- 2,152
Problem is, is just how bad will the government screw up Health Care?
John Stossel on Insurance
- Thread starter GreenSky
- Start date
Problem is, is just how bad will the government screw up Health Care?
Yes, we do.
In the same manner as which we pay for theft.
For every iPod (or any other product) that leaves a store without being purchased, the cost of that product is added to the price of the remaining products. Consumers pay for theft by employees and retail visitors.
Every time some deadbeat receives care from a medical provider and does not pay the cost of those services are passed on to you & me.
- 4,132
"Problem is, is just how bad will the government screw up Health Care"
In ways if it ever happens, the pro national health care people will have never considered. The number one surprize? When the government agency says "NO" to a procedure or treatment. The biggest misconception these universal health care folks have is that the government won't say no, like the big bad insurance companies do. I will bet they will say no a hell of alot more often than private carriers will..why? cause they can, no repercussions. You can sic the government on the private insurers, who is there to sic on the governement?
In ways if it ever happens, the pro national health care people will have never considered. The number one surprize? When the government agency says "NO" to a procedure or treatment. The biggest misconception these universal health care folks have is that the government won't say no, like the big bad insurance companies do. I will bet they will say no a hell of alot more often than private carriers will..why? cause they can, no repercussions. You can sic the government on the private insurers, who is there to sic on the governement?
- 2,370
People who would opt out of health care, we all agree, are the stupid ones.
So, tell a stupid person with no health care that the government will provide them with "free" health care, they would jump all over it (or vote for it).
By the time they realize that they are not paying an insurance company, rather they are paying the IRS in tax increases, it will be too late.
So, tell a stupid person with no health care that the government will provide them with "free" health care, they would jump all over it (or vote for it).
By the time they realize that they are not paying an insurance company, rather they are paying the IRS in tax increases, it will be too late.
- 190
I can't seem to open the attachment...can someone cut and paste the text into this thread...puleeze? 
- Thread starter
- #16
- 15,319
Article Cut & Paste
John Stossel: Health Insurance Isn't All It's Cracked Up to Be
Mandating Medical Coverage May Sound Good, but You've Got to Read the Fine Print
By JOHN STOSSEL
Oct. 16, 2006 — - I'm appalled reading the results of the ABC News poll on health care:
"Nearly eight in 10 favor a federal requirement that all employers offer insurance to their full-time
workers. Nearly two-thirds favor such a requirement for part-time employees as well."
ABC News and USA Today are offering solutions to the health care problems in America during
our weeklong series "Prescription for Change." Watch for special reports all week on "Good
Morning America," "World News" and "Nightline."
Why on earth would we want mandated insurance from employers?! Do our employers pay for our food,
clothing or shelter? If they did, why would that be good? Having my health care tied to my boss invites
him to snoop into my private health issues, and if I change jobs I lose coverage. Employer paid health
insurance isn't free. It just means we get insurance instead of higher salaries. Companies only provide it
because of a World War II-era tax break that never went away.
Anyway, insurance is a terrible way to pay for things. It burdens us with paperwork, invites cheating
and, worst of all, creates a moral hazard that distorts incentives. It raises costs by insulating consumers
from medicine's real prices.
Suppose you had grocery insurance. With your employer paying 80 percent of the bill, you would fill
the cart with lobster and filet mignon. Everything would cost more because supermarkets would stop
running sales. Why should they, when their customers barely care about the price?
Suppose everyone had transportation insurance. The roads would be crowded with Mercedes. Why buy
a Chevy if your employer pays?
People have gotten so used to having "other" people pay for most of our health care that we routinely
ask for insurance with low or no deductibles. This is another bad idea.
Suppose car insurance worked that way. Every time you got a little dent or the paint faded, or every time
you buy gas or change the oil, you'd fill out endless forms and wait for reimbursement from your
insurance company. Gas prices would quickly rise because service stations would know that you no
longer care about the price. You'd become more wasteful: jackrabbit starts, speeding, wasting gas. Who
cares? You are only paying 20 percent or less of the bill.
Insurance invites waste. That's a reason health care costs so much, and is often so consumer-unfriendly.
In the few areas where there are free markets in health care -- such as cosmetic medicine and Lasik eye
surgery -- customer service is great, and prices continue to drop.
The ABC News poll suggests that people understand that. When asked about "consumer directed plans,"
"nearly eight in 10 Americans think that allowing people to shop around for their own medical care
would be an effective way to control costs." But many people still want a free lunch: "Consumer-driven
care looks less popular if it's accompanied by the risk of higher out-of-pocket expenses."
Somehow people seem to believe "insured" means free.
This is not to say that we don't need insurance. We need it to protect us against financial catastrophes
that could result from a stroke or heart attack. That's why health savings accounts, which cover smaller
out-of-pocket health expenditures, are paired with high-deductible catastrophic insurance. That's a good
thing. But today's demand from people that insurance cover everything from pets to dental work puts us
on a slide toward bankruptcy.
John Stossel: Health Insurance Isn't All It's Cracked Up to Be
Mandating Medical Coverage May Sound Good, but You've Got to Read the Fine Print
By JOHN STOSSEL
Oct. 16, 2006 — - I'm appalled reading the results of the ABC News poll on health care:
"Nearly eight in 10 favor a federal requirement that all employers offer insurance to their full-time
workers. Nearly two-thirds favor such a requirement for part-time employees as well."
ABC News and USA Today are offering solutions to the health care problems in America during
our weeklong series "Prescription for Change." Watch for special reports all week on "Good
Morning America," "World News" and "Nightline."
Why on earth would we want mandated insurance from employers?! Do our employers pay for our food,
clothing or shelter? If they did, why would that be good? Having my health care tied to my boss invites
him to snoop into my private health issues, and if I change jobs I lose coverage. Employer paid health
insurance isn't free. It just means we get insurance instead of higher salaries. Companies only provide it
because of a World War II-era tax break that never went away.
Anyway, insurance is a terrible way to pay for things. It burdens us with paperwork, invites cheating
and, worst of all, creates a moral hazard that distorts incentives. It raises costs by insulating consumers
from medicine's real prices.
Suppose you had grocery insurance. With your employer paying 80 percent of the bill, you would fill
the cart with lobster and filet mignon. Everything would cost more because supermarkets would stop
running sales. Why should they, when their customers barely care about the price?
Suppose everyone had transportation insurance. The roads would be crowded with Mercedes. Why buy
a Chevy if your employer pays?
People have gotten so used to having "other" people pay for most of our health care that we routinely
ask for insurance with low or no deductibles. This is another bad idea.
Suppose car insurance worked that way. Every time you got a little dent or the paint faded, or every time
you buy gas or change the oil, you'd fill out endless forms and wait for reimbursement from your
insurance company. Gas prices would quickly rise because service stations would know that you no
longer care about the price. You'd become more wasteful: jackrabbit starts, speeding, wasting gas. Who
cares? You are only paying 20 percent or less of the bill.
Insurance invites waste. That's a reason health care costs so much, and is often so consumer-unfriendly.
In the few areas where there are free markets in health care -- such as cosmetic medicine and Lasik eye
surgery -- customer service is great, and prices continue to drop.
The ABC News poll suggests that people understand that. When asked about "consumer directed plans,"
"nearly eight in 10 Americans think that allowing people to shop around for their own medical care
would be an effective way to control costs." But many people still want a free lunch: "Consumer-driven
care looks less popular if it's accompanied by the risk of higher out-of-pocket expenses."
Somehow people seem to believe "insured" means free.
This is not to say that we don't need insurance. We need it to protect us against financial catastrophes
that could result from a stroke or heart attack. That's why health savings accounts, which cover smaller
out-of-pocket health expenditures, are paired with high-deductible catastrophic insurance. That's a good
thing. But today's demand from people that insurance cover everything from pets to dental work puts us
on a slide toward bankruptcy.
- Thread starter
- #17
- 15,319
Cut & Past Pt. 2
In other terrifying news from the poll: "Three-quarters like the idea of expanding Medicare, the
government program that covers retirees."
Great, let's bankrupt America even faster! Medicare already has an unfunded liability of $32.1 trillion --
that's how much more money the politicians have promised versus the amount the Treasury has to pay
for it. The Medicare Trust Funds report says expenditures "are expected to increase & at a faster pace
than either workers' earnings or the economy overall."
Do you think Social Security is going bankrupt? Well, yes, it is. But the Medicare liability is far greater.
As more of us live longer, it will get even bigger. Yet the public wants more, and the politicians will
probably vote to give it. As P.J. O'Rourke says, "Think medical care is expensive now? Watch how
expensive it gets once it's free."
More bad news from the poll: "As far as the cause of higher health costs, the public's biggest suspicion
is profiteering by drug and insurance companies -- 50 percent call this one of the single biggest factors.
Fraud and waste, the cost of medical malpractice suits and doctors and hospitals making too much
money also come in for substantial concern."
Fraud and waste are a concern. When third parties pay, regardless of whether it's government or private
insurance, people find it easier and more tempting to cheat. No one spends other people's money as
carefully as he spends his own. But "profiteering?" What the heck does that mean? Every company
wants to make as much profit as it can. If an insurance company makes "excess" profit, other insurance
companies will rush to compete in those areas; therefore prices will fall quickly.
And frankly, I want drug companies to make lots of money. The more they make, the more they invest
in drug development that may someday cure my disease or ease my pain.
Finally, the worst news on the poll is that "56 percent support a shift to universal coverage."
Universal coverage sounds so nice -- no worries, no paperwork. Mommy and Daddy, usually in the form
of government as single payer and manager, just take care of everything. Universal coverage in Canada
and Europe is popular because no one has to worry about paying directly or filling out forms. But like
all well-intended schemes of collectivists, it is becoming a cold, bureaucratized machine that does not
serve people well.
It takes time for this to happen. At first, the eager government workers are the best and brightest -- they
hire medical elites to guide people to the best care. But then civil service arteriolosclerosis sets in. It
happens gradually, so people don't immediately notice what they are missing, (it took 70 years for the
Soviet Union to fall).
A first sign: the waiting lines. Already, some people in England pull their own teeth because they can't
stand the pain while waiting to see a dentist. "The problem is, I cannot suddenly just produce more
dentists," said Prime Minister Tony Blair, when he was confronted by an elderly lady who'd pulled out
seven of her teeth herself. In Canada, says David Gratzer, author of "The Cure: How Capitalism Can
Save American Health Care," "1.2 million Canadians are actively looking for a family doctor but can't
get one because of the chronic shortages. A couple of towns hold annual lotteries with the winners
getting to see doctors."
The American public seems to understand that care deteriorates under government control. The ABC
poll says that while most people want universal coverage, "far fewer, ranging from 15 to 26 percent,
think such coverage would actually improve the quality or cost of their own care, the availability of
treatment, or their choice of doctors or hospitals. Indeed by 2-1, people think universal coverage would
make the quality of their own care worse, and by better than 2-1 think it would worsen their choice of
doctors or hospitals."
It would! It would! The poll writers call the public's attitudes "altruistic." "In a show of altruism,
universal coverage is supported by a quarter of those who think the quality of their care and the
availability of treatments would worsen."
Is that altruism? I call it an irrational and self-destructive fear of markets and competition.
For-profit medicine has given us vaccines and antibiotics that have extended our lives by decades. I
want more! More pills to ease pain, more metal joints to keep me playing sports, more treatments for
cancer and cures for heart disease. Socialized medicine slows heath care innovation to a crawl.
Capitalism isn't perfect. It allows inequalities, many of which seem unfair. And capitalism's
uncertainties create anxiety. But universal care " creates its own anxieties and inequalities. Perfect isn't
one of the choices. Foolish pursuit of free care is the enemy of good care.
In other terrifying news from the poll: "Three-quarters like the idea of expanding Medicare, the
government program that covers retirees."
Great, let's bankrupt America even faster! Medicare already has an unfunded liability of $32.1 trillion --
that's how much more money the politicians have promised versus the amount the Treasury has to pay
for it. The Medicare Trust Funds report says expenditures "are expected to increase & at a faster pace
than either workers' earnings or the economy overall."
Do you think Social Security is going bankrupt? Well, yes, it is. But the Medicare liability is far greater.
As more of us live longer, it will get even bigger. Yet the public wants more, and the politicians will
probably vote to give it. As P.J. O'Rourke says, "Think medical care is expensive now? Watch how
expensive it gets once it's free."
More bad news from the poll: "As far as the cause of higher health costs, the public's biggest suspicion
is profiteering by drug and insurance companies -- 50 percent call this one of the single biggest factors.
Fraud and waste, the cost of medical malpractice suits and doctors and hospitals making too much
money also come in for substantial concern."
Fraud and waste are a concern. When third parties pay, regardless of whether it's government or private
insurance, people find it easier and more tempting to cheat. No one spends other people's money as
carefully as he spends his own. But "profiteering?" What the heck does that mean? Every company
wants to make as much profit as it can. If an insurance company makes "excess" profit, other insurance
companies will rush to compete in those areas; therefore prices will fall quickly.
And frankly, I want drug companies to make lots of money. The more they make, the more they invest
in drug development that may someday cure my disease or ease my pain.
Finally, the worst news on the poll is that "56 percent support a shift to universal coverage."
Universal coverage sounds so nice -- no worries, no paperwork. Mommy and Daddy, usually in the form
of government as single payer and manager, just take care of everything. Universal coverage in Canada
and Europe is popular because no one has to worry about paying directly or filling out forms. But like
all well-intended schemes of collectivists, it is becoming a cold, bureaucratized machine that does not
serve people well.
It takes time for this to happen. At first, the eager government workers are the best and brightest -- they
hire medical elites to guide people to the best care. But then civil service arteriolosclerosis sets in. It
happens gradually, so people don't immediately notice what they are missing, (it took 70 years for the
Soviet Union to fall).
A first sign: the waiting lines. Already, some people in England pull their own teeth because they can't
stand the pain while waiting to see a dentist. "The problem is, I cannot suddenly just produce more
dentists," said Prime Minister Tony Blair, when he was confronted by an elderly lady who'd pulled out
seven of her teeth herself. In Canada, says David Gratzer, author of "The Cure: How Capitalism Can
Save American Health Care," "1.2 million Canadians are actively looking for a family doctor but can't
get one because of the chronic shortages. A couple of towns hold annual lotteries with the winners
getting to see doctors."
The American public seems to understand that care deteriorates under government control. The ABC
poll says that while most people want universal coverage, "far fewer, ranging from 15 to 26 percent,
think such coverage would actually improve the quality or cost of their own care, the availability of
treatment, or their choice of doctors or hospitals. Indeed by 2-1, people think universal coverage would
make the quality of their own care worse, and by better than 2-1 think it would worsen their choice of
doctors or hospitals."
It would! It would! The poll writers call the public's attitudes "altruistic." "In a show of altruism,
universal coverage is supported by a quarter of those who think the quality of their care and the
availability of treatments would worsen."
Is that altruism? I call it an irrational and self-destructive fear of markets and competition.
For-profit medicine has given us vaccines and antibiotics that have extended our lives by decades. I
want more! More pills to ease pain, more metal joints to keep me playing sports, more treatments for
cancer and cures for heart disease. Socialized medicine slows heath care innovation to a crawl.
Capitalism isn't perfect. It allows inequalities, many of which seem unfair. And capitalism's
uncertainties create anxiety. But universal care " creates its own anxieties and inequalities. Perfect isn't
one of the choices. Foolish pursuit of free care is the enemy of good care.
- 190
Thanks Greensky.
Stossel should be required reading for young skulls full of mush...
Stossel should be required reading for young skulls full of mush...
- 1,704
Changes in employer insurance?
Here's a new trend. Just heard on radio that United Health Care is testing a new rating scheme in group coverage.
They will be basing rates on the individual health profile, instead of one generic rate. So the person who is overweight/takes meds/claim history will be rated up.
I hear this is being piloted in 4 states already, but haven't heard which ones.
If this becomes commonplace, could turn-downs be in the mix? And what about those people who shop jobs based on group coverage for themselves and spouse? Will they now be screened and excluded? If they do this, I hope they start with Capitol Hill first.
Here's a new trend. Just heard on radio that United Health Care is testing a new rating scheme in group coverage.
They will be basing rates on the individual health profile, instead of one generic rate. So the person who is overweight/takes meds/claim history will be rated up.
I hear this is being piloted in 4 states already, but haven't heard which ones.
If this becomes commonplace, could turn-downs be in the mix? And what about those people who shop jobs based on group coverage for themselves and spouse? Will they now be screened and excluded? If they do this, I hope they start with Capitol Hill first.
Re: Changes in employer insurance?
I have mixed feelings about that.
Most states have limits on the max rate up for small group. Does this mean the one who is singled out gets the max rate or the max GROUP rate?
Group of 4. All are healthy, qualify for standard rates. But one dependent has ESRD. Does the rate up apply to the dependent only or to that family unit (including the employee)? If the max rate up under small group laws is 50%, does that family group get a rate that is 50% higher than normal, or is the max GROUP load applied to the family resulting in a rate that is 4x higher than standard?
If the latter then the effect on the total group premium is a wash and the employer is no better off than the usual application of risk factor adjustments. If the rate up is 50% for that family unit only then the carrier may not get enough premium to make it worthwhile.
I really don't see how this benefits anyone at this point.
That practice is prohibited under a group contract.
I have mixed feelings about that.
Most states have limits on the max rate up for small group. Does this mean the one who is singled out gets the max rate or the max GROUP rate?
Group of 4. All are healthy, qualify for standard rates. But one dependent has ESRD. Does the rate up apply to the dependent only or to that family unit (including the employee)? If the max rate up under small group laws is 50%, does that family group get a rate that is 50% higher than normal, or is the max GROUP load applied to the family resulting in a rate that is 4x higher than standard?
If the latter then the effect on the total group premium is a wash and the employer is no better off than the usual application of risk factor adjustments. If the rate up is 50% for that family unit only then the carrier may not get enough premium to make it worthwhile.
I really don't see how this benefits anyone at this point.
That practice is prohibited under a group contract.
