MolaKule
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HealthCare
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I would hate for it to someday come down to this: Sorry sir, we cant hire you, the cost of your health insurance premiums would be higher if we hire you because of the medication(s) you take........... . Or, we can offer you insurance, but it will cost you 3.5 times what it would cost a 20 year old male.
drive it forever,
not quite the same, but businesses are no longer employing "high risk" people down here, and it's the insurance companies doing it.
My work have started trying to work on "exit strategies" for people they they think could expose them to claims in the future. e.g. guys with minor disabilities that have been working for 20 years, but now they change the position description to include an activity that they can't do (e.g. abseil) and they are no longer fit for work.
My brother tried to hire a fire systems electrician, an exceptional worker who he had seen performing on adjacent work sites. Advertised, interviewed, and then wanted to offer.
They have to send the short list to their insurer before they can hire (a part of their insurance contract). The insurer advised that this guy had previously suffered a crushed vertebra, and was therefore an unacceptable risk. They could not hire him...regardless of how his injury has healed, or the fact that he's an exceptional worker.
Basically, this guy will never get another job in his life if the insurers have anything to do with it.
not quite the same, but businesses are no longer employing "high risk" people down here, and it's the insurance companies doing it.
My work have started trying to work on "exit strategies" for people they they think could expose them to claims in the future. e.g. guys with minor disabilities that have been working for 20 years, but now they change the position description to include an activity that they can't do (e.g. abseil) and they are no longer fit for work.
My brother tried to hire a fire systems electrician, an exceptional worker who he had seen performing on adjacent work sites. Advertised, interviewed, and then wanted to offer.
They have to send the short list to their insurer before they can hire (a part of their insurance contract). The insurer advised that this guy had previously suffered a crushed vertebra, and was therefore an unacceptable risk. They could not hire him...regardless of how his injury has healed, or the fact that he's an exceptional worker.
Basically, this guy will never get another job in his life if the insurers have anything to do with it.
Like it or not..health care costs in this country driven ever upward by litigation and trial lawyers are changing business paradigms. This country, businesses, and people are losing the ability to pay for health care.
A popular myth. Actually, the technological ability to provide health care is increasing at a pace faster than the public's ability to pay for it.
The lack of a broad based public system to pay for health care means that the costs of providing care to those unable to pay for it is partially recovered from those who do pay, thereby creating a hidden public health care "tax" on insurance premiums. This creates an avalanche effect by making private health care even more unaffordable.
It is said that half of personal bankruptcies are triggered by a health crises that the individual cannot afford to pay for.
These economic problems are symptoms of a greater underlying crisis....the unwillingness of our legislators to deal with this problem directly.
Companies large and small are seeing double digit increases every year, while inflation is just under 3%. At this trend, employers AND employees are struggling to “pay the bills.”
Carriers do make a profit. Yes. But the rate is a direct result of utilization. The more claims for the year, the higher your premium will be next year. The problem complex but one of the biggest faults is that we as the consumer do not purchase healthcare like we do other commodities and so providers are not subjected to the same marketplace influences.
For example, let's say I see the doctor about pain in my lower back and he/she orders an MRI. Where do I go? Of course to where the doctor tells me to, which is usually part of the facility or somewhere the doctor know. So I go. Done.
The cost?
1. Doctor Visit $150 (I pay $20 copay)
2. MRI $2,000 (I pay $0, covered as lab under my insurance)
Now, if I were to shop around, I would have found another facility in my town that charges $850 because they have reduced overhead. Do I shop around to find this place? No, because for me, I'm thankful for the doctor's referral and paid only $20 out of pocket and the insurance company picks up the balance. The doctor isn’t in on the scheme. Heck, he/she probably has no idea what the lab charges.
The truth is, the insurance company doesn't really pay the cost. They pay the balance with the money collect every month from your paycheck and your employer’s account. If at the end of the year, the total cost of healthcare was higher than projected, carriers increase your rate. So effectively, you are paying the total cost! But we as consumers are focused on what we pay out of pocket.
This process needs to change and fast. Employees need to aware of there choices and be smart consumers of healthcare which will force providers to exist in a competitive healthcare marketplace.
So back on topic. I do think employers are taking desperate measures in an attempt to control healthcare. Most employers simply don’t know what to do. So they look to the carriers for advise on controlling cost (i.e. wellness programs) and they shift more of the premium to the employee. Their needs to be better communication and education. Doctors need to be given better resources (without disrupting their workflow) to help them help patients purchase there services and drugs most cost effectively. Employers need better strategies to educate and empower employees to make better healthcare decisions. And employees need to be better consumers and be aware of the costs and choices they ultimately make.
We are ALL responsible for healthcare.
Carriers do make a profit. Yes. But the rate is a direct result of utilization. The more claims for the year, the higher your premium will be next year. The problem complex but one of the biggest faults is that we as the consumer do not purchase healthcare like we do other commodities and so providers are not subjected to the same marketplace influences.
For example, let's say I see the doctor about pain in my lower back and he/she orders an MRI. Where do I go? Of course to where the doctor tells me to, which is usually part of the facility or somewhere the doctor know. So I go. Done.
The cost?
1. Doctor Visit $150 (I pay $20 copay)
2. MRI $2,000 (I pay $0, covered as lab under my insurance)
Now, if I were to shop around, I would have found another facility in my town that charges $850 because they have reduced overhead. Do I shop around to find this place? No, because for me, I'm thankful for the doctor's referral and paid only $20 out of pocket and the insurance company picks up the balance. The doctor isn’t in on the scheme. Heck, he/she probably has no idea what the lab charges.
The truth is, the insurance company doesn't really pay the cost. They pay the balance with the money collect every month from your paycheck and your employer’s account. If at the end of the year, the total cost of healthcare was higher than projected, carriers increase your rate. So effectively, you are paying the total cost! But we as consumers are focused on what we pay out of pocket.
This process needs to change and fast. Employees need to aware of there choices and be smart consumers of healthcare which will force providers to exist in a competitive healthcare marketplace.
So back on topic. I do think employers are taking desperate measures in an attempt to control healthcare. Most employers simply don’t know what to do. So they look to the carriers for advise on controlling cost (i.e. wellness programs) and they shift more of the premium to the employee. Their needs to be better communication and education. Doctors need to be given better resources (without disrupting their workflow) to help them help patients purchase there services and drugs most cost effectively. Employers need better strategies to educate and empower employees to make better healthcare decisions. And employees need to be better consumers and be aware of the costs and choices they ultimately make.
We are ALL responsible for healthcare.
I agree that when individuals perceive the out of pocket cost of health care to be less than it actually is, they tend to overutilize.
Similar to overconsumption of food at an all you can eat buffet.
Similar to overconsumption of food at an all you can eat buffet.
Financing uncompensated care via a hidden secret tax on health care premiums is counterproductive to the idea that as many people as possible should be paying for their own health care if they can afford it. It can make the difference between health care being affordable and health care being unaffordable. If health insurance is made unaffordable, then fewer will buy it, and fewer employers can afford to contribute to it, thereby creating a health insurance cost death spiral.
Uncompensated health care should be honestly and openly funded through (gasp) broad based taxes that are neutral with their effect on affordability of private health insurance.
It is amusing to me that opponents of regulated medicine feel it inappropriate to take on health care costs directly by regulating some of the major costs, such as cost of prescription drugs, but instead think it fine that we freeload off of our foreign friends whose governments have seen fit to regulate such costs, and thereby have more affordable health care delivery system.
Somehow, I do not think it realistic or sound public policy that a nation of approximately 300 million try to solve its prescription drug problem by buying drugs in the Canadian (population around 31 million) market, or Irish (population, about 4 million) market.
What next, we load up busses with indigent sick people and send them off to Toronto?
Here is a comparison of life expectancy at birth of major first world nations.
http://web-japan.org/stat/stats/02VIT25.html
Notice that we are at the bottom of this list.
Here is another web site, from Australia.
http://www.aihw.gov.au/mortality/faqs.cfm
Look half way down the page for the table of life expectancies, male and female, by country. Note that we are 23rd on this list for both males and females, behind Canada, Japan, Sweden, Norway, Australia, the UK, and various other countries.
Perhaps we should study these other countries and see what they do there, as compared to here, to extend expected life spans.
Uncompensated health care should be honestly and openly funded through (gasp) broad based taxes that are neutral with their effect on affordability of private health insurance.
It is amusing to me that opponents of regulated medicine feel it inappropriate to take on health care costs directly by regulating some of the major costs, such as cost of prescription drugs, but instead think it fine that we freeload off of our foreign friends whose governments have seen fit to regulate such costs, and thereby have more affordable health care delivery system.
Somehow, I do not think it realistic or sound public policy that a nation of approximately 300 million try to solve its prescription drug problem by buying drugs in the Canadian (population around 31 million) market, or Irish (population, about 4 million) market.
What next, we load up busses with indigent sick people and send them off to Toronto?
Here is a comparison of life expectancy at birth of major first world nations.
http://web-japan.org/stat/stats/02VIT25.html
Notice that we are at the bottom of this list.
Here is another web site, from Australia.
http://www.aihw.gov.au/mortality/faqs.cfm
Look half way down the page for the table of life expectancies, male and female, by country. Note that we are 23rd on this list for both males and females, behind Canada, Japan, Sweden, Norway, Australia, the UK, and various other countries.
Perhaps we should study these other countries and see what they do there, as compared to here, to extend expected life spans.
Rumblings in NJ about putting sales tax on visits to doctors and lawyers.
Well it has something with being too stupid to know when to stop shoving food in our mouths. Its not an issue of health care.
So you want to replace the implicit private "tax" with a "broad based public system", which sounds an awful lot like a government tax. Ever hear the expression "out of the frying pan and into the fire"?
The two government tax based health care systems that I have personal experience with, Canada and the UK, are poster child examples for government bungling, and I have the prematurely deceased family members to prove it
I've posted here before that the two doctors I know best have both retired because of lawsuit driven sky high insurance premiums. A system that loses its brightest is not a healthy stystem.
Is anyone surprised that giving away free prescription drugs is already an out of control program? Only a few in Congress apparently. Another "broad based" success story no doubt.
There is so much money circulating in health care that we aren't going to see any major changes, other than more government giveaways (vote buying) that further corrupt the system and drive it downwards. The American public is already comfortable with the notion that the employer is somehow responsible for your families health care, and it's only a short step to shifting the responsibility to the government.
I wish I could be more optimistic.
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