Why have health insurance? The idiotic bill of goods we've been sold.

A summary of health insurance costs for 2007 appears in Michelle Andrews' article for US New found at

http://health.usnews.com/articles/health/2007/09/14/health-insurance-costs-rise-again.html.
indicates that prices rose (a little over 6%) because basically the plans are the same as the prior year. If you got a 6% raise for doing nothing different on your job, then this is okay. If you're doing a little bit less, as insurance companies are and you still got that raise do you have incentive to improve? In our family, raises have been frozen by companies for four years while our health insurance coverage has diminished and our health insurance costs have gone up--yeah, not a great prosperity model.

While I think it's great that the Washington types are talking about health care reform, they're pretty far removed from the desperation that is the mother of invention model of getting things done. In the meantime, for all those healthy people who are very happy with their health insurance coverage for their non-illnesses such as speaking to a nutrition nanny or someone who will congratulate them for getting screenings, you've made a worse deal than all the slobs fighting for insurance coverage for needed medical care, surgeries and medicine. What did you get for your money? Go ahead, you're healthy, look at your insurance statements, there aren't that many if you are as you imagine a vision of health--what were the charges for your screenings? Check up? Consultation with a nutrition nanny? Now go to your pay stubs. What did you pay for insurance? You paid what? As you listen with a sympathetic and far-removed ear to the horror stories of people racking up hundreds of thousands in medical bills and battling insurers for coverage, tell me why it is you have insurance? Isn't it for that "just in case scenario"? Just in case your days at the gym and healthy diet don't prevent you from getting sick? Well, keep yourselves aloof, but you are the worst consumers of all. You're probably paying triple or quadruple for your non-medical medical care when you figure your cost of premiums into your outlay.

So why not ask for a refund? Let's go along with insurers and support them in charging anything they want for as little coverage as possible? But here's the rub. IF a person spends less in medical costs then premiums, for any calendar year, or if the insured never spends the dollar amount of his deductible and therefore never becomes eligible for insurer reimbursement, the insurer MUST refund the insured's premium money within 30 days of the new year. Not possible because insurance is about pooled risk? Not really, not if we're excluding the sick, the chronically sick, those who need continuing medication, and most recently those who are old. Insurers are basically selling nothing and taking in a lot of money to do it. The article cited above notes that there are more uninsured citizens because of the cost of health insurance--they are smarter consumers then those of us who think we've gotten a great rate based on the fact that we don't need medical care. And your screenings? What if they come back requiring further action. Why get them if you can't afford the treatment for any discovered condition? So let's go the refund route. If health care reform is not possible, why have health insurance. With the employment rate in the dumps and the cost of gas out of the ballpark, why pay for insurance coverage?

Subprime and Health Care, Related

Well, if you want to read Kristen Gerencher's article hailing a warning that there are similarities between the subprime issues and health care go to her blog. Kristen Gerencher too.http://blogs.marketwatch.com/healthmatters/2007/12/11/lessons-for-health-care-in-subprime-woes/ I think she may be onto something, but not like she thinks. She explains that as people opt to save their premium dollars by choosing high deductible insurance coverage that the "poor" employers, hospitals, doctors, and insurance companies, may find that more and more people are "defaulting" as it were on their medical payments. As I sighed in sympathy for the corporate criminals who continue to erode the possibility of health care coverage for any but the healthy individuals capable of paying them, (in other words, those unlikely to make claims) I realized that her pro corporate nonsense might be a good idea.

Why is the federal government able to act on the subprime mess? Is it really to save the consumers being destroyed by mortgage payments they can't handle for whatever reason? Or is it the corporate fallout that has piqued the interest of our government? Perhaps we should all get the high deductible plans, I mean let's face it, the insurance game has gotten to be a cost competition only in part because the complications of each plan are ignored until a real life event gives us each the wisdom we should have had to begin with in examining our "coverage." So, let's go. Purely on a "cost" basis, get the cheapest plan available and yes, that's high deductible (note, this recommendation is made somewhat sarcastically). Cool, now if you get sick, and you will, good luck. Once enough of us start being unable to pay our medical bills like many of the sickest among us already know, we'll all be in the same boat and then...then the corporations will begin whining. Hospitals won't be getting paid, doctors won't be getting paid, and perhaps the federal government will swoop into action that it has shown it is capable of like the subprime mess. And perhaps some of those ill people who have been marginalized by their illnesses will actually benefit as our government scrambles to save money for our commercial organizations. My response to the comparison made by Ms. Gerencher follows:


This article misses the point: Healthcare needs federal attention more than the subprime market–in numbers of people affected (100% of even those I never get sick types) will need some sort of care, maybe sooner than they think. The subprime market is being addressed because of the corporate impact of these bad loans—so maybe, using that reasoning, you should be encouraging everyone to get the cheapest health insurance (vis a vis high deductible) and only then will the feds jump into action to “save” the corporate insurers, hospitals, doctors and perhaps those bankrupted by health care might get a little benefit.