[SportyandMisty]

Originally Posted by logline

Newsflash: you were getting the same increase BEFORE the affordable care act. The insurance companies won either way.

It really is not about the insurance companies. It is about the medical care delivery system rather than insurers who pay for it.

Here's one example: ER physicians easily make $400K per year. They are worth every penny if you are on a stretcher and need that doctor or you will die. From the comfort of our homes with no impending emergency, that level of compensation seems a bit high. But make no mistake: it is the compensation of the professionals who actually deliver care that drives the insurance up, coupled with the compensation of the professionals who make medical supplies & devices.

So... if you want to curtail insurance rates, you'll need to point to health care providers and tell them they make too much money. I haven't noticed any politicians standing up to say that.

[Raiderman]

I get to shop around for a new insurer in November, as my current one is going out of business. I have decided to go through an insurance broker this time, rather than try to sift through information online. It was a nightmare last year, trying to find that 3 or 4 minutes per week that the exchange website wasn't down :/ We'll see how it goes this year. I was actually fairly pleased with NHC. $250 annual deductible, $0-$10 prescriptions, $5 office visits, all for about $400/mo premium.. I got a lot done this year, health-wise, as I hadn't had insurance for 5 or 6 years (and also didn't need it). So I used the year of insurance to get basically every part of my body checked out to make sure I wasn't going to drop dead. Got a CPAP for my apnea, found out I have high cholesterol, high blood pressure, a Vitamin D deficiency, and, as was found last week, a heart defect.

I already stopped drinking, but now, due to the heart defect, I need to stop smoking, and cut down on caffeine and salt. I'm going to be a JOY to be around LOL

[SportyandMisty]

Originally Posted by NYtoVT

But since Congress is made up of lawyers, you'll never get tort reform. Lawyers look out for their own.

It has nothing to do with Congress mostly being comprised of attorneys.

It has EVERYTHING to do with the American Association for Justice being one of the top 5 contributors to election & re-election campaign coffers of members of Congress.

[SportyandMisty]

I encourage the thoughtful among you to read:

The Innovator's Prescription -- a good analysis by one of my favorite HBS/MIT professors, Clayton Christensen.

Also - a good magazine article in The Atlantic titled "How American Health Care Killed My Father"

Both of these correctly point to a major problem in incentives. Change how we compensate people and we change how they behave.

Don't forget what we now call medical insurance is not insurance at all -- it is pre-paid medical care. For example, we all have insurance for our cars, yet we don't ask State Farm or Geico to pay for our oil changes and brake jobs. Why do we think our medical insurance should pay for routine medical things that are analogous to oil changes and brake jobs? If our car insurance covered oil changes, brake jobs, tires, and other routine maintenance, it would probably cost 5 times as much.

But health insurance is different from every other type of insurance. Health insurance is the primary payment mechanism not just for expenses that are unexpected and large, but for nearly all health-care expenses. We’ve become so used to health insurance that we don’t realize how absurd that is. We can’t imagine paying for gas with our auto-insurance policy, or for our electric bills with our homeowners insurance, but we all assume that our regular checkups and dental cleanings will be covered at least partially by insurance. Most pregnancies are planned, and deliveries are predictable many months in advance, yet they’re financed the same way we finance fixing a car after a wreck—through an insurance claim.

[NYtoVT]

Read the magazine article and found it fascinating. I'll probably buy and read the book.

[Cold Warrior]

Originally Posted by SportyandMisty

It really is not about the insurance companies. It is about the medical care delivery system rather than insurers who pay for it.

Here's one example: ER physicians easily make $400K per year. They are worth every penny if you are on a stretcher and need that doctor or you will die. From the comfort of our homes with no impending emergency, that level of compensation seems a bit high. But make no mistake: it is the compensation of the professionals who actually deliver care that drives the insurance up, coupled with the compensation of the professionals who make medical supplies & devices.

So... if you want to curtail insurance rates, you'll need to point to health care providers and tell them they make too much money. I haven't noticed any politicians standing up to say that.

$400k per year? Not nearly that high. The median is closer to $280.

[ScoopLV]

And doctors who make six figures aren't the problem. Lots of people make six figures. Six figures isn't very much these days. Someone making six figures does not necessarily "have it made" -- and hasn't for quite a long time.

The problem is that there are makers when it comes to health care, and there are takers. And there is a limited supply of people who can pass organic chemistry. (Which is one reason why living in an educational cesspool does not help our success vector as a city.)

And right now we have takers complaining that (gasp!) health care costs money. They weren't paying attention to any of it when they didn't have to pay for it. But now they do, and they'll complain to anyone who will listen how unfair it is that people have to pay a lot of money for health care.

The fact of the matter remains that while these people were busy not spending money on healthcare, the system was propping them up. Even if only 1-in-10 had a dire medical crisis, that was enough to wreck the system for the other nine uninsured/underinsured who didn't have any major health problems and paid as they went for routine checkups and cleanings.

With medicine, like the car analogy used above, maintenance costs far less than major repairs. But people WILL NOT SPEND money on regular maintenance unless it is essentially free. They simply care more about their vehicles than they do about themselves. You can go to the Strip right now and see that people don't give a [excrement] about their health. Just look at them.

And these same people are the ones complaining about the new system. For those of us who have been spending that kind of coin on insurance plans all along (whether self-funded or employer-funded), nothing at all has changed.

[StinkieMcCain]

aca is the largest tax increase in history. Will you please all stop thinking it has anything to do with caring for your health. They could care less. If need be its best you die -Death panels. Its already happening.

[NLVgal]

Sierra reimburses a 99212 office visit at approximately $13 dollars after patient copayment. The patient pays the rest. They pay $300 for an MRI, less copayment and deductible.

You're telling me they are paying the hospitalists 400k a year? I'm pretty sure that the ones that I worked with at our local healthcare monopoly would beg to differ.

[airics]

where is there a mri for $300? my wife had one for breast cancer, it was over $700 from steinberg