Why isn't health Insurance like auto?

Use it and premiums go up.

Too many folks take kids to the Dr. for sniffles.

Isn't this an old idea? Has the medical industry hypnotized us from this consideration? Health insurance is too expensive. 

Good old Arkie based Wal-Mart is planning on taking their 20% employees as part-time workers to 40%. Those may be paid below the level for Medicade, so Wal-Mart is offloading benefits on Uncle Sam. Bravo Republicans, bravo, way to steal money from the Govt. Immoral profiteers.

How else can Health insurance become affordable?

I am not in favor of Nationalizing it, like Hillary's idea from 15 years ago, in fact it still makes me very nervous and distrustful.

So why isn't Health insurance like auto?

JohnAskew wrote:



Use it and premiums go up.

Too many folks take kids to the Dr. for sniffles.

Isn't this an old idea? Has the medical industry hypnotized us from this consideration? Health insurance is too expensive. 

Good old Arkie based Wal-Mart is planning on taking their 20% employees as part-time workers to 40%. Those may be paid below the level for Medicade, so Wal-Mart is offloading benefits on Uncle Sam. Bravo Republicans, bravo, way to steal money from the Govt. Immoral profiteers.

How else can Health insurance become affordable?

I am not in favor of Nationalizing it, like Hillary's idea from 15 years ago, in fact it still makes me very nervous and distrustful.

So why isn't Health insurance like auto?

Actually, too many parents don't take their kids in when they "just have the sniffles" and it turns out to be something much worse.  Seeing a doctor is preventative maintenance.  Or do you think your auto insurance should go up when you take your car in for an oil change?

Oh, there's a difference?  Auto insurance doesn't pay for maintenance, or even repairs that are non-accident related?  Yeah, I guess you're right.  Can't compare apples to oranges.

Next question please?

JohnAskew wrote:



Use it and premiums go up.

Too many folks take kids to the Dr. for sniffles.

Isn't this an old idea? Has the medical industry hypnotized us from this consideration? Health insurance is too expensive. 

Good old Arkie based Wal-Mart is planning on taking their 20% employees as part-time workers to 40%. Those may be paid below the level for Medicade, so Wal-Mart is offloading benefits on Uncle Sam. Bravo Republicans, bravo, way to steal money from the Govt. Immoral profiteers.

How else can Health insurance become affordable?

I am not in favor of Nationalizing it, like Hillary's idea from 15 years ago, in fact it still makes me very nervous and distrustful.

So why isn't Health insurance like auto?

Well, there are other factors as well.
In my state, Auto and home insurance premiums are adjusted by a few things; mainly Credit Score and Risk factor.

Bad credit will effect your premium just as much (sometimes more) than your risk factor.

Health insurance also uses a risk factor to calculate your premium.

Alos, I don't believe it to be a partisan topic, both parties are stagnant on the topic, nothing really innovative has been discussed (that I can recall) from either side.

I believe it is dangerous to put your blind faith in any ideal, whether it be political or not.  Open minds breed innovation. There is way too much partisan hate mongering these days. It's to the point where noone even really considers any topic based upon it's merit, instead they consider it based upon their 'parties' standpoint, which I think is bad for everyone.

Back on the topic of healthcare; raidsing premiums everytime you went to the doctor is a pretty bad idea, in my opinion.

Part of the problem is with the rampant lobbyism in the medical and pharmacutical indistries, and that happens on BOTH sides of the political isle.

Massachusestts has recently put their version of Universal health care into effect.  Basically, it mandates that employers with 15 or more employees must provide coverage for their employees, and makes policies available that are underwritten by a state 'coverage pool'. This allows small businesses to obtain lower rates comparable with those of larger corporations by grouping all the small businesses into the same pool.

For the people that are unemployed, the state covers their healthcare (a large percentage or the full thing depending on circumstance).

And this bill in Mass. was passed by a Republican (Mitt Romney) governor (gasp!)

http://www.hcfama.org/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/04/AR2006040401937.html

JohnAskew wrote:

Bravo Republicans, bravo, way to steal money from the Govt. Immoral profiteers.

Wait a minute....the government puts a gun to my head every year and forces me to pay money or go to prison.  Who is stealing money?

Sucks how our cousins over the pond have to have such insurance. You have to pay for everything health wise

Bit different in the UK... its free. Though for some people there are big waits for anything major but to be honest the health system as a whole in my opinion works well. If you want all the bells and whistles and treating special then that is an option. but thats the one you pay for.

I dont like how you say if you use your insurance it goes up. I can appreciate such cases with Auto insurance but your health is a completely different ball park. I mean we have accidents, thats why they are called such but your telling me that if you are double unlucky to be hit twice by a car you have to pay more money!? What if it wasnt your fault?

Recently as the NHS in the UK is in such a mess the govt here is trying to architect a new IT system dubbed NPfIT (National Program for Information Technology) one part of the idea being all patient records are held in central data farms so doctors have access at all times. My girlfriend works for the NHS and she often has to find notes on a patient, book a taxi (yep a cab) to take the notes from one hospital to the other. Trying to eliminate such burdens as these and improve patient care the major player in the project Accenture have now pulled the plug and walked. They quit as the task is turning out to be just too difficult (for them I think).

Would be great to see redmond step up to the task

but back to your topic. Thats totally... well money grabbing and pi$$ poor im afraid.

dahat wrote:



One thing that’s always peeved me about the insurance industry is that they have truly caused the price of medicine to go up for those who are not insured or want/need to pay out of their own pocket. Why is this? If the insurance company says “We’ll pay up to X for treatment Y”… guess how much the Doctor is going to charge? X... but as least as far as the insured is concerned.

I see your point, but this si not always the case.

I needed lung surgery when I was in college. I had no health insurance, and the pulminary-cardio surgeon performed my $25,000 pro-bono and also covered my 11 day hospital stay. No charge to me or my family.

I realize this is probably a pretty rare instance, but it does happen.
If it happened to me, there must be hundred or thousands others that have a similar story.

I'm so tired of hearing folks from countries with nationalized health plans refer to their health insurance as "free". What percentage of your paycheck to get to take home with you?

Stop saying it's free; it ain't free.

Wow, these informed replies makes me feel like a n00b with regard to the topic. True enough.

Nationalization is just not going to work; socialism never has worked effectively (outside of small communes). I've definitely heard of how terrible UK and Canada's system has become, and the "good doctors" come to the USA to make more $$. Canadians have to wait very long periods of time for appts -- defacto "don't bring kids with sniffles" isn't it?

The Mass. approach is laudable but flawed, imho. It smacks of socialism and is expensive to the state. It is a very expensive state to live in and has had a depressed economy due to govt. strangulation of this sort. That's my gut feeling, anyway.

I think Dahat is onto something. I do think that Dr visits are too frequent when people have health insurance here in the USA.
The price fixing insurance providers demand from physicians exactly causes the whiplash of higher prices on a walk-in uninsured patient. That is contemptible.

Pay as you go. There are no guarantees in life, and it is foolhardy to expect some type of equalization from higher powers.

blindlizard wrote:



JohnAskew wrote: Bravo Republicans, bravo, way to steal money from the Govt. Immoral profiteers.

Wait a minute....the government puts a gun to my head every year and forces me to pay money or go to prison.  Who is stealing money?

That money is used (mostly) to keep our society running in a relatively organized fashion.  I pay for JohnAskew's kids to go to school and for your ability to somewhat trust that a bag of fritos won't contain arsenic.

This libertarian BS about how a free market and no taxes will solve everything is about as naive as an enron investor.  We can all find blatant misuse of our taxes, but in most cases, this waste covers up the real good that is done when we all agree to help take care of each other.

The positive side of taking your kids to the doctor for the sniffles is that it's much cheaper to be proactive than reactive.  I doubt that many people wake up in the morning and look forward to a prostate/breast exam, but it's certainly cheaper than undiagnosed cancer.

SethX9 wrote:



I'm so tired of hearing folks from countries with nationalized health plans refer to their health insurance as "free". What percentage of your paycheck to get to take home with you?

Stop saying it's free; it ain't free.

Ill hush my mouth as you are obviously far superior than me and know so much more. Funny though how you refer to money that I supposedly "Dont get to take home" its completely compulsary, you have NEVER seen it. So how can you miss or even register something you never saw in the first place? more to the point its such a small amount I have never heard one person complain about it. Funny though; If I ever hurt myself or break a leg I get rushed in and treated like a human being for being alive... not becuase I have cash in the bank or insurance. In 23 years I have never once had one complaint or gripe with our NHS I think its simply amazing.

So National health isn't free - but how much does it cost compared to health insurance?

Last time I looked it was cheaper in the UK to pay your taxes for health than it was in the US to pay health insurance. But that all completely misses the point, which is that if you can't afford to pay for it you still get it (toa  pretty high standard), and that in countries which have a decent healthcare system (belgium springs to mind.) it's still more cost effective. Besides which the UK system seems to have become poorer as the government has stressed private health care moree, odd co-incidence that.

"Socialism never has worked effectively"???? France is predominantly socialist and is a brilliant place to live. Hardly a small commune. There are quite a few socialist countries in Europe (Belgium again springs to mind.) which have reasonable economies, but more importantly to me a better standard of living than that "enjoyed" by us in the UK, or you over in the US.

Ok, so I really want to live in Holland where they seem to have most of the answers.

And this "zomg you have to wait years to get seen!" is quite frankly BS, if you have something urgent you will get seen pretty much then and there.

And getting seen for the "sniffles" is much better than waiting it out and seeing if something is even worse and then getting it to be an even bigger expense to the state.

We have GP's and family doctors for a reason.

We (The USA, center of the universe) do have something with a slightly similar idea to what JohnAskew proposed at the beginning of the thread:  Health Savings Accounts.

Read more here: 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_savings_account

JohnAskew wrote:



The Mass. approach is laudable but flawed, imho. It smacks of socialism and is expensive to the state. It is a very expensive state to live in and has had a depressed economy due to govt. strangulation of this sort. That's my gut feeling, anyway.

The Mass approach is cheaper on the states budget than it would be to cover those on welfare. It subsidizes the coverage of those on state benifits by combining their policies with those of others that are paying for it, therefore the pool is bigger, which equals cheaper premiums.

The result is cheaper healthcare for all. Not saying I whole heartedly agree with the approach on it's face, but it is one of the better implementations I have seen at a govt level.

MA has a depressed economy?  Not sure where you are getting that info from, but it isn't true.

Mass is expensive? Compared to...? It's cheaper to live in MA than it is to live in RI, and yet MA's GDP is significantly higher as a percentage.

Ma has lower sales , income and property taxes than RI and CT.

This isn't the Dukasis Massachusetts any longer.

dahat wrote:



Pace wrote: So how can you miss or even register something you never saw in the first place?

How do you miss the money you never see? Simple. You look at your paycheck.

I dunno about you, but every two weeks when I take a quick look at my pay stub I am sickened to see that just over 25% of my hard earned money has been taken from me. While a few hundred here and a few hundred there might not seem like much, it is horrific to me considering I’ve got a $300/month deficit in my budget these days and if I didn’t have all of those taxes coming out... I’d be breaking even.

In the short run, yes.  You'd be breaking even, but in the long run, you'd just spend more and get yourself back into a bigger deficit.  This isn't directed specifically at you, since I don't know your situation, but quite a large number of people mortgage their future for 'gotta have it now'.  More money simply means more debt.

BTW, 25% of your salary is pretty cheap compared to what you'll pay as your salary goes up

dahat wrote:

The same goes for the annual view. Traditionally when you get a new job they say how much they’ll be paying you per week/month/year... of course how much you actually take home is no where near that, me I lose ~10k a year to the Feds, so while my ‘claimed’ salary sounds nice, the actual take home amount is not.

This dear friends... is why we need the FairTax!

Fair Tax Bullet Points wrote:

The FairTax:

• Abolishes the IRS
• Closes all tax loopholes and brings fairness to taxation
• Maintains our current Social Security and Medicare benefits
• Brings transparency and accountability to tax policy
• Allows American products to compete fairly
• Reimburses the tax on purchases of basic necessities
• Enables retirees to keep their entire pension
• Enables workers to keep their entire paycheck

I'm generally for this idea, but most of these bullet points are blatant hype and misrepresentation.