Yeah, you really SHOULD include spousal benefits whenever discussing health care.Quote:
Originally Posted by KiwiDexter
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Yeah, you really SHOULD include spousal benefits whenever discussing health care.Quote:
Originally Posted by KiwiDexter
I agree. My concern is that they will eventually be paying for more than half of the rest of the country which will contribute, but not enough to cover their own care.Quote:
Originally Posted by nemaroller
I would say that the same is true here. Technically, it IS true, but our top people make only about 2-3x what the bottom teir of full time people make, so the difference is not as extreme as it might be in some sectors.Quote:
I know executives at my company pay far more than some one who makes $100k/year. That's just how the pool is funded, as a company wants to be able to offer the best health care package, and they need to pay for those costs some where, and let's face it, the middle and lower wage earners can't shoulder that cost.
Yes! However, MANY more ailments could be counted in the category of sudden death a few decades ago, and are now counted in non-fatal, or slowly fatal.Quote:
The second variance I would throw in would be accidental / sudden death. Obviously, if a person pays insurance premiums for 30 years and then hits a tree with his car, there are no expensive surgeries for the insurance company to pay. A sudden stroke that kills does not require hospitalization or surgery, it just happens too quickly.
As for the rest: I see a trend developing where I am mostly posting pessimistic, depressing, rants. Perhaps I am getting old. However, I feel that the advance of medical technology will inevitably lead to a time when it will be possible to survive for a long time at a high degree of functionality, but only a handful of the very rich will be able to afford that care. Fortunately, I also believe that society as a whole will collapse for a different reason (see my earlier rant on technological interdependence a month or so back) before we reach that day.
Good math. However, I would not leave out medicare/medicaid. The principle behind those two is that they take over, on the public tab, the costs that insurance companies don't want to cover: Elder care and end of life care, to a large extent. When looking at the total health care situation, those need to be included into any solution. The insurance industry is largely working by dumping the most expensive cases (elderly) on the public, along with any other expensive cases that it can (pre-existing conditions). Therefore, they are picking the remaining flesh off of a corpse that doesn't yet acknowledge its own demise. When we talk about health care, we need to talk about the whole thing, not just the economical pool that current insurance companies are tapping for their existence.Quote:
Originally Posted by nemaroller
The main problem with the current Insurance model to me seems to be with those, who are either self employed or in low income jobs that don't earn enough for the person to contribute to a health care policy.
This means that the poor basically don't get much healthcare. Also those people who work freelance or contracting, if they or there child suddenly gets very ill and requires very expensive treatment they will not be able to afford it so you are basically putting a price on their lives.
Those either too poor or basically too unlucky well you can just die.
A National Health insurance policy should be to look after those who are too poor or too unlucky.
Everyone else can still pay privately if they wish.
Personally i believe there are some things that companies should not be able to make a profit out of and they are
Public Utilities - Gas / Electric / Water
Public Transport - Trains / Tubes / Trams
Health Care
These areas (in my opinion) should be not for profit. I don't understand how making these things run at a profit benefits the public. Some people say that Private companies run more efficiently than government run agencies, well then isn't just the Public Agency model broken ?
Why cant we have a regulated private company that is run not for profit for any of our utilities ?
Directors can still be paid the equivalent of private sector salaries the companies can still run in a similar manor to private companies but instead of having targets based on the amount of profit you make, have targets based on how well you serve your public or how much of a saving your customers are making that year !!!
Nobody has ever been able to explain to me how my Gas (for example) can cost me less when the company selling me gas now has to make a profit ??
I am all for market forces and the idea that competition will regulate the market for you in markets were people actually have a real choice to buy or not to buy
One of the really odd statistics, which I can't find a current citation for because I haven't looked, is that the socioeconomic class that you are born into has a HUGE impact on how many health problems you will have, even when factors such as access to health care, smoking, etc., are factored out. I have seen studies looking at why this is, but have not looked for a primary source demonstrating the magnitude of this effect.
The point is: If you are born poor, you will have a greater need for health care in your life, even if you become affluent by your teenage years.
Let's assume that our insured's name is visualAd. There's pretty much no chronic condition that he hasn't developed, and that includes chronic halitosis. When he is diagnosed with ulcerative colitis and the prospect of three or four sessions of major surgery and all that goes along with it, as well as the prospect that he may develop complications later in life, the insurance company has to re-assess their model.Quote:
Originally Posted by nemaroller
Result: his premiums rocket.
Solution: he has to either pay through the nose, or (presumably) exempt himself from insurance on related illness. Or have no medical insurance at all.
visualAd is but a young'un, starting out in his career, and already he's facing the prospect that his insurance premiums are larger than his mortgage payments. With the right treatment, he will likely contribute 40+ years of useful work to society, during which time he may become filthy rich and easily able to afford his payments. (OK, so the "useful work" line is debatable). But right now, what are his options?
As I don't live in the US under a medical insurance system, I'd actually like to know the answer.
If he's got my health plan he'll pay his $5000 deductible, and the rest will be covered. When my group is up for renewal, an underwriter will asses the group's utilization and determine what the premiums should be. They will likely go up, but not sky rocket.
I have health insurance through my employer. My portion is tiny, and the employers portion is hidden from view (it isn't reported as part of gross pay). However, my employer has to factor in the total cost of employing me, which includes the health care costs and a few other hidden charges. If I add my contribution to the contribution made by my employer, my insurance premiums utterly dwarf my mortgage payments already, and I live in a pretty nice house.Quote:
Originally Posted by zaza
Your apparent concern surprises me; are you hoping to benefit in some way from my future wealth?Quote:
Originally Posted by zaza
I think that the value of a person in terms of the amount you earn can be rather misleading. There are hundreds of low paid jobs that are essential and without people to fill the positions, those who would have otherwise had a better job will have to fill them instead.
A sick person who is unable to work, even in a country with no state run healthcare still costs the economy money as they are unable to contribute to the GDB of the country. Most private sector companies make 5-10 times as much money out of an employee as they pay them, there might even be a trend that lower level staff make even more. The money the company makes is then subject to corporation tax and the profit contributes to the health of the economy. It is therefore in everyone's interest that as many people as possible are healthy enough to work and contribute not only to the state healthcare system but also the economy.
There are always a minority who take advantage of such systems and try and do as much as they can to avoid doing anything other than going to their local pub for a few pints, get drunk, get arrested then get sick with lung cancer and expect treatment despite having smoked like a chimney all their lives. I do believe the benefits outweigh the drawbacks.
If he has chronic life-long conditions, he would most likely apply and be accepted for Medicaid or Social Security Disability.Quote:
Originally Posted by zaza
Medicare is for elderly people age 65 and over.
Medicaid is for people in need - with little income and little to no assets.
Additionally, depending on the actual US State visualAD works in, he would apply for the federal sChip program (which in his case would probably work out to the same cost of a private industry premium - but he wouldn't be denied coverage).
We all know the Save Ana story that was posted on VBForums a while back. If I remember, the father was an independent IT contractor. While he made just over six figures, he decided not to buy any health insurance for his family.
His wife's employer actually offered health insurance, but they chose to not pay the higher premium for family coverage and only insure the wife (family premium is usually 3x the individual rate per paycheck).
The daughter got a brain tumor and for the past 3-4 years, the family has accumulated a bunch of medical bills. Obviously, they don't have the means to pay them off, and yet it appears they have not declared bankruptcy, lost their house, or been forced to court. Why?
1) Either they applied for and now receive social security disability coverage.
2) The health organizations realized the family couldn't pay the bills and wrote them off.
I would be curious on an update on Ana, as I know quite a few people in this forum donated (myself included) to help that family along. It appears Ana is doing well now, but the bill situation has been kept understandably quiet.
I agree with this general principle but it's not quite that simple. As soon as you set a target you change the behaviour of an organisation, usually with unintended and unwanted circumstances. For a long time, if I wanted to see my doctor I had to phone up in the morning and book an appointment for that day - I couldn't book an appointmnet in advance. The reason for this is that the government decided they wanted to reduce waiting times so they set targets specifying how many appointments a surgery could have outstanding. Seemed like a good idea except that surgery simply stopped booking appointments in advance. Their figures looked great but it didn't mean the system was working any more efficiently. In fact it was considerably less efficient. Can we get a facepalm smiley for the forum? I feel the need to use it at times like this.Quote:
Directors can still be paid the equivalent of private sector salaries the companies can still run in a similar manor to private companies but instead of having targets based on the amount of profit you make, have targets based on how well you serve your public or how much of a saving your customers are making that year !!!
Like I say, I agree with the principle but it's hard to motivate public bodies without targets and targets can themselves be damaging. Actually I think the NHS used to work better without so many targets, mainly because the individuals they attracted tended to be, by nature, motivated anyway. The same was true of schools a decade or so ago. Unfortunately, as we've allowed the private sector into both these areas over the last decade I don't think we could now return to a relatively targetless set up. We've got the worst of both worlds.