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If health insurance were like car insurance it would cost a lot less. You don't turn in a claim to change your oil or replace your windshield wipers, you use it only for significant loss. Health insurance should be used in the same manner.
Yeah and you also don't NEED a mechanic to change your windshield wipers or oil. You shouldn't have to have a prescription for every drug under the sun that actually works nor should your have to have a doctor tell you whether or not you need or should get bloodwork done etc. I'm an RN and EVEN I have to fight my own damn doctor to get my Vitamin D levels checked on a regular basis or other labs I feel like I want to monitor on my own. God forbid I want to get a carotid ultrasound when I turn 60 to make sure I don't have 60% occlusion. Because it's always better to end up having a massive stroke and paying hundreds of thousands treating that instead of a simple preventative test or procedure. Doctors need to lose some of their paternalistic power they have over people and let people manage their own health a little more.
Just one contradiction, and that's that states don't require it unless you use their roads. You can own a vehicle and keep in on private land and not have to pay insurance.
Anyway, moving on...
Why isn't health insurance geared more towards catastrophic type coverage? Is it the litigious nature of people in this country causing Doctors to do unneeded test?
I've shopped around and a routine doctor's appointment is around $90. I have a wife and 4 kids and we go to the Dr probably 5 times a year...that's total, not individually. I pay almost $500/month for health insurance that I never use and I have to pay a deductible!!
Honestly, I don't know who to point the finger at. I do know that turning it over to the government is a BAD idea, but it has to be fixed.
Not in the state of FL you can't. If you have a car, even if you don't drive it, you have to have it registered and it must be insured. Trust me, I found this out the hard way.
A lot of the problem with health insurance is that people expect insurance to pay for every thing. This is in contrast to 30 or so years ago when people paid for the small stuff and only used insurance for larger costs such as hospitalization. Now people expect insurance to pay for things that they could easily pay for themselves. In these circumstances insurance companies will have to and do increase the cost. If people were responsible for some of the costs they would be more likely to be smarter consumers of medical care.
Auto insurance has a fairly large deductible which keeps consumers from filing claims for the small stuff.
Quote:
Originally Posted by chele123
If health insurance were like car insurance it would cost a lot less. You don't turn in a claim to change your oil or replace your windshield wipers, you use it only for significant loss. Health insurance should be used in the same manner.
Quote:
Originally Posted by elan
When you have a flat tire, you don't call your insurance company. You pay somebody 10 bucks to plug it or whatever. When you have a sore throat, your insurance pays.
I'm getting weary of hearing this nonsense.
Health insurance and car insurance are two different things. To take the last post first, there's no health care you can access from a HCP for $10. None. You can't walk in the door for that. A simple doctor's visit is usually ~$100.
The middle post is basically a rehash of that.
As far as referencing 30 years ago, health care delivery has changed dramatically in the last ~40 years. 40 years ago, you're quite right, insurance generally only paid for care that was provided in hospital. So doctors, playing the system like they have to, would admit people to the hospital for "tests". My father spent a few days in the hospital in ~1970 for an ulcer workup. Fast forward to today, all these tests are performed as an out-patient. You stay home, prep yourself, rather than the nursing staff prepping you, and you go to some OP center and get the test, then go home and go to bed if necessary. 40 years ago, most people stayed in the hospital 4-5 days when having a vaginal delivery birth. Nowadays, it's generally two. People stay fewer days for almost every diagnosis from heart attack to hip surgery to whatever. Most care happens outside the hospital.
Well, there are several reasons why health care insurance isn't like auto insurance. First off, cars have a distinct cut off point, beyond which you do not spend more money to keep them going, because that would mean spending more money than the car is worth. Humans have no such writeoff value, and consumers react badly to such clauses.
But most importantly, if a free market is to have any hope of functioning, customers have to have the option not to purchase a product if the price is set to high. This is known as "price elasticity" to economists. Absent this ability, businesses do not have sufficient need to compete on price, being instead able make more money increasing prices.
Health care has zero price elasticity. If you, your wife or your four-year old child have cancer, you will beg, borrow, steal, ***** or murder to get health care. This is why health care ever since Adam Smith have been considered an area unsuited to market provision.
Its cheaper for your health care provider to provide a regular health care screening. Car insurance can reward you for not using it. However, if the cost of a annual car inspection of your shocks, struts, ball joints, and compression test were cheaper then the work if you had a car accident. It isn't, and there is no real cost benefit to doing so.
Cheaper just to buy a new car when that happens.
Now, what happens if someone catches a bad mole as cancer on their arm early. The cost of removing it is minimal, compared to what would have happened if you wait until next year to check it out?
Just to many differences between cars and people. Costs mainly.
Because car insurance and health insurance are completely different. For one, the states highly regulate auto insurance and anyone must have it to own a car. Call that the individual mandate.
Next, let’s say that you are self-employed, and lucky enough to have found a company to provide you with health insurance. Then, let’s say you develop cancer. You suddenly find out that your insurance company stinks. So you think you're going to switch to one of those companies that advertize on TV?
Of course not. You’re screwed. Now you have a pre-existing condition. There’s not an insurance company out there that wants to cover you. So you don’t switch. You scream, and curse, and cry, but you’re stuck. Only healthy people have the luxury of picking and choosing.
Let’s also not forget that most people don’t find out that they’re not getting “good service” until they’re sick. Healthy people don’t make much use of their insurance, so they don’t know how bad it is. They only find out after they’re ill, and then it’s too late. It’s only fun to fire the insurance company if you’re sure you can go to another company to get what you need. Almost no one can.
Pick up a couple moving violations and see what happens to your auto insurance rates.
So why should healthy people pay high premiums for smokers and fat people?
Health insurance and car insurance are two different things. To take the last post first, there's no health care you can access from a HCP for $10. None. You can't walk in the door for that. A simple doctor's visit is usually ~$100.
The middle post is basically a rehash of that.
As far as referencing 30 years ago, health care delivery has changed dramatically in the last ~40 years. 40 years ago, you're quite right, insurance generally only paid for care that was provided in hospital. So doctors, playing the system like they have to, would admit people to the hospital for "tests". My father spent a few days in the hospital in ~1970 for an ulcer workup. Fast forward to today, all these tests are performed as an out-patient. You stay home, prep yourself, rather than the nursing staff prepping you, and you go to some OP center and get the test, then go home and go to bed if necessary. 40 years ago, most people stayed in the hospital 4-5 days when having a vaginal delivery birth. Nowadays, it's generally two. People stay fewer days for almost every diagnosis from heart attack to hip surgery to whatever. Most
care happens outside the hospital.
I see the liberals are onboard to poo poo the idea of bringing down insurance costs by individuals paying for small costs. Obviously that isn't going to fly when the democrats can tar the republicans for suggesting that women might be able to pay the $9 per month cost of birth control. Oh the inhumanity of it! You are aware that doctors could charge less if they didn't have to file all the insurance paper work. If you paid the doctor directly he could see you for a lot less. Oh and by the way outpatient lab work was covered by insurance
back in the olden days. When I said "hospitalization" I meant it as a generalization for higher cost items. As you pointed out, people are now requiring fewer days of hospitalization for almost every procedure. If there was a deductible for health insurance as there is for auto insurance we should be able to bring down costs. And to the person who said you only found out how good your insurance was when you got sick, the same could be said for auto insurance with a claim.
Well, there are several reasons why health care insurance isn't like auto insurance. First off, cars have a distinct cut off point, beyond which you do not spend more money to keep them going, because that would mean spending more money than the car is worth. Humans have no such writeoff value, and consumers react badly to such clauses.
You may like to think they react badly to such written clauses but most older Americans know it is already there in the fine print. Many American generations have come and gone knowing it was their time to "move over." In fact there may be biological rhyme and reason to the increasing inability of humans to recognize the sanctity of life. I would predict that, if we continue along the same social pathways, the fine print in health care policies spelling out a time to live and a time to die will become whole chapters under bolded titles. What's worse is that we will accept it without a whimper.
I've already got my music and scenes picked out before they send me to the Soylent Green factory but hopefully I will be dust in the west Texas wind long before I am made into a real Texas cracker.
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