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philosophy -> health insurance (3/24/2009 4:37:44 PM)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090324/ap_on_he_me/insurers_sick_people ...is it possible that the threat of health reform in the US may be enough to change things significently for the better?

Crush -> RE: health insurance (3/24/2009 5:07:53 PM)
Possible. Many insurance companies don't want to kill the goose...just take all the eggs. If the gov't gets involved, they lose the goose and the eggs.

rulemylife -> RE: health insurance (3/24/2009 5:11:19 PM)
This is total and complete bullshit. WASHINGTON – The health insurance industry offered Tuesday for the first time to curb its controversial practice of charging higher premiums to people with a history of medical problems. The offer from America's Health Insurance Plans and the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association is a potentially significant shift in the debate over reforming the nation's health care system to rein in costs and cover an estimated 48 million uninsured people. It was contained in a letter to key senators. My health care coverage, which I pay myself, is through Anthem Blue Cross/Blue Shield. My premiums have increased 70% in the past two years (35% each year) without having any chronic health issues.

LookieNoNookie -> RE: health insurance (3/24/2009 5:47:26 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: rulemylife This is total and complete bullshit. WASHINGTON – The health insurance industry offered Tuesday for the first time to curb its controversial practice of charging higher premiums to people with a history of medical problems. The offer from America's Health Insurance Plans and the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association is a potentially significant shift in the debate over reforming the nation's health care system to rein in costs and cover an estimated 48 million uninsured people. It was contained in a letter to key senators. My health care coverage, which I pay myself, is through Anthem Blue Cross/Blue Shield. My premiums have increased 70% in the past two years (35% each year) without having any chronic health issues. I missed something here Rule....what is your argument here? ("Argument"...legal debate/conversation on opposing sides....argument).

ThatDamnedPanda -> RE: health insurance (3/24/2009 6:01:35 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: philosophy http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090324/ap_on_he_me/insurers_sick_people ...is it possible that the threat of health reform in the US may be enough to change things significently for the better? I think it's got a good chance of working in the opposite direction - if they stop jacking up the premiums on pre-existing conditions, they'll probably raise everyone else's premiums to some degree in order to make up the difference. That'll piss even more people off. I dont think there's anything the health care industry can do to stop the tide from rolling in. The health care system in this country is too badly dysfunctional to survive, and everyone with any sense at all knows it. There's just no rational way around it anymore. It needs a complete overhaul, from the ground up, and this pitiful little teaspoon of PR is way too little way too late.

awmslave -> RE: health insurance (3/24/2009 6:48:22 PM)
quote: ...is it possible that the threat of health reform in the US may be enough to change things significently for the better? They spend enough money in Washington to make sure their interest will not be harmed. Obama health plan that requires helf insuarance for all could be goldmine for health insuarance providers.They will get low risk people and the government subsidized people who otherwise would not enroll. As it stands now Obama health plan is not single-payer government run program.

MmeGigs -> RE: health insurance (3/24/2009 7:06:57 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: ThatDamnedPanda I dont think there's anything the health care industry can do to stop the tide from rolling in. The health care system in this country is too badly dysfunctional to survive, and everyone with any sense at all knows it. There's just no rational way around it anymore. It needs a complete overhaul, from the ground up, and this pitiful little teaspoon of PR is way too little way too late. I'm both happy and sad to be in complete agreement with you about this. Happy because I think you're very sharp (and also cute and cuddly, which is beside the point) and I feel good about being on the same side that you are, and sad because I think you're right but that it will be a huge battle to get those who will be making the decisions about these things to see that we've got to stop protecting profits at the expense of providing care. I am completely and totally opposed to any plan that involves an "individual mandate" to purchase health insurance from the private insurance market. I've seen how this kind of crap works with health care plans that are available to low-income workers today. Folks are offered a moderate-premium high-deductible plan that pretty much precludes them from seeking care unless their situation is pretty desparate. It's great for the insurance companies and hospitals - the insurers don't have to pay out for minor illnesses and preventive care and the hospitals don't have to absorb the cost of care for uninsured people who are seriously ill. It sucks for the low-income person who has a minor illness or wants to get some preventive care, because these aren't covered by their insurance plan. A family that is struggling to put food on the table will not be ponying up for annual physicals. We have no chance at all of solving the health care crisis if we continue to consider protecting profits to be as important as providing care.

rulemylife -> RE: health insurance (3/24/2009 7:11:23 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: LookieNoNooki I missed something here Rule....what is your argument here? ("Argument"...legal debate/conversation on opposing sides....argument). My argument is that health insurance companies have not raised premiums just for those with long-term health issues but have raised rates for all. Because these companies do not make the majority of their money from the premiums they charge but from re-investing those premiums in the market, which is doing rather poorly. And we're making up the difference. (edited to add: I wasn't arguing with Philosophy, just the topics in the article that I mentioned)

Jeptha -> RE: health insurance (3/24/2009 7:16:26 PM)
That describes my situation, pretty much, MmeGigs. I'm curious about the feasability of going to Mexico for some high-ticket item health care services, should I ever need them.

MmeGigs -> RE: health insurance (3/24/2009 7:45:09 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Jeptha That describes my situation, pretty much, MmeGigs. I'm curious about the feasability of going to Mexico for some high-ticket item health care services, should I ever need them. It's not at all uncommon for folks in northern border states to go to Canada for elective surgeries or even needed care, so it seems rational for folks in southern border states to seek care in Mexico. I'm in Minnesota, where a suggested solution to our health care cost crisis has been relying on the Canadian health care system. Bus seniors over the border to buy their medications at reasonable Canadian prices. You'd think that this would be a major embarassment to the US health care system, but that doesn't seem to be the case. The reaction from the health care industry has been to try to raise fears about buying health care abroad rather than to focus on why folks feel that they need to leave the country to get the care they need.

philosophy -> RE: health insurance (3/25/2009 12:35:58 AM)
......i'm curious. Does anyone in the USA actually think their health industry is alright? Any of our posters think it needs no change?

housesub4you -> RE: health insurance (3/25/2009 4:39:04 AM)
I'm sure if there are any elected officals on CM they will say our health system is great, why they have not had an increase in in their premiums in decades. Me, lost my health care with the job market, employers are making hard choices to save money and one of them is to stop providing health insurance. Our monthly prem. was $1200 for 2 people thru BC/BS of Illinois and the employer picking up the rest of the prem. But instead of laying people off they cut out health insurance Now we can apply for COBRA (yea) there is a section in the fine print which states no medical payment of any kind will be paid for 18 months unless can be proven it is not pre-exisiting. So basically, they want us to make the payments every month with them not having to make any payments until they determine it is not pre-existing. Yea, the free market is working great in this screwed up health care system we have

aravain -> RE: health insurance (3/25/2009 8:58:22 AM)
I've met people (in real life) who think that our healthcare system is fine, fair and balanced. When grilled on other issues, they've proven themselves to be similarly ignorant.

philosophy -> RE: health insurance (3/25/2009 9:00:13 AM)
Well, given the responses here it seems odd that health care reform hasn't been top of the agenda before. Seems like it would be a populist (ie attractive to politicians) thing to do.

ThatDamnedPanda -> RE: health insurance (3/25/2009 9:20:04 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: aravain I've met people (in real life) who think that our healthcare system is fine, fair and balanced. When grilled on other issues, they've proven themselves to be similarly ignorant. They are invariably people who already have coverage, and almost without exception people whose coverage is still provided through their employer. The universal mantra of the narrowminded and self-centered - "I've got what I need, so obviously the whole system works fine."

rulemylife -> RE: health insurance (3/25/2009 9:34:15 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: philosophy Well, given the responses here it seems odd that health care reform hasn't been top of the agenda before. Seems like it would be a populist (ie attractive to politicians) thing to do. No, health care reform would be a socialist endeavor. Capitalism is what made this country great and we would be killing the profits of our health-care industry as well as ruining the quality of our health care. (Sorry, I was watching Fox News earlier. It has a certain brainwashing effect)

ThatDamnedPanda -> RE: health insurance (3/25/2009 9:37:33 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: philosophy Well, given the responses here it seems odd that health care reform hasn't been top of the agenda before. Seems like it would be a populist (ie attractive to politicians) thing to do. The problem is, the majority of the people in the country still have health coverage, and the conservatives who oppose health care reform have done a good job of frightening them into thinking that health care reform might mean that they would wind up with even less coverage than they already have, or pay even more than they are already paying. So anytime someone proposes any fundamental changes, you get a lot of knee-jerk responses from people who feel threatened. The only way we're ever going to get a serious populist effort to change the system is when a sufficiently large critical mass of people have either lost their coverage, or finally start to understand how precarious their coverage really is. Then the majority of people will feel more threatened by the certainty of that than by the uncertainty of change, and we'll have finally reached the tipping point. Access to health care is an extremely emotional issue for everyone. It affects people on a visceral, instinctive level. The challenge for political leaders who decide to champion this issue is to convince people who already have health coverage right now that if they don't accept changes in what they have, there'll be a point in the relatively near future where they won't even have that much anymore. And that's a very tough thing to explain to people when they're scared. Clinton wasn't able to do it, and he could talk a bird out of a tree. I think Obama's got a better chance; partly because he has oratorical skills that are at least on a par with Clinton's, and partly because the situation has gotten so much worse since Clinton tried that he has fewer people to convince, and even most of those people are a lot closer to grasping the matter than they were 15 years ago. I do think we're finally going to get something done here in the near future. Unfortunately, I'm not as optimistic that it will be a good solution, at least on the first try. I think it's going to be butchered by too many special interest groups and lobbyists. My biggest hope for the first attempt is that they come up with something that will be relatively easy and painless for them to fix and improve upon when it starts to fall apart.

fluffypet61 -> RE: health insurance (3/25/2009 10:06:47 AM)
i don't have health insurance and i am on a limited income. i believe that i am a better health consumer than i was when i had health insurance. It used to be that the doctors did a lot of unnecessary testing because the insurance would pay them for it or required them to do it. Now, for example, if the doctor wants to check my lipids - that is all that is tested. Last year a doctor wanted to do surgery to remove some benign tissue. Because i didn't have insurance i told him not do the surgery. A year later the tissue is still benign. i considered buying health insurance - i would have had to pay $250 per month for a year (waiting period for preexisting - they call benign preexisting) before insurance would pay anything and then have a $3,000 deductible. That's $6000 out of my pocket that would not give me any health care at all! Then i would have to continue to pay $250 per month plus co-pays. I would rather pay for actual value/product received than throw money down a hole.

housesub4you -> RE: health insurance (3/25/2009 10:12:29 AM)
When you're healthy, health insurance seems like a huge waste of money, just like car insurance. Untill.... spend a couple of hours in the e/r or ICU and see how fast the bills pile up.

rulemylife -> RE: health insurance (3/25/2009 10:16:20 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: fluffypet61 i don't have health insurance and i am on a limited income. i believe that i am a better health consumer than i was when i had health insurance. It used to be that the doctors did a lot of unnecessary testing because the insurance would pay them for it or required them to do it. Now, for example, if the doctor wants to check my lipids - that is all that is tested. Last year a doctor wanted to do surgery to remove some benign tissue. Because i didn't have insurance i told him not do the surgery. A year later the tissue is still benign. i considered buying health insurance - i would have had to pay $250 per month for a year (waiting period for preexisting - they call benign preexisting) before insurance would pay anything and then have a $3,000 deductible. That's $6000 out of my pocket that would not give me any health care at all! Then i would have to continue to pay $250 per month plus co-pays. I would rather pay for actual value/product received than throw money down a hole. That's your choice, I guess. I can't agree it is a wise one. If anything can devastate you financially it is a serious health problem.

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