Health insurance

[Brooke]

I'm the one at our company who handles the health insurance, so I know what we pay (and for my company, we pay 100% other than the deductible, which is then up to employee).  Coincident with Obamacare, for the same plan, rates have gone up substantially, and deductibles have gone up some.

This is not a mystery but as expected.  If you take a system and add more regulation (which has compliance costs) and mix in some extra people that others pay for, costs go up.

I also have experience in the healthcare business (diagnostics services, specifically, which then includes experience with the market, insurance, and regulatory aspects).  The way to bring down cost of healthcare is not more regulation and more centralization, but the opposite.  This is why we have affordable, plentiful car insurance, house insurance, microwave ovens, carpeting, pizza, children's toys, cell phones, computers, TV's, air conditioners, paint, hamburgers, clothes, aluminum, lumber, filing cabinets, bed frames, cough syrup, automobiles, airline flights, restaurant meals, etc. and why today's epidemic is obesity and not -- as it was for the first 200,000 years of man's existence -- starvation.

If our healthcare system had regulation reduced and markets freed up, in 15 years, people would consider health insurance and healthcare about as urgent a topic as car insurance and car care.

[danny76]

My Health Insurance in the UK is pennies  a day and covers a cut fingers and full cancer cover care 

I got some of that. Comes with a wedge of MRSA or Legionnella if you fancy too.

Also they hire pudding shaped women to clean the wards with a level of ineptitude that defies belief .I.E if they died and fell down on the spot, with the mop in their hands they would accomplish more than they usually manage

[Groth]

 Part, and an important one, is 'hospitals' are required to serve all who come thru doors...whether they have 'insurence' or not...
 Now, I know this will breed contention..but they must stabilize/help all...
 Am I wrong?
                       JGroth

[CAP1]

How so?

 a law.

[DREDIOCK]

Gotta say on top of it simply being allowed to exist at all. I am amazed this thread has lasted this long

[Groth]

 Depth of neccesity.....
                                 JGroth

[CAP1]

Gotta say on top of it simply being allowed to exist at all. I am amazed this thread has lasted this long

 ha! me too.

[PJ_Godzilla]

In. Old insurance was cancelled (didn't meet standards of ACA); new one costs about the same premium-wise, but higher out of pocket costs (combined with lower flex-spending available, again due to ACA changes). My daughter, who self insures had her premiums raised by 8% this year.

THat lower flex spending cap went into effect last year for this plan year. I'm on my corporate plan but my cap was cut in half... didn't like that AT ALL...

Otherwise, my company (Ford) has made few changes.

BTW, I made a bet with a friend in WA state on his costs. He figured they'd drop. No. He's 'fessed up and owes me a steak and crab dinner. His/his wife's premia climbed by a whopping 70%.

Otherwise, IN. You know this one won't end well.

[spammer]

See Rule #14

[rogwar]

Gotta say on top of it simply being allowed to exist at all. I am amazed this thread has lasted this long

This is a health insurance thread, not a #14 one.

[Brooke]

BTW, I made a bet with a friend in WA state on his costs.

If you are ever around Redmond, WA, I will buy you a beer for making that bet and helping him to see the (obvious) light. 

[CAP1]

See Rule #14

[MrRiplEy[H]]

See Rule #14

[PJ_Godzilla]

If you are ever around Redmond, WA, I will buy you a beer for making that bet and helping him to see the (obvious) light. 

His problem: his woman. He's sort of <mraaaaaoooow, crack>, if you follow - and she's a typical my-good-intentions-trump-reality types. THe insidious thing about this impulse to help is that it gets gulled in the service of a lot of things that havve nothing to do with helping anyone other than the well-connected. I've got some history, both in Ford and with the civil service, of how this works in business and industry. That's why it's possible for the government to spend enough to provide living wages to the entire 40-50 million Americans at the bottom of the income range yet see no reduction in the poverty rate - and that's leaving the entire incentives issue aside.

BTW, your point about regs driving the premia up is entirely correct (although you would probably know better than I, given your area of specialty). Part of the mandate is that offered insurance now carries a mandated floor of coverage that is essentially one size fits all. THe size of the risk pool is higher but the mandate requires than, for example, an 80-yo woman has to purchase maternity coverage. Meanwhile, the act also mandates the ratio of cheapest/most expensive coverage. 

[-ammo-]

See Rule #14