Quote: Original post by Oluseyi

Quote: Original post by Eelco
Changes that are blatantly intent on transferring wealth have a tendency to evoke such responses, yeah.

Insurance is a "wealth transfer" (when you make a claim). I guess we shouldn't have insurance, then?

You really expect me to respond to this?

Quote: ...quite simply, stupid.

I guess not.

Quote: Original post by Zahlman

Quote: Original post by LessBread

Quote: Original post by Zahlman

Quote: Original post by LessBread
All of that could have been avoided by a two hour visit to the dentist two months earlier, but since I didn't have insurance, I didn't do that. I coped with the problem as best I could until I no longer could and then I went to the ER. The bill for the ER was $2000. The medical indigency program covered it, so I didn't have to pay. I don't know how much the pills cost or the two visits to the dentist. Another $1000 at least. They didn't send me a bill for that. The bottom line is that the ER is no substitute for a solid health care plan. What could have been fixed for $500, ended up costing six times as much.

Guh. I've been biting the bullet for my dental appointment costs for the last few years. It's been quite expensive overall (I kind of... forgot I had teeth, or something, during university), but your story strikes me as a bit ridiculous. $500 to fill a cavity, seriously? I pay less than $150 Cdn. And they're nice white composite resin fillings, too (I had one or two amalgams before but they've been taken out) - you'd never guess from looking that I've had about 20 of them done, not to mention two root canals :)

That's a ball park figure for what the total cost would be, copay plus what the insurance company would pay.

I'm not sure you understood. I pay less than $150 Cdn for a filling without any insurance. That's the entire amount the dentist's office receives. Or would you have needed more work than a simple filling, even if you'd seen someone when it started to hurt?

I really don't know what it would have cost to fix the problem since I didn't get it fixed and had to use the ER instead. That said, I still think it quite reasonable to assume that having a family dentist fix the problem long before it abscessed would have cost substantially less than what it eventually cost. Citing $500 as a ball park figure covered the range of possibilities.

At any rate, one clear possibility is that health care costs are driven higher here than they are there by the unscrupulous business practices of the health insurance industry. Whistleblower tells of America's hidden nightmare for its sick poor

Quote:
...
Potter resigned shortly afterwards. Last month he testified in Congress, becoming one of the few industry executives to admit that what its critics say is true: healthcare insurance firms push up costs, buy politicians and refuse to pay out when many patients actually get sick. In chilling words he told a Senate committee: "I worked as a senior executive at health insurance companies and I saw how they confuse their customers and dump the sick: all so they can satisfy their Wall Street investors."
...
Such sentiments are rare in an industry that has given America a healthcare system that can be cripplingly expensive for patients, but that does not produce a healthier population. The industry is often accused of wriggling out of claims. Firms comb medical records for any technicality that will allow them to refuse to pay. In one recently publicised example, a retired nurse from Texas discovered she had breast cancer. Yet her policy was cancelled because her insurers found she had previously had treatment for acne, which the dermatologist had mistakenly noted as pre-cancerous. They decreed she had misinformed them about her medical history and her double mastectomy was cancelled just three days before the operation.

Last month three healthcare executives were grilled about such "rescinding" tactics by a congressional subcommittee. When asked if they would abandon them except in cases of deliberately proven fraud, each executive replied simply: "No."

To Potter that attitude has a sad logic. The healthcare industry generates enormous profits and its top executives have a lavish corporate lifestyle that he once shared. Treating patients for their expensive conditions is bad for business as it reduces the bottom line. Kicking out patients who pursue claims makes perfect economic sense. "It is a system that is rigged against the policyholder," Potter said. The congressional probe found that just three firms had rescinded more than 20,000 policyholders between 2003 and 2007, saving hundreds of millions. "That's a lot of money that will now go towards their profits," Potter said.
...

Quote: Original post by Oluseyi
"Wealth transfer" is one of the dumbest reactionary terms I've ever encountered.

Agreed. It's class warfare rhetoric obscuring the "wealth transfer" from the poor to the rich at the heart of the current economic crisis. It's part and parcel of a package of false claims, including the bromides "new taxes slow economic growth" and "tax cuts spur economic growth". Tax cuts merely make it easier for already wealthy people to gamble their increased disposable incomes in risky stock market speculations.

Quote: Original post by LessBread

Quote: Original post by Oluseyi
"Wealth transfer" is one of the dumbest reactionary terms I've ever encountered.

Agreed. It's class warfare rhetoric obscuring the "wealth transfer" from the poor to the rich at the heart of the current economic crisis. It's part and parcel of a package of false claims, including the bromides "new taxes slow economic growth" and "tax cuts spur economic growth". Tax cuts merely make is easier for already wealthy people to gamble their increased disposable incomes in risky stock market speculations.

Hearing you rail against 'class warfare rethoric' never fails to crack me up.

Quote: Original post by Eelco
You really expect me to respond to this?

Honestly? I really expect you evade by bringing up some unrelated refrain, some pithy phrase intended to derail the conversation. But that's just what I expect; you might confound me. [smile]

Quote: Original post by LessBread

Quote:
...
Potter resigned shortly afterwards. Last month he testified in Congress, becoming one of the few industry executives to admit that what its critics say is true: healthcare insurance firms push up costs, buy politicians and refuse to pay out when many patients actually get sick. In chilling words he told a Senate committee: "I worked as a senior executive at health insurance companies and I saw how they confuse their customers and dump the sick: all so they can satisfy their Wall Street investors."
...
Such sentiments are rare in an industry that has given America a healthcare system that can be cripplingly expensive for patients, but that does not produce a healthier population. The industry is often accused of wriggling out of claims. Firms comb medical records for any technicality that will allow them to refuse to pay. In one recently publicised example, a retired nurse from Texas discovered she had breast cancer. Yet her policy was cancelled because her insurers found she had previously had treatment for acne, which the dermatologist had mistakenly noted as pre-cancerous. They decreed she had misinformed them about her medical history and her double mastectomy was cancelled just three days before the operation.

Last month three healthcare executives were grilled about such "rescinding" tactics by a congressional subcommittee. When asked if they would abandon them except in cases of deliberately proven fraud, each executive replied simply: "No."

To Potter that attitude has a sad logic. The healthcare industry generates enormous profits and its top executives have a lavish corporate lifestyle that he once shared. Treating patients for their expensive conditions is bad for business as it reduces the bottom line. Kicking out patients who pursue claims makes perfect economic sense. "It is a system that is rigged against the policyholder," Potter said. The congressional probe found that just three firms had rescinded more than 20,000 policyholders between 2003 and 2007, saving hundreds of millions. "That's a lot of money that will now go towards their profits," Potter said.
...

Really, insurance companies are in it to make money? Who would have guessed, im shocked.


Isnt it a travesty that insurers refuse to pay out claims that wouldnt be upheld in court? I mean, they could just not make such a big deal out of it and just give you your treatment right? They have loads of money anyway.

Instead of judging payout by technicalities such as contracts, they could simply do whats fair, right? Contracts are just a technicality. Who reads them anyway. What matters is what you deserve.


On the constructive side: it would be beneficial given the general intelligence to have consumer organizations (publicly funded ones, ill throw you a bone!) scan standard contracts for loopholes. And the burden of proof for refusing treatment should be on the insurance company. They had better have a hard case for refusing payment, and if they dont, they might find themselves on the hook for murder.

That would be sensible reforms which i would wholly endorse. (insofar that is not already the case. i really cant tell from the kind of mindless agitprop being thrown around here)

Quote: Original post by Eelco
Really, insurance companies are in it to make money? Who would have guessed, im shocked.

You've raised an excellent issue, actually. I, for one, do not believe that health insurance should be a for-profit product. I just believe that some things are social services and shouldn't be operated strictly on a profit basis. That doesn't mean they can't be revenue neutral, wherein they pay for themselves.

Prisons in America were privatized, and then the number of people in prison skyrocketed. Correlation, not causation, of course, but there is the case of the Pennsylvania judges who were caught accepting bribes to recommend jail sentences at a specific uvenile prisons for children. The news used to be a loss leader considered a civic duty by the networks but became a profitable business - sell advertising during the broadcast - and now it's fabricated alternate reality entertainment contrived to garner the greatest number of eyeballs. Since the inception of Health Management Organizations or HMOs in 1973, and as employers increasingly opted to provide benefits in lieu of real wage increases, the increases costs of healthcare have outstripped those of wages and the economy as a whole: healthcare has gone from costing 5.97% of GDP in 1965 to 15.3% in 2004 (figures from the Congressional Budget Office, which actually projected in late 1992 that we'd exceed 18% by 2000, so... do we applaud the HMOs for their restraint in that regard?)

The profit motive is not appropriate for everything. Not everything should be an industry.

Quote: Original post by Oluseyi
The profit motive is not appropriate for everything. Not everything should be an industry.

I think profit motives can be made to work fine, *if* you can make sure people are profiting from the necessary actions, which is what my suggestions above address. Seems noone dared stomach that wall of text.

[Edited by - HostileExpanse on July 29, 2009 9:51:38 PM]

Quote: Original post by HostileExpanse

Quote: Original post by Alpha_ProgDes
Is it feasible for everyone (who currently has insurance) right now to pay $50 - $100 a month [maximum] and still have good health insurance? And I mean without employers chipping in.

Sure.... but only for people who count "good" as having to pay the first $5000 every year, and then still paying 30% of the doctor bill for the rest of the year.

I pay around $150 a month and have good health insurance. So yes, I think in theory it's feasible, however it requires a complete overhaul of the current system (if not society). For instance, medical specialists might make over two or three times as much in the US as they would here, someone gotta pay for that.

Quote: Original post by WanMaster

Quote: Original post by HostileExpanse

Quote: Original post by Alpha_ProgDes
Is it feasible for everyone (who currently has insurance) right now to pay $50 - $100 a month [maximum] and still have good health insurance? And I mean without employers chipping in.

Sure.... but only for people who count "good" as having to pay the first $5000 every year, and then still paying 30% of the doctor bill for the rest of the year.

I pay around $150 a month and have good health insurance.

And that coverage isn't through your employer?