care costs An interview with Franz Knieps

So....."from the beginning of the year onward how much money can be spent?"

$270,000

If only $270,000 can be spent, are they going to spend $700,000+ on a premature infant? No. The Swedes would just let the premature infant die...and then not count it as part of their Infant Mortality data....

"If the United States had Sweden’s distribution of births by gestational age, nearly 8,000 infant deaths would be averted each year and the U.S. infant mortality rate would be one-third lower."

Anyway, that should cover "insurance."

Explaining...

Mircea

[Wardendresden]

Originally Posted by MrRational

tsk tsk golfgal
Why insist on avoiding the obvious in between step?

How about we keep the oversight and appropriate (mostly helpful) regulation...
and just eliminate the pattern of doing that in 50 separate but not all that different ways?

Maintaining the illusion that a model of government based on 17th century colonies,
each with it's own notion of sovereignty, is even remotely appropriate 400 years later is absurd.
The sooner we rid ourselves of that albatross the better off everything will be.

Agree with this assessment. It is true in property-casualty insurance as well. Every state has different laws and regulations regarding minimum limits, whether or not it is fault or no-fault, whether underinsured (as well as uninsured) motorists should be offered. The P-C business is at least controlled by a law that mandates the minimum coverage required in any state must be provided to out-of-state citizens operating their vehicles in that particular state. In the health care insurance field you generally find yourself "out-of-service" and get stuck with a greater share of out of pocket expenses.

Dozens of state specific forms are filed in the P-C business, and I expect quite a few in health care business as well. It is inefficient and expensive, and we pay much higher premiums on both sides of the insurance business as a result. Health insurance is a waste of resources using a "middle" entity to take care of what could be taken care of directly--without providing the profits and administrative costs of insurance companies.

[Robyn55]

Originally Posted by Mircea

...If only $270,000 can be spent, are they going to spend $700,000+ on a premature infant? No. The Swedes would just let the premature infant die...and then not count it as part of their Infant Mortality data....Mircea

I don't think people understand how things work in other countries. We in the US want maximum treatment at minimum cost - for everyone. That just isn't going to happen no matter how you slice the onion. Robyn

[Wardendresden]

Originally Posted by Robyn55

I don't think people understand how things work in other countries. We in the US want maximum treatment at minimum cost - for everyone. That just isn't going to happen no matter how you slice the onion. Robyn

Hmmm. Since we can spend all we want on premature births we must be better off than those European countries--right?

Throughout the world, the first day of life is the most hazardous time for a baby; just over one million children die each year within 24 hours of being born.

Save the Children's annual "State of the World's Mothers" report ranks 176 countries on levels of well-being among children and mothers. This year's edition puts a special emphasis on newborn health, featuring its first-ever Birth Day Risk Index. The index ranks countries from the safest to the most dangerous for a baby to be born in.

In the United States, babies are 50 percent more likely to die on the same day they were born than in all of the other industrialized countries combined, according to the report. Each year, nearly 11,300 babies die on the day they were born in the United States, making American babies twice as likely to die in their first 24 hours as European Union babies.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/n...-the-children/

I just provide this for people who don't understand how things work in THIS country.

[markg91359]

I'm waiting for strangers to approach me on the street and make their case for why I SHOULD pay their groceries, gas, car payments, rent etc. It's the same thing but nobody would have the nerve if they had to REACH INTO MY WALLET. Oh wait. They already do that, then go to jail.

We already do that for people who can't afford it through food stamps, TANF, and other programs designed to create a safety net of sorts for the poor.

What all your bellyaching fails to acknowledge is that the USA is alone among all modern industrialized nations in the world in failing to offer its citizens universal health care whether it be through insurance or taxes. Do you like the USA having that distinction? How about the distinction of spending more than 16% of our GDP on health care and still leaving 15% of our population uninsured. Yes, that really stands out as an achievement doesn't it?

What anybody ought to be able to figure out is that numbers like that mean we have the most inefficient system for delivering health care services on this planet. If individual people like the quality of services provided by this system than they damn well ought too. When you consider how much is being paid for those services, hospital patients ought to be eating off golf-plated china with pearl handled utensils.

People can ***** all day long at the ACA. This system was riding for a fall and anyone who can't figure that out has wearing a blindfold for decades. Something had to give and it finally did. The ACA is likely to create a set of problems of its own. But honestly, I think most of us simply made up our minds that we'd rather deal with those than continue down a path of assured destruction.

[Nanny Goat]

Originally Posted by Mircea

Why should hospitals be allowed to engage in monopolistic practices, and charge varying rates?


What kind of sicko society lets monopolistic hospital cartels prey on the less fortunate?

I agree w/ you there. The rates they charge, along w/ the docs, etc. Wow is all I can say. Until hospitals/docs start charging less or stabilize their fees, how will health care costs ever come down? And, overdone diagnostics. They buy the machines, they use them. Our society is in an over-diagnosing, over-treating frenzy=higher costs.

[modhatter]

Originally Posted by markg91359

We already do that for people who can't afford it through food stamps, TANF, and other programs designed to create a safety net of sorts for the poor.

What all your bellyaching fails to acknowledge is that the USA is alone among all modern industrialized nations in the world in failing to offer its citizens universal health care whether it be through insurance or taxes. Do you like the USA having that distinction? How about the distinction of spending more than 16% of our GDP on health care and still leaving 15% of our population uninsured. Yes, that really stands out as an achievement doesn't it?

What anybody ought to be able to figure out is that numbers like that mean we have the most inefficient system for delivering health care services on this planet. If individual people like the quality of services provided by this system than they damn well ought too. When you consider how much is being paid for those services, hospital patients ought to be eating off golf-plated china with pearl handled utensils.

People can ***** all day long at the ACA. This system was riding for a fall and anyone who can't figure that out has wearing a blindfold for decades. Something had to give and it finally did. The ACA is likely to create a set of problems of its own. But honestly, I think most of us simply made up our minds that we'd rather deal with those than continue down a path of assured destruction.

If people had to pay the full cost of their insurance, then they wouldn't love it so much. !!!