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We should switch to Brawndo-sponsored hospitals.
2 replies
We should switch to Brawndo-sponsored hospitals.
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last time i had to use cigna they denied my first visit to the doctor because my poliday had expired.
i said 'wait, i just signed up two months ago'
and the rep said 'it shows right here it expired on october first of this year'
and i said 'THAT'S the date it started'
she looked a little more closely and said 'yes, your policy was activated october 1st of this year. it ended october 1st of this year.'
i just remained silent for a minute until she said 'OH!'
it still took two weeks to fix it.
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The reason medical insurance is so crucial is because healthcare is costly. Until something is done to drive down that cost, people will perpetually be vulnerable to the insurance companies' machinations.
The idea that \"free markets\" can drive down healthcare costs, however, is fallacious. Aside from some elective or optional procedures, healthcare is inelastic. If you need it, you need it, and you need to get it where you can get it. Market forces work only when the consumer has an opportunity to \"shop around.\" That opportunity does not exist when (e.g.) you're in the throes of a heart attack. That opportunity also is restricted in cases of chronic illness requiring periodic checkups, e.g. hypertension requiring quarterly checks; it would not be wise to jump from doctor to doctor based on pricing, because care will be less consistent, not to mention you're leaving records in many different places.
As soon as we dispense with the idea that market forces can drive down healthcare costs, the sooner we can move on to solutions that will ... and once we've made healthcare affordable, we can free ourselves collectively of the shackles of the medical insurance industry.
@PsiCop: I know. It's not like the free market has driven down the cost of generic drugs and simple procedures (aka Wal-Mart stores and my local pharmacy that has an inexpensive walk-in clinic).
@anthonyhasp: Drugs are more elastic than other kinds of healthcare. There is competition (i.e. generics vs. brand names) as well as ... in some cases ... more than one drug that treats an illness. Both of these things introduce the possibility of markets working.
The only way you might have a point, is if you can show how market forces apply to ALL kinds of healthcare. Explain how it's possible for someone suffering a heart attack to shop around and thus take advantage of market forces.
If you cannot do it, then you must concede that at least some parts of healthcare are inelastic and therefore cannot respond to market forces. Which was my point.
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@ShanghaiLil: Or his kid has a geyser of blood erupting from its cracked skull.
\"Hold on, hon, I'm on hold with the 4th hospital to see if they'll match the 2nd one while still matching the 3rd one's amazing rate on IV drips. Then we'll tackle the cheapest ambulance to get us there!\"
Hey I don't want to interrupt here but uhh.. if you guys have a moment there's this system we use in Canada that's worked pretty well. We don't have the barnyard feel to our offices but they're still pretty nice. They have aquariums.
@Mackinstyle: But you guys are so different than us because you're... You're... You're...
OK, I give up. Why wouldn't it be better to ape your admirably better, cheaper and more civil health care system again?
@TechnoDestructo: Korean system comparisons are inapt, since they lack the cool Polar Bear As Housepet factor. Keep up, huh?
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Now as much as I enjoy seeing Canadians debunk the Republican & Libertarian myths about the Canadian health care system, by interjecting yourself into this debate, you keep the focus on the demonized Canadian system.
I'd much rather hear from Germans or Japanese or French or Koreans than from the English-speaking countries that the right has devoted its attention to portraying as nightmare dystopias.
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And so the hearts and minds campaign for socialized medicine begins.
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@I Love New Jersey: We'll we've been trying it your way for a long time and look where it got us? Excellent (top notch, even) care for those who are wealthy. For the rest of us, either we get great care, and it bankrupts us so we can't get any more. Or, we get none at all.
Should only rich people get their fires put out? OK I admit, a lot of snark, but I think that basic medical care is a right, not a privilege. And people fail to see that we pay for these costs one way or another. They're just not on any single balance sheet, they're spread out in bankruptcies, obesity rates, people forgoing care until they can't wait anymore, lost productivity at work, etc.
Show me where in the constitution it says it isn't. What about public education? Should we get rid of that? The fire department?
Besides, if we're going to use literal translations of two-centuries-old text as gospel, what about the Declaration of Independence? \"Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness\" can be interpreted in so many ways.
@ARP: If it's a right, then someone has to be forced to provide it. Who are ou going to enslave to get this done? If you believe that it is vital to fill this need, how much of your personal wealth are you willing to give up today to provide this necessity to your neighbors?
Meant to say this before:
PERSONAL WEALTH?
Man, I wish I had some wealth to give up. I think the real question is \"How much personal debt am I willing to rack up?\"
@anthonyhasp:
Enslave? Isn't that a bit much?
I think I'd be willing to give up as much for healthcare as I'm currently being forced to give up for the military, intelligence community, no-bid contracts, and all the other graft that the more right-wing contributors think is as mandatory as the social programs a left-winger.
Less than is being given up for the current system, eventually.
US PUBLIC spending on health care is already higher than TOTAL spending for many countries with UHC.
Commercials by \"Conservatives for Patient's Rights\" that I have seen playing while at the gym really cheese me off. In it, a patient is having an earnest conversation with their doctor, when a four-eyed geek with a clipboard from the govt. shows up and starts yammering about something, pesumably denying treatment. (The commercial isn't closed captioned...)
How is this different, or worse, than what my insurance company does already? The entire premise of the commercial is bogus.
What is so bad about \"socialized medicine\" anyway? The other developed countries that have it spend far less of the GDP on health care, live longer, and are healthier by pretty much any measure. Something must work pretty damn well...
@sirwired: What is so bad about \"socialized medicine\" anyway? Becoming dead before your treatment is approved by some government bureaucrat who has better things to do than their job.
@I Love New Jersey: This might mean something if the insurance companies didn't have a vested financial interest in denying your claims in the first place.
Can you please, just once, make an actual cogent argument supported by sources rather than just vomiting up posts saying \"OH NO SOCIALISMS!\", pretty please?
@I Love New Jersey: WTF? Insurance companies deny claims all the time. Say what you will for Medicare; nobody accuses them of screwing around with arguing with your doctor about \"medical necessity\" for every little procedure. Medicare has things they cover, and things they don't, and they do not routinely go to your doctor afterwords and tell him/her you didn't need something he did to you.
If the \"Public Option\" was like Medicare, I can see why private insurance companies would be terrified.
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@I Love New Jersey: Again: As opposed to being dead before your treatment is approved by some insurance company bureaucrat who has a vested interest in denying your claim?
@ShanghaiLil:
Or better yet, letting you die, then retroactively canceling your insurance policy and requiring your relatives to pay up.
@sirwired: Precisely. I get cheesed off when I hear that government-sponsored healthcare will \"ration care.\" As if industry-sponsored insurance doesn't ration care, both for the insured, based on the expense of their malady, and for the uninsured, based on their ability to pay. Jon Stewart recently summed it up nicely by playing a clip of some numbnut Republican Senator declaring that the Obama health plan would put government bureaucrats between you and your doctor. \"Replacing,\" Stewart observed, \"Those much-beloved insurance company bureaucrats that currently stand between you and your doctor.\"
@sirwired: It's a scam. No doctor under a socialized plan will deny you care. However, just like our current system, they may not pay out the full amount. But here's the question, who would you rather make that decision: A not for profit government agency or a for profit corporation who's primary means of profitability is denying claims.
I have some comments for those who believe that the status quo is just fine. Firstly, the major reason why Medicare and Medicaid do not work as well as it could is because supply-siders in Congress take every opportunity to gut the programs, while increasing Pentagon budgets at the same time. Secondly, Time magazine published a great article not too long ago that examined the difference between US and european healthcare systems. Not only was the cost per capita lower than here in the US, but also life expectancy was higher, administrative costs much lower (around 3-5%--US is around 12-15%) and the quality of care was the same or better than here in the US. This drivel about the Canadian system being worse than here is pure myth, deliberately spread by pharma, health insurance, and doctors to create FUD. Finally, a couple reasons why \"socialised medicine\" works so well in Europe and Canada is not only that medical industry gets paid better for preventive treatment, but also that their societies view it that they're all in it together and that they don't mind paying for other people's healthcare--they all pay for each other and everyone is taken care of. I'll never forget when I saw an interview with a Canadian citizen (a member of the Conservative party, no less) where he answered the prevalent American question, \"Why should I pay for someone else's care?\" His reply was, \"Because they'd do it for me.\"
There is absolutely no logical reason that we don't have universal health care in this country. Every other 1st world nation in the the world has it (and quit a few of the 3rd world ones too), along with a higher standard of treatment, a healthier population, and a longer life expectancy.
It's just so sad that there are people in 3rd world hell holes who get better medical coverage than us, and for free. All the while we can't have it here because people are so stupid that they'll believe and parrot anything the right wing tells them.
The ones I hear a lot are \"Duuuur, it'll be like da DMV! You really want da govenments runnin' da doctor's office like dey run that, duuurrrrr!\" and \"Heyuk, Rush sez that if ya need a surgery, they'll make ya wait like 3 whole months!\"
Hey retard, hate to tell you but we have one of the longest wait times for medical care in the devolped world. It's already like the damn DMV, and because of the archaic system we already have in place.
Stop believing their lies! They have stakes in the insurance industry and/or they're watching out for their rich buddies. All the politicians already have free health care paid for by our taxes. If it's good for them, then why not us?
We don't have the best health care in the world. We don't even have adequate health care. At the most, we're just barely hovering over \"The Absolute Worst\" health care system on the planet.
But I don't have to tell you. If you haven't found out already, then you will. Everyone gets sick, and eventually the people that defend the defunct system will get sick too. And when they do, and their insurance company comes up with some random reason to drop them, and they can't get the care they need, then they'll know I was right. Or if their insurance company will only clear them for the most basic sub-standard care after they've paid into it for a life time, then they'll know I was right. It's inevitable...
People's health should not be a business...
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Looks like the Swiss got a fairly decent system in the 90s. Granted, that's only 8 million people or so.
So far I haven't seen anything that appears to be a good plan that will solve the problem. No matter how you look at it, it is each group for themselves and no one is actually willing to do the compromising to solve the problem.
The problem has been created by insurance companies, drug companies, doctors, hospitals, government and us as consumers. We all need to be willing to come to the table in a true spirit of compromise. And as yet, I don't see this happening. Everyone seems to want to accuse everyone else of being the problem but not accept any of the blame themselves.
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Biased Canadian here.
I suffered a sudden,near death illness that would have bankrupted me, and denied me future coverage under the for-profit system.
Yes, my taxes are higher, but my monthly extended health is $6.99.
Don't worry, folks. Soon enough, we all be excluded from getting medical insurance due to Type 2 Diabetes.
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Discussions on health care aside, I'd like to take a moment and thank Wendall Potter for standing up and illuminating some of the wrongs he saw. It takes a lot of guts to do that.
@crunchberries: Oh.
Damn.
Good catch. Props.
I hope that Wendall Potter Googles his name at some point and reads this article, and by so doing, hears me saying, \"Thanks, Wendall!\"
\"We always encourage our clients to compare our proposed rates to those available from other carriers\"
What a beautiful business model, send potential clients to the competition first.
So everytime I went to a Nissan dealer, how come he never told me I should compare Nissan to Ford and GM cars before picking them?
Cigna's actions very obviously say we no longer want you as clients because you negatively impact our bottom line, no if, and or but about it.
A young couple with health insurance heads for the hospital. She is 32 weeks pregnant with twins and is having complications. They'll spend some time in the emergency room, mom will spend a week in the hospital, and the twins will spend some time in neo-natal intensive care. Everyone survives and goes home healthy, but the bill is over $250,000. Will the insurance company pay up? Will this new family face bankruptcy? Will this claim result in the husband's employer (a small business) having its rates jacked up by 35% next year, forcing husband's employer to drop insurance coverage for everyone?
At the time this scared couple is heading for the emergency room they have no choice. They can't shop around, they can't negotiate and they can't threaten to take their business elsewhere.
A single mother of two makes the decision to stop taking medication for her heart and blood pressure. She has lost her job and her insurance and can no longer afford both the medication and food, so she chooses food. A few months later, she has a stroke and is taken to the emergency room where they work on her for an hour and a half before she dies. Because she is uninsured, we are all paying for her trip to the emergency room through higher premiums and/or higher billings, but it would have been much cheaper to simply provide her with a lifetime supply of her medication.
I can understand people not wanting some kind of socialized insurance system in this country, but I simply cannot understand how they can make the argument that \"it won't work.\" Every other industrialized country in the world has a system that provides universal coverage and they all cost less than ours and get measurably better results. It's like these people are saying, \"Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?\"
If you don't want the government involved, then how about a system like they have in the Netherlands? Everyone gets insurance from a private insurer, but they are very heavily regulated (can't turn people down, can't drop people, can't deny claims for pre-existing conditions, etc.)
Capitalism and health insurance do not mix. In a voluntary system the healthiest people and those who can't afford a policy will choose to go without insurance. The next year, rates go up and even more people either can't afford it or decide they're healthy enough to go without. As the healthiest and poorest leave the pool, the incentives for the insurers are to reduce coverage, deny claims and drop the sick people that cost them the most.
@bishophicks: The first part of your parable actually happened at my employer. A co-worker's wife became pregnant with twins and had a very difficult pregnancy. She was on bedrest for 12 weeks, the last four of which were in the hospital. The twins were still born 6 weeks premature. After that, they spent another 9 weeks in the hospital, including three in NICU. Their hospital bill passed the $1,000,000 mark when the twins were in the sixth week of the hospital stay. FWIW, the twins are now perfectly healthy 6-year-olds.
Could it be a coincidence that our insurer wanted a 43% increase in premiums to renew our policy later that year? I'm sure it didn't help that in the same year we had another co-worker survive a brain aneurysm. Neurosurgery, four weeks in the hospital, and prolonged physical therapy can't be cheap.
Ultimately, the company was able to buy a policy from a different insurer with only a 35% premium increase, though it was coupled with a switch to a high-deductible plan. That has been the pattern for the past 10 years anyway: pay more for less coverage every damned year.
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At my company (a small company), they have a 2k yearly deductable, a couple hundred dollar prescription deductable, and the rates are close to $600 a month for a family of 3. Now, keep in mind the average pay for a person here is around $7 an hour....basically they work full time just to pay for insurance. Absolutely ridiculous to me.
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@bishophicks: Bravo. I don't understand how people can, with a straight face, say \"socialized medicine\" won't work when it's already working in much of the world. I also don't understand the jingoistic \"we have the best health care\" argument. By what possible objective measure?
Nothing surprising here . Disappointing but surprising no .
There are so many problems with health care that to blame it all on the insurance companies is ridiculous . How ever they are a huge part of the problem .
Everyone is just trying to find ways to throw money at at these companies while the insurance companies are keep on looking for ways to keep more of that same money for themselves . In the meantime you still have doctors charging hundreds of dollars for a 10 minute visit . Then you have the medical clerks working on ways to code and bill the insurance company and patient as to get the maximum reimbursement entitled or not .
It's all a game where the only thing the players worry about is who is going to pay rather than what and why you are going to pay .
The problem is health care for profit. Doctors and medical professionals aren't the ones that run health care...accountants and CFO's are the ones that run it. And quite often it is they that determines who lives and who dies. The American system tries to put a dollar sign on EVERYTHING. They are certain things that can't balanced with a ledger sheet but it seems that no one understands that. Health care profit is a crime against humanity and should be treated as such.
Here's a proposal: don't allow insurance companies to base their premiums on your age/health status/habits/etc. Make it illegal as if it were a form of discrimination (ie. \"The right to health insurance\"). That way, their actuarial computations would have to take into account the pool of Americans wanting health insurance. The only differences in cost would be the efficiency of their back-offices. That would surely be cheaper on the whole as compared to the current system. Although the healthier would have to take up some of the slack of the unhealthy.
Just add in some incentives for a healthy lifestyle somehow (haven't figured that out yet), and we're set.
Get rid of medical insurance. Dump the middleman that is increasing costs 30% for everyone. Reform our laws so doctors can't be sued for millions for trying to help people. Put caps on settlements. You can't have someone in it for pure profit, like insurance companies. It is what is driving up the costs for everyone, and it gets worse every year. Just reforming our laws and dumping insurance companies would probably bring down healthcare costs 50% or more.
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To all you \"free market\" types, please tell me just exactly how this is better than the health care reforms being proposed ? I mean , don't just write something that you heard Rush Limbaugh say - really explain how the market has not failed your favorite economic group, small business .These are not homeless crack babies being screwed over,but working ,productive Americans that create jobs and real wealth.
Anyone ?
The other thing that no one ever seems to bring up in this conversation: [www.kff.org]
The US already pays on average, per person (not per insured person, per person) approximately double what countries who have universal health care pay.
@Snarkysnake: How about this?
Government is already messing in health care, we don't have a free market system.
For example, the government MANDATES certain things which ALL POLICIES must have.
Like Drug/alcohol rehabilitation. Now, if I want to not have this as part of a plan, but cannot, the government forces me to have it. Do I drink? No. Do I do drugs? No. But I'm paying for people who do and a policy I will never use.
Take, for example, a homosexual male. They have to have maternity effects included in their insurance, because of health mandates. Are they EVER going to get a woman pregnant? No. But they have to pay for it.
This list goes on and on. And that's why insurance is so high.
The government can't even manage medicare and you want the government to manage all our healthcare. Despite all the flaws and the abuses what we have is still the best.
What government should do is fix the problems witht he current system not create a brand new system.
@Snarkysnake: Here's a shot at it from a 'free-marketer'. Government forces larger companies to provide health insurance to employees. Whether it makes sense in a big-picture economic sense, they have to do it. In order to compete with larger companies, small companies have to offer it to, but don't really have the mass necessary to hold their own against insurance companies, and therefore are susceptible to bullying like this. On a recent trip to Thailand, I had to get medicine for a lung infection. The diagnosis and medicine cost $5. No insurance, no waiting, and a fully licensed and trained doctor. I'd like more of that style and less government involvement.
@Snarkysnake:
i definitely think that some of the reform things they are talking WILL NOT WORK.....i work for an insurance company, and I for one am worried for my job - so i understand I am a bit biased....but the thing is, the insurance companies are not THAT bad like everyone says either....people fail to look at the amount of money is paid back out in claims.....just like how the news is biased on everything, the world is baised against the insurance companies. i can tell you that from every dollar paid in premiums, over 80 cents are paid back out in claims...
if you look at the \"margin\" insurance companies make, and you compare it to the margin in retail, you would be amazed at how little they really make - it is just on such a large scale it looks like a lot of money.
One of the other points that people fail to realize is that though the current system doesnt work for 1/6 of the population, it does work for 5/6.
I am sure i will start a flame war here - i do think there are changes that need to be made in the insurance industry....and i do think there are costs that need to be cut...however, i think people need to put things into perspective as well.
@Snarkysnake:
It doesn't justify the health care reforms being proposed because they're being offered by Obama instead of McCain.
No, seriously. Haven't you figured out how politics work? It all boils down to Jets vs. Sharks.