What, no thread on health care yet?

zomby woof wrote:

Toyman01 wrote:

zomby woof wrote:

Zomby woof said: I'm sure the people who work for the insurance companies are nice, but your health is not their first priority

This is what I meant. Do you want your health in their hands? I wouldn't.

Rather them than some government bureaucrat. Have you been to the DMV lately. There is nothing worse than dealing with an indifferent public servant.

We don't call it the DMV here, but yes, I am there regularly. The women that run the place kick ass. Have a question? Call them. Need to know how to get something done within the ministry? Call them. Need to know the loopholes in order to get your wacky vehicle on the road? They know it, and don't mind telling you. I'm going there today, and looking forward to it.

Dang. Perfect healthcare and a perfect DMV. All of which costs me nothing.

I'm setting the GPS for Ottawa. See ya in a day or two.

Not to stray to far off topic, but aren't DMV's gov't services contracted to the private sector?

The DMV right by my work is AWESOME. Tag/title/tax for an out of state purchase, before I even had the car in the state.

Total time in the DMV? Less than 5 minutes.

Jensenman, don't go to Ottawa. That's where all the politicians are. Come to sunny SW Ontario. It'll feel just like home

In reply to ZOO:

it sure sounded to me like you were telling us how the canadian charter of rights and priveledges was somehow a stronger document than the US bill of rights because it was part of the constitution, and not simply a law that could be repealed.

but whatever no problem.

MrJoshua wrote:

93celicaGT2 wrote:

MrJoshua wrote:

93celicaGT2 wrote:

MrJoshua wrote:

93celicaGT2 wrote:

spitfirebill wrote: I cannot understand you folks who are blaming insurance companies for the high cost of medical care. I go to the hospital and get an MRI, the hospital bill is $2,000 or more. Insurance pays out much less, I pay a relatively small portion and the hospital says OK. If I didn't have insurance I would be stuck with the full amount and would likely have to pre-pay. I had a 15 minute procedue to remove a small tumor from my bladder, First hospital bill was almost 20K. Final was around 3K. Seems to me the insurance company (mine is BC/BS) has lowered my costs. One problem I see if the costs at hospitals is they all want to have the latest greatest equipment. Used to be only one at a time could have an MRI, CT or whatever. They cost several million dollars and are "out of date" in a few years. Nothing wrong, with them, just not new with all the frills. I suspect they are trashed when they could really be used elsewhere, maybe even overseas in some third world country.

You get it. Tuna55 gets it. How exactly does an industry that sees a 3% profit margin get such a bad rep?

The health insurance industry is like a loan shark or crack dealer facilitating a nation of hypochondriac prescription pill junkies.

Hrmmm.... please explain?

Health insurance hides the cost of medical care or drugs and spreads those costs over a long enough time to make them less painfull. Without true knowledge of price and having paid into they system anyway people gravitate towards taking anything offered,available, and advertised and expecting premium treatment. Got the sniffles-go to the doctor, back pain-get some pills, doctor is busy-go to the emergency room. Overuse drives up price, increased price and lack of immediate financial burden drives up expectation of service. Eventually the price gets too high even if you spread it over time-waaaaaaaaaaaah, it's a crisis, won't the govt please do something? At one time most people used health insurance to prevent going bankrupt, eventually people came to use it to pay every dime of their health care. That eventually became a bad deal and many people opted out. opting out meant increases in prices for everyone else. Now opting out is not an option. 93-tell me how an industry with profits in the many billions attached to my health care makes it cheaper?

The costs certainly aren't hidden, i'll tell you that much. The problem is that Americans as a people just simply don't care to educate themselves. All the information is spoon-fed to you, and every other person that has insurance. You just choose to ignore it. Check out your EOB sometime. When you look at the profits like that, you're missing the point. How's about a 3% profit? I hope that sounds ok. One of the lowest profit margins in the US. It makes your health care cheaper by quite a large margin. Add up your yearly premiums say for... the last two years. Add your copays/coinsurance that you paid out. Compare those to the BILLED CHARGE that you see on your EOBs. (Assuming you even had services done.) Come back and let me know what you find. My health insurance has saved my girlfriend and i well over $1000 already this year.

Billed charges don't mean jack unless you are the poor sap who tries to pay out of pocket and actually pays that amount. Profit margins don't mean crap either, I just couldn't find any other solid info in a 5 second search. Let me rephrase the question-If the health insurance industry pays its employees, its taxes, its insurance , its rent, and gets its profit above and beyond the premiums it takes in and pays out, then health care now cost what its worth PLUS all of those costs. How is that making my health care cheaper?

I think we're playing the "Chicken or the egg" game here....

But the fundamental thing that i believe has been missed in your post is that it's INSURANCE.

The insurance company doesn't make any money off of you when you get sick and NEED those services. They make their profit, and pay their rent, employees, whatever, on those people that DON'T get sick, but still pay in.

It's how insurance works.

The insurance companies try to keep the actual Health CARE costs down, so they can stay profitable. That saves you money on your actual Health CARE.

You aren't receiving health CARE when you're healthy...

The end result is that insurance saves you money on your health care. That billed charge isn't a number that the provider makes up simply because he wants to shock insurance. If he's out of network? You pay it. If you don't have insurance? You pay it.

But you DO have insurance. So you can expect a rather large reduction on the charge simply because you have insurance. And that's even before your benefits actually kick in.

The problem is that people want to pay for their insurance only when they need it. Just like car insurance, homeowner's insurance, renters insurance, phone insurance, etc etc etc etc etc.

zomby woof wrote: Jensenman, don't go to Ottawa. That's where all the politicians are. Come to sunny SW Ontario. It'll feel just like home

If we all move to Windsor we can be Canadi-ish AND still come stateside for AROC autocrosses! Hell I'd be closer if I were in Windsor ;)

John Brown wrote:

zomby woof wrote: Jensenman, don't go to Ottawa. That's where all the politicians are. Come to sunny SW Ontario. It'll feel just like home

If we all move to Windsor we can be Canadi-ish AND still come stateside for AROC autocrosses! Hell I'd be closer if I were in Windsor ;)

Hmph. To be close to Chucktown's summertime temps you'll need an active volcano nearby.

In reply to Strizzo:

Did you read our Charter of Rights and Freedoms? Do you think belittling it as a charter of rights and privileges makes your point stronger ?

Regardless, I can see how you thought I was suggesting our document was superior to yours based on your impression. That wasn't my intent -- but I do believe that the US does not have an exclusive monopoly on democratic rights and freedoms. Ours may look different -- but then again, if everyone liked the same thing everyone would want to marry my wife

Anyhow, I am enjoying the dialogue and debate with all of you. And a reminider, should you ever be in Kingston (on your way to Ottawa) do stop in. I am happy to buy you a beer or two. Ultimately we are more similar than different.

In reply to ZOO:

Whats in a name?

you can call it hearts and flowers and rainbows for everyone, as long as it gets the job done.

agreed on the respectful debate, seems this one of the few places that this sort of discussion doesn't spiral downward into namecalling...not every time at least.

Not gonna be Labatt's Blue, is it?

Jensenman wrote: Not gonna be Labatt's Blue, is it?

No way -- far too many good local microberews to enjoy.

In reply to 93celicaGT2:

We pay insurance who then pays our health care bill. They are becoming one. Especially now that the govt has decided that forcing us to buy health insurance is the solution to our "Crisis". So now its mandatory that we all do something that most Americans have been doing for years: pay for medical care plus pay for a health insurance industry to operate and profit. You can argue all day long that you negotiate prices with hospitals, but I seriously doubt the amount you reduce prices offsets the cost that is tacked onto medical care by having your industry be our bill payer. Yes you pay less than the "Billed" amount, but the "Billed" amount is planned on the assumption that you will only pay a certain percentage. The percentage you pay is the true value of the service. I will say it again-insurance has its place, but not as the primary bill payer of such a high percentage of our health care.

MrJoshua wrote: In reply to 93celicaGT2: We pay insurance who then pays our health care bill. They are becoming one. Especially now that the govt has decided that forcing us to buy health insurance is the solution to our "Crisis". So now its mandatory that we all do something that most Americans have been doing for years: pay for medical care plus pay for a health insurance industry to operate and profit. You can argue all day long that you negotiate prices with hospitals, but I seriously doubt the amount you reduce prices offsets the cost that is tacked onto medical care by having your industry be our bill payer. Yes you pay less than the "Billed" amount, but the "Billed" amount is planned on the assumption that you will only pay a certain percentage. The percentage you pay is the true value of the service. I will say it again-insurance has its place, but not as the primary bill payer of such a high percentage of our health care.

Oh... you think it's a percentage... I think that explains your viewpoint, and i see where you're coming from now. I'm sorry i didn't understand what you were saying before.

It's not a percentage. The billed charge has no relation whatsoever to the negotiated/contracted/usual and customer/allowed amount/whatever you want to call it.

Your doctor could have a billed charge $10,000 for a 30 minute physical. Or he could charge $500. In either scenario, he'll get the same money from insurance.

If it truly WERE a percentage based on billed charge, i would absolutely agree with you. But it's not. The providers don't have a higher billed charge for those patients that will be paying via insurance simply for monetary gain, because there is none to be had doing that.

I've said it before.... but what do you think would happen to your actual out of pocket cost if insurance didn't exist? It wouldn't go down, i'll tell you that much.

93celicaGT2 wrote: I've said it before.... but what do you think would happen to your actual out of pocket cost if insurance didn't exist? It wouldn't go down, i'll tell you that much.

I disagree. The free market accomplishes amazing things.

In reply to 93celicaGT2:

I do understand that the amount paid is a negotiated figure based on many factors. I did not mean to imply that the amount was merely a percent of whatever the doctors decided to charge. I was saying that the doctors come up with an amount knowing they are going to get negotiated down by insurance companies. They often make that amount the "Billed" amount.

MrJoshua wrote:

93celicaGT2 wrote: I've said it before.... but what do you think would happen to your actual out of pocket cost if insurance didn't exist? It wouldn't go down, i'll tell you that much.

I disagree. The free market accomplishes amazing things.

well, while i agree with you in principle, that was said about the utilities deregulation in texas, and it hasn't changed one thing, except that almost everyone pays more.

the thing with that is, all of the supply still comes from the same place, so deregulation has just inserted another party that has to make a profit in between me and the power producers. they then have to pay the owners of the infrastructure for use of the wires, transformers, boxes, etc. , purchase power, and sell it to me at a profit.

the only people who have benefitted are large companies that can negotiate their contract prices due to their volume buying power.

i'm not sure whether the elimination of insurance companies would bring healthcare costs down, but i'd bet that while general practice care costs went down, costs for emergency medicine would stay steady or increase since there would be relatively few sources for emergency care.

MrJoshua wrote:

93celicaGT2 wrote: I've said it before.... but what do you think would happen to your actual out of pocket cost if insurance didn't exist? It wouldn't go down, i'll tell you that much.

I disagree. The free market accomplishes amazing things.

Absolutely true, but i'm not sure how it can turn around the ridiculously huge student loans these doctors have, the ridiculous costs of equipment, etc etc etc...

I guess we just have differing viewpoints. I'm not going to come out and just say that you're wrong, because i don't really know for sure. But then again, i also feel that insurance is part of the free market. Or at least.... WAS. Before this bill passed. Again, working on the "inside," i probably have a different view on things. I know for a fact that we make conscious efforts to keep costs down for our members/clients, in an effort to increase our membership and raise our satisfaction levels.

Unhappy customers go elsewhere, and we're the biggest in the US by a pretty good margin at this point, as well as the most efficient in terms of what percentage of cash flow goes directly towards paying providers. We didn't get there by repressing the free market and raping the wallets of consumers.

MrJoshua wrote: In reply to 93celicaGT2: I do understand that the amount paid is a negotiated figure based on many factors. I did not mean to imply that the amount was merely a percent of whatever the doctors decided to charge. I was saying that the doctors come up with an amount knowing they are going to get negotiated down by insurance companies. They often make that amount the "Billed" amount.

I agree with you to a point. However, those negotiations don't happen claim to claim... it's on a yearly, or bi-yearly, or whatever their contract states. They always have the option to just not accept what we propose and become non-contracted. In which case, they continue to charge the same billed amounts, and you as the consumer get to pay those charges anyways.

After that contract is put into place, they can put whatever they want as the billed charge, and it does change from time to time even within the contract. Has no bearing on what they actually get paid IF insurance is in the game.

But either way, it sounds like we're in complete agreement that the bill and it's MANDATE that everyone has insurance was not what was needed to fix the problem. Agree?

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/03/25/congressional-staffers-complain-double-standard-health-care-law/

Ha! The Pres is now throwing Congress under the bus. Good enough for the people.....except him....he thinks it sucks.

In reply to 93celicaGT2:

I agree-thanks for staying civil.

MrJoshua wrote: In reply to 93celicaGT2: I agree-thanks for staying civil.

Hahah... it's pretty easy to do so on this board vs. others.

Seems like a lot of people here don't think that insurance companies are satan, even if they don't agree 100% with their practices, and that's a big improvement over most.

Hey, at least nobody accused ME of being a bad person because I didn't pay their claims in this thread.

You no good [insert evil name here]! Why didn't you pay my claims?!>!>!>! I'm gonna [insert evil thing here].

Didn't want you to feel left out.

Bobzilla wrote: You no good [insert evil name here]! Why didn't you pay my claims?!>!>!>! I'm gonna [insert evil thing here]. Didn't want you to feel left out.

Yeahhh... i've seen enough of that on the local forums, sir.

Go eat some bacon and cost me more money, jerk!

93celicaGT2 wrote:

Bobzilla wrote: You no good [insert evil name here]! Why didn't you pay my claims?!>!>!>! I'm gonna [insert evil thing here]. Didn't want you to feel left out.

Yeahhh... i've seen enough of that on the local forums, sir. Go eat some bacon and cost me more money, jerk!

Why do you need other forums? I am confused.

tuna55 wrote:

93celicaGT2 wrote:

Bobzilla wrote: You no good [insert evil name here]! Why didn't you pay my claims?!>!>!>! I'm gonna [insert evil thing here]. Didn't want you to feel left out.

Yeahhh... i've seen enough of that on the local forums, sir. Go eat some bacon and cost me more money, jerk!

Why do you need other forums? I am confused.

Right now? Mainly because i'm trying to find replacement parts for what was stolen off of my car. Normally? I don't. Not at least other car forums. This isn't my only hobby.