Why I Want to See Health Insurance Reform Passed


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bigfincat is offline bigfincat Post #11  February 24,2010, 3:59pm
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dwreese182 wrote :
I'm sorry. Have you thought of switching to GEICO? But hey, you are getting older every year, so the chances of you getting sick are getting greater, makes sense to me that they would jack your prices up. Don't wanna pay more in insurance? Don't get old......or sick.



Mine hasn't changed at all. Maybe you are with the wrong company? Have you looked around for better prices/coverage?



Industry standards? You mean standards like the meat industry has? The cell phone industry? The computer industry? The internet industry? Basically every industry that exists has "standards". I'm sure you had a specific "standard" in mind that makes it unfair. Care to be a little more specific?

So based on the "license theory", the tattoo and piercing industry is a "monopoly" too?

So what does the government gain out of forcing doctors and nurses to get a license? And is this even on the insurance companies or is this on the government?
So.... why do we have controls on energy prices? Even though there is competition there really is almost none.

Electricity & healthcare are far different industries than the tattoo industry when it relates to society.

The government or even moreso civilization requires that healthcare be monitored.

When society offers Dr.'s the sole control of a substance, restrictions must come along with that control. The control is not something that the industry can just take & run with as they please.

Perhaps we could take back that control. But, me, I am more of a realist. That will never happen.

I suppose that your stance calls for legalization of all drugs.
 
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Calm2010 is offline Calm2010 Post #12  February 24,2010, 4:34pm
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I think health care reform is multifaceted. It can't be addressed by focusing on just one industry.

1. Providers need to be paid, at least in part, on quality and outcome. Defensive medicine is understandable based on malpractice issues, but increases cost for everyone.

2. Malpractice reform, on some level, must occur. Providers must be protected from frivolous lawsuits. Patients must retain the ability to sue in situations where true harm was caused.

3. Insurance companies must engage in ethical practices. The right care at the right time in the right place is critical. A mechanism needs to be put in place to ensure that the risk is adequatly spread - healthy people and people in need must be part of the system.

4. People need to do there part. Living a healthy lifestyle is the best thing that can be done to lower health care costs in our country. That would allow the health care dollars to be spent more appropriately.
 
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Can_I_just_be_Jo is offline Can_I_just_be_Jo Post #13  February 25,2010, 4:58pm

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bigfincat wrote :
If profits are blowing up then what is the justification for higher premiums & at the same time lesser coverage?

The industry enjoys a monopoly type situation & therefore pricing must be controlled.
The recent increase in California was due to the change in law that will require insurance companies to insure all including preexisting conditions at the same rate. When the actuaries set the rates for the current pool they had to be adjusted for the new pool. That would be your increase.

If you want to remove monopolies let people but insurance across state lines.
 
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bigfincat is offline bigfincat Post #14  February 25,2010, 7:11pm
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Can_I_just_be_Jo wrote :
The recent increase in California was due to the change in law that will require insurance companies to insure all including preexisting conditions at the same rate. When the actuaries set the rates for the current pool they had to be adjusted for the new pool. That would be your increase.

If you want to remove monopolies let people but insurance across state lines.
That doesn't do enough to reign in costs.

The idea of having minimum service requirements would go a long way in making competition accessible.

At the moment it is quite difficult to comparison shop because the companies often offer packages that are quite different when practically applied. There are many scenarios in which a normal consumer would not know exactly what parts of future treatments would be covered. The possible scenarios are too varied to know how each plan would operate in a time of need.

There is absolutely no reason for insurance to be tied into employment. Why am I pooled with my coworkers? That makes no sense.

(I would guess that it had something to do with a deal between gov't & business. Making it easier to collect taxes for gov't. If we get healthcare elsewhere it makes it much harder to identify earnings. & making employees dependant on their employers.)

Does anyone know the variation between what different insurance companies pay for time spent in an ER? I would wonder how significant that difference is. Local hospitals charge an hourly rate for its use but they obviously don't recieve full payment for that. The possible variation for services would tell a whole lot about the possible reality of competition. If the variation is insignificant then the effect of competition on costs would not be very significant.
 
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dwreese182 is offline dwreese182 Post #15  February 26,2010, 5:34am
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bigfincat wrote :
I could be wrong but it seems that every Dr. that I have ever been to has charged about the same amount for your basic healthcare procedures. The insurance companies that pay those claims cannot do much to manipulate what they pay out to Drs. for those procedures. What are they going to do? Pay the Dr. $6 instead of $8 for your stool sample? Not terribly significant.
I don't agree with that. Go to a doctor without health insurance and watch how much the price drops. Part of the problem with health care is the doctors ripping off the health insurance companies.

Also, in my hometown (of 5,000 people) I could go to a clinic for your standard flu symptoms and pay over a $100 more than if I went to a doctor in private practice in the same town....with the two health care providers being less than two miles away. I couldn't imagine how many choices there would be in bigger cities.

bigfincat wrote :
I reealize that each company can negotiate to some degree but it seems that in each area there is a "standard" of living that the Dr.'s in that area wish to maintain. They would tend to not budge too much on that.... unless they absolutely had to.
Why should they have to? They are highly educated people who provide a skill that society could absolutely not live without. I guess that anyone making over 200k is evil and does not deserve a penny of what they make.....regardless of how much education they have or contribution to society they offer.

bigfincat wrote :
There is very little pressure supplied by any source to maintain costs.
That's mainly because the US has become a land of sissies who expect big brother government to do everything for them.

bigfincat wrote :
How do you figure that dispensing pharmaceuticals is not a monopoly? Only a small percentage of people can do so.
Dispensing Pharmaceuticals? You mean people who can write a prescription? Like the 800,000 some thousand physicians currently in practice? I would bet that they don't all work for the same company either.

Perhaps you mean, the people who fill prescriptions? Like the almost 300,000 pharmacists in the US? Gonna take a wild guess and say they don't all work for the same company as well.

Or maybe you mean the companies that make the drugs? Here is an alphabetical list of companies....you can go count if you like. I'm going to guess it's in the hundreds if not thousands.

Alphabetical list of pharmaceutical companies - A - MPR

Since the word "monopoly" seems to be misunderstood so here is the definition for that.

Monopoly:
  • (economics) a market in which there are many buyers but only one seller;
  • exclusive control or possession of something; "They have no monopoly on intelligence"
P.S. It is also a popular board game.

So please share, in your opinion, what kind of monopoly is the pharmaceutical industry (since there are different types of monopolies; government monopoly, coercive monopoly, etc)? And who has control over this so called "monopoly"?

bigfincat wrote :
There is a reason why pharms are so costly on the black market.
Pharmacies on the black market? Well I am going to take a wild guess here and say it is expensive because;

1. The people who are requesting the drugs probably can't get a prescription because they don't really need it.....or else a doctor would prescribe it.More than likely they are addicted to something that their doctor has stopped prescribing for that exact reason.
2. The services they offer come at great risk to their personal freedom....this danger to their person comes at a price.
3. You have to pay someone to steal those drugs as they are probably obtained in an illegal fashion.
 
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dwreese182 is offline dwreese182 Post #16  February 26,2010, 5:50am
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bigfincat wrote :
So.... why do we have controls on energy prices? Even though there is competition there really is almost none.
This really depends on what state you are in. I do not believe this is, or should be a federal matter.

bigfincat wrote :
Electricity & healthcare are far different industries than the tattoo industry when it relates to society.
A certification is a certification. It doesn't really matter what industry you are in....almost all certificates are for the same purpose; to show that you have been properly trained to do something.

bigfincat wrote :
The government or even moreso civilization requires that healthcare be monitored.
Government only cares because people are too stoopid to do so themselves.

bigfincat wrote :
When society offers Dr.'s the sole control of a substance, restrictions must come along with that control. The control is not something that the industry can just take & run with as they please.
LoL So you suggest that a 15 year old boy be able to prescribe medicine to himself? I'm sure that would go over great.

It is best that a trained person be able to prescribe stuff that could, with the wrong combination, seriously harm or even kill someone. I certainly wouldn't want a person who pushes a button at a factory to be able to prescribe his, or anyone elses kids, medication.

bigfincat wrote :
Perhaps we could take back that control. But, me, I am more of a realist. That will never happen.
I agree, it will never happen. Not in my lifetime.

bigfincat wrote :
I suppose that your stance calls for legalization of all drugs.
Why in the world would you think that? This has nothing to do with my stance on "illegal" drugs. But since you brought it up, my official stance is; "I don't give a rats behind about them. I could really care less which way it went."
 
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Rand_011 is offline Rand_011 Post #17  February 26,2010, 8:26am
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bigfincat wrote :

There is absolutely no reason for insurance to be tied into employment. Why am I pooled with my coworkers? That makes no sense.

Just in case you were unaware ... You fully have the right to decline the coverage offered by your employer and buy your own on the individual market (granted your employer can't offer to cover the 50-100% they do on the employer based insurance)

Does anyone know the variation between what different insurance companies pay for time spent in an ER? I would wonder how significant that difference is. Local hospitals charge an hourly rate for its use but they obviously don't recieve full payment for that. The possible variation for services would tell a whole lot about the possible reality of competition. If the variation is insignificant then the effect of competition on costs would not be very significant.

The difference from company to company on payments for procedures is usually very significant ... By orders of magnitudes ... One company may treat everything done in a doc's office as a copay, thus a ~$30 charge, another company may charge you $30 for the visit and $700 for the MRI done and another might not cover the MRI ...
Hopefully that helps clear up the waters a bit.
 
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bigfincat is offline bigfincat Post #18  February 26,2010, 8:02pm
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Rand_011 wrote :
Hopefully that helps clear up the waters a bit.
That makes my point in large part.

Why is a large company at an advantage over a small company in matters of health insurance?

Why is anyone at an advantage over anyone else in this matter?

Why is an individual at a disadvantage for competitive prices?

It is arbitrary & is nonsensical.
 
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bigfincat is offline bigfincat Post #19  February 26,2010, 8:18pm
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dwreese182 wrote :
This really depends on what state you are in. I do not believe this is, or should be a federal matter.



A certification is a certification. It doesn't really matter what industry you are in....almost all certificates are for the same purpose; to show that you have been properly trained to do something.



Government only cares because people are too stoopid to do so themselves.



LoL So you suggest that a 15 year old boy be able to prescribe medicine to himself? I'm sure that would go over great.

It is best that a trained person be able to prescribe stuff that could, with the wrong combination, seriously harm or even kill someone. I certainly wouldn't want a person who pushes a button at a factory to be able to prescribe his, or anyone elses kids, medication.



I agree, it will never happen. Not in my lifetime.



Why in the world would you think that? This has nothing to do with my stance on "illegal" drugs. But since you brought it up, my official stance is; "I don't give a rats behind about them. I could really care less which way it went."
It is ridiculous to think that power & control needn't come with regulation & restriction.

Also, Dr.'s would likely not charge you less than the negotiated rate that they recieve from insurance companies.

Of course, Dr'.s should have control of meds. That was my point. There is no way that when society gives that control they also give freedom to escalate prices as wished.
 
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Rand_011 is offline Rand_011 Post #20  March 1,2010, 10:16am
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bigfincat wrote :
That makes my point in large part.

Why is a large company at an advantage over a small company in matters of health insurance?

Why is anyone at an advantage over anyone else in this matter?

Why is an individual at a disadvantage for competitive prices?

It is arbitrary & is nonsensical.
Makes your point??

Large company doesn't necessarily have an advantage over a small company ... In many cases their is a disadvantage for a large company over a small company.

Why does anyone have an advantage? Easy, ask your state insurance comissioner ... The only advantages are those that are foisted on insurance companies by the government.

An individual at a disadvantage for competitive prices??? An individual can get the most competitive prices for their insurance ... Example ... A plan might cost $50 for an individual would cost roughly $200 for an employee. (I will exclude NJ and NY from the above example, since the law makers there have priced individual plans out of the market)
 
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