toldailytopic: US House of Representatives pass Obama-care.

[Ktoyou]

Not in detail, but it appears that other countries have more efficient systems. Since we are the outlier both in cost and in our lack of some kind of universal health care, I think it's reasonable to assume that those two facts are related.

The problem is the fat cats who run the insurance companies, call the problem number one. The drug companies who change more for medicine here than one could buy it elsewhere including shipping, call that problem number two. The high costs charged for heath care services, mitigated by the wholesale deal from insurance companies. Call that problem number three.

Anyone on Medicare knows what hospitals and physicians will take and if is far less than half of what they ask for, the little creeps!

This is a few big problems and it looks to me like congress is now in bed with 'the big bad wolf'. Oh, they will say this and that and make it sound okey dokey to humpty dumpty, but I know all about the fence and these cats will have us falling to pieces.

 

[Town Heretic]

I have a deal for you.

How about you insure me and my extended family?

We will give you a set amount of money every month (some for each of the 4 families). You set that money aside and pay our medical bills when they arise.

Oh, and one more thing....

One of us has a very expensive pre-existing condition that needs treatment on a ongoing basis. This one condition alone will cost you tens of thousands of dollars every year. (probably in the neighborhood of $100,000 per year)

Would you be willing to insure us?

The problem with your position is it appears to assume this even remotely approaches the rule, which it doesn't. And insurance companies actually can deny you on that preexisting condition and pay a fine which is so slight at present they're unlikely not to. Just one of the many ways this is industry friendly...Additionally, the pre existing coverage will, for the next four years, only apply to children...now add up the rule for coverage, wherein companies make a great deal of money and pay out very little and add to that the billions they've made with much less accountability over decades and the money that money has made and continues to make and you BEGIN to get a picture of the fiscal health and power of the insurance industry.

 

[Egbert]

The problem is the fat cats who run the insurance companies, call the problem number one. The drug companies who change more for medicine here than one could buy it elsewhere including shipping, call that problem number two. The high costs charged for heath care services, mitigated by the wholesale deal from insurance companies. Call that problem number three.

Anyone on Medicare knows what hospitals and physicians will take and if is far less than half of what they ask for, the little creeps!

This is a few big problems and it looks to me like congress is now in bed with 'the big bad wolf'. Oh, they will say this and that and make it sound okey dokey to humpty dumpty, but I know all about the fence and these cats will have us falling to pieces.

I'd say that those exploitations are encouraged by the FDA. Only the large pharmaceutical companies have enough clout and funding to get their drugs approved, while far cheaper "natural" remedies have been disapproved by default. The incentive is to create synthetic versions of accessible drugs and sell them at higher prices.

We're both looking at this from our own realms of experience, however, so I expect there is plenty more to it than the problems we see.

 

[Town Heretic]

I can choose not to drive, but can I choose not to live?

Can you choose not to be sick? And if you're injured and require hospital care, medicine, doctors, etc.? That's the current system, whereby those of us who pay for insurance foot the steep emergency bill for those without.

The insurance companies are pigs, why doesn't the government offer its own plan?

In order: yep and because the industry has conservative law makers in their pocket along with enough democrats to see to it that doesn't happen, apparently.

I cant keep up with you. My position, she's a clear one, no one should be forced to sleep in the hog pen by law. You do not want life insurance, no law says you have to, not yet, the dirty pigs. You do not want home insurance, live in an apartment or rent a home. You don't want auto insurance, do not drive, it is your choice to make a pack with the devil.

We aren't far apart on much. I'd like a public option, but the analogy to cars and other things isn't found in the thing but in the activity. So if you mean to drive you have to have insurance. If you mean to live, same principle, since getting sick and requiring maintenance is as certain as changing a tire.

 

[Ktoyou]

I'd say that those exploitations are encouraged by the FDA. Only the large pharmaceutical companies have enough clout and funding to get their drugs approved, while far cheaper "natural" remedies have been disapproved by default. The incentive is to create synthetic versions of accessible drugs and sell them at higher prices.

We're both looking at this from our own realms of experience, however, so I expect there is plenty more to it than the problems we see.

Heck with the FDA, they cannot control countries outside the USA. These countries make the medication, but the US will not let them sell them as cheap as in their own nations.:sigh:

 

[fool]

Now... if you opt out several years in a row your fine can go all the way up to $695. $695 per year is pretty cheap if you ask me.

OR 2.5% of you gross whichever is greater.
So for someone making 65,000 that would be $1,625 or $135 a month.

 

[Ktoyou]

Can you choose not to be sick? And if you're injured and require hospital care, medicine, doctors, etc.? That's the current system, whereby those of us who pay for insurance foot the steep emergency bill for those without.

In order: yep and because the industry has conservative law makers in their pocket along with enough democrats to see to it that doesn't happen, apparently.

We aren't far apart on much. I'd like a public option, but the analogy to cars and other things isn't found in the thing but in the activity. So if you mean to drive you have to have insurance. If you mean to live, same principle, since getting sick and requiring maintenance is as certain as changing a tire.

That was my point, one cannot choose not to be sick.

Are you ready for the big whollp?

 

[Town Heretic]

But I can opt out of automobile insurance, and I don't pay for it for every member of my household - just for those who will be driving.

Like I said to Ktoyou, you can't decide not to be sick, so the analogy in that respect doesn't hold.

Now with this bill enacted, premiums are going up - way up by the accounting I've seen.

I don't believe you're right about that, but let me know when you actually know and can show me how and to what extent, if any, that is true.

And I will be forced to pay for that, in spite of my inability to pay my mortgage after the payment has gone instead to a health policy that I do not need.

Sorry, but you seem to be saying the government just passed legislation to make healthcare less affordable and I don't know of anything that sustains that position, unless you're arguing that you don't want coverage and it becomes an extra expense, in which case my answer to you is something you should appreciate--why should I be saddled with a more expensive burden because you or anyone wants to gamble that they won't get sick? You'd be no better than the fellow who just knows he won't get into an automobile accident...Now what is happening a great deal at present is that people are losing homes over medical bills while many are routinely being denied continuing coverage once the insurance company feels it's in danger of losing a sweet profit margin. lain:

 

[Ktoyou]

The problem with your position is it appears to assume this even remotely approaches the rule, which it doesn't. And insurance companies actually can deny you on that preexisting condition and pay a fine which is so slight at present they're unlikely not to. Just one of the many ways this is industry friendly...Additionally, the pre existing coverage will, for the next four years, only apply to children...now add up the rule for coverage, wherein companies make a great deal of money and pay out very little and add to that the billions they've made with much less accountability over decades and the money that money has made and continues to make and you BEGIN to get a picture of the fiscal health and power of the insurance industry.

I knew that intuitively. They are all thieves, pigs too!

Ok, here we go.

Just suppose that the government kicked the insurance companies out of health care, made it illegal. They could still play their big brother role in home, auto life, you name it but not health.

Now suppose the government controlled drug prices so that made in Germany, the product would sell the same in the USA?

Your move

 

[Nathon Detroit]

The problem with your position is it appears to assume this even remotely approaches the rule, which it doesn't. And insurance companies actually can deny you on that preexisting condition and pay a fine which is so slight at present they're unlikely not to. Just one of the many ways this is industry friendly...Additionally, the pre existing coverage will, for the next four years, only apply to children...now add up the rule for coverage, wherein companies make a great deal of money and pay out very little and add to that the billions they've made with much less accountability over decades and the money that money has made and continues to make and you BEGIN to get a picture of the fiscal health and power of the insurance industry.

You could have just answered... no.

 

[Town Heretic]

I knew that intuitively. They are all thieves, pigs too!

Ok, here we go.

Just suppose that the government kicked the insurance companies out of health care, made it illegal. They could still play their big brother role in home, auto life, you name it but not health.

Now suppose the government controlled drug prices so that made in Germany, the product would sell the same in the USA?

Your move

I'm not really in favor of socializing medicine, but I think we have the moral right and requirement to treat it differently than most industry. I don't want to discourage drug companies from investing in cures and (mostly) treatments, but I don't want the U.S. markets to bear the freight of that R&D while European countries mandate prices that save their countrymen and pass the development buck back to us. I suspect, back to the insurance companies, that reasoned restraint on litigation awards, coupled with a cap on profits by those same companies could and would lead to reasonably affordable health care for all concerned. But the companies don't want restraint and the government lacks the political will to do much. It has taken a fiscal crises and a growing number of directly affected Americans to manage even this relatively ineffective bit of fluff.

 

[Town Heretic]

You could have just answered... no.

:chuckle: Actually that was a qualified yes. The qualification being that insurance companies know the rule and can absorb the exception to it, but only with a seriously lessened profit margin. And so the war.

 

[Nathon Detroit]

:chuckle: Actually that was a qualified yes. The qualification being that insurance companies know the rule and can absorb the exception to it, but only with a seriously lessened profit margin. And so the war.

So you will insure us?

I'm not joking about this, I'm as serious as a heart attack (lets hope that's not an omen).

Tell me.... how much will our monthly premium be? How will you calculate our premium?

 

[Town Heretic]

So you will insure us?

I'm not joking about this.

Tell me.... how much will our monthly premium be? How will you calculate our premium?

Just as soon as I inherit their war chests and operating capital. Absolutely. The premium will depend on the extent of that rule and the cap on profits, assuming there is one.

 

[Nathon Detroit]

Just as soon as I inherit their war chests and operating capital. Absolutely. The premium will depend on the extent of that rule and the cap on profits, assuming there is one.

Forget about the other insurance companies.

I am going to make YOU an insurance company. According to you, this should be highly profitable for you.

Now... are you going to insure our family or not? :idunno:

 

[Ktoyou]

I'm not really in favor of socializing medicine, but I think we have the moral right and requirement to treat it differently than most industry. I don't want to discourage drug companies from investing in cures and (mostly) treatments, but I don't want the U.S. markets to bear the freight of that R&D while European countries mandate prices that save their countrymen and pass the development buck back to us. I suspect, back to the insurance companies, that reasoned restraint on litigation awards, coupled with a cap on profits by those same companies could and would lead to reasonably affordable health care for all concerned. But the companies don't want restraint and the government lacks the political will to do much. It has taken a fiscal crises and a growing number of directly affected Americans to manage even this relatively ineffective bit of fluff.

The problem is it will never work with insurance companies. At root, they are like banks, they have no business in health care. No, matter what the government does, they will never make it work with insurance companies.

When the pigs do not come out of your garden when you yell "soo wee". Then you have to use language pigs understand!

Novartis International AG does their fair share of R&D.

 

[Town Heretic]

Forget about the other insurance companies.

If I ignore Jesus Christianity doesn't have the same pull it did...to make a similarly grotesque point. But I'm happy to deal with the meat at the center of the thing.

I am going to make YOU an insurance company. According to you, this should be highly profitable for you.

No, I said it has been highly profitable. Why? Because insurance companies did the math, charged increasingly high premiums while cutting off anyone who looked like a risk to reduce the margin. It's a simple model backed by complicated math. On the simple end it's: lots of money in and little money out. In that way they amassed billions of dollars.

I'm suggesting a cap on profits relative to their actuarial tables.

Now... are you going to insure our family or not? :idunno:

I already answered you on that point. Sure. Give me the assets and I'll find a new premium relative to my cap. Not a problem. We pay about six percent to ten percent more of our GDP out in health care costs relative to our Western industrial neighbors. Our GDP is over fourteen and a half billion. We're paying nearly a billion dollars more a year to leave millions out in the cold. There's serious profit in all that and the dollars can be found in the piggy banks of the insurance industry, disproportionate to any other claiming interest.

 

[The Barbarian]

Forget about the other insurance companies.

I am going to make YOU an insurance company. According to you, this should be highly profitable for you.

Now... are you going to insure our family or not?

What does this have to do with insurance at all? By asking for health insurance for a tiny group of people, you've violated the first rule of insurance; rely on the law of large numbers.

How difficult is that to understand?

The question is whether or not insurance companies will be allowed to find ways to exclude people who need insurance, in favor of those who don't.

And yes, the mandatory participation rules are precisely those that the insurance industry wants to be sure that we don't end up with the opposite problem.

 

[drbrumley]

Hey Townie, you do know the profit margin for almost all insurance companies is like 2.5%? I mean seriously, your whining about insurance profits at 2.5%.

 

[Ktoyou]

...

No, I said it has been highly profitable. Why? Because insurance companies did the math, charged increasingly high premiums while cutting off anyone who looked like a risk to reduce the margin. It's a simple model backed by complicated math. On the simple end it's: lots of money in and little money out. In that way they amassed billions of dollars.

I'm suggesting a cap on profits relative to their actuarial tables.

....costs relative to our Western industrial neighbors. Our GDP is over fourteen and a half billion. We're paying nearly a billion dollars more a year to leave millions out in the cold. There's serious profit in all that and the dollars can be found in the piggy banks of the insurance industry, disproportionate to any other claiming interest.

Right dead on! The actuaries are the best at this, gamblers use it. With the insurance company, you are forced to bet against yourself. Not such a good feeling when you think about it applied to a loved one. Bet against my house, my land, my vehicles, fine, I am game. Not against my family and they cheat on this more than anything else. A home they know the full replacement cost. With a life, they can only make educated guesses, because for the actuarial tables yo work they need a constant value, adjustable to changes in costs.

With health care, they need to cheat because they cannot always win. They use every trick imaginable to let you down when you want collect on a big debt. It is their nature to put money first before people and that is why they should not be involved, they are not the right business, nor is any business, perhaps, surly not the insurance companies.

This health care bill only makes it clear who they are in bed with.