Comments on: HEALTH INSURANCE LOBBY MAY BE ONTO SOMETHING

By: What Is The Best Health Insurance

What Is The Best Health Insurance — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 04:39:33 +0000

[...] A Primer in Executive Compensation in Not-for-Profits With Secret Deal in Peril, Insurance Industry Goes to War Roundup: Abortion Clinic Safety Zones in Chicago; Misreading the Pew Poll on Attitudes Toward Abortion AHIP’s Hissy Fit HEALTH INSURANCE LOBBY MAY BE ONTO SOMETHING [...]

By: DLS

DLS — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 20:24:30 +0000

“My experience in private business and start-up enterprises strongly indicate we can at best project out 2 or 3 years, with many initial assumptions being the core determinants for all future numbers. And since we cannot accurately predict changes to overall environmental and business conditions, the numbers get more inaccurate as the timeline is extended. Anyone who argues the contrary may be an arrogant imbecile or a complete liar.”

[snicker] And yet the Little Green Fascists blithely assume they know what the “fleet” consistency of the public's vehicle purchases (cars vs. trucks; small vs. larger vehicles) will be many years from now, as well as assume that there will be magic and this or that arbitrary percentage of electricity production will be from political darling “alternative” or “green” sources, or that magically “greenhouse gas” levels of emissions will be reduced to fantastically low levels. Poof!

By: DLS

DLS — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 20:16:15 +0000

“providing a pool of young, healthy patients will offset the cost of the sicker patients”

That's why one element of reform that could be implemented promptly (among several, which have been listed by people like me several times, but which have been neglected by the overgrown children, who don't care about real reform, but simply and … [I'll be very generous here] unthinkingly … demand prompt government takeover of health care) is “community rating.”

That doesn't mean that the young uninsured (so many of whom are that way by choice) will respond to community rating by purchasing insurance (which achieves the best theoretical cost spreading and cost saving), so the next step might be to make purchase mandatory or compulsory. Of course, there will be many who will be concerned about something like that, and it is going to have to be defended as well as pursued. (It also requires attention to details — will it be true insurance, i.e., catastrophic care only, or a mandated lavish banquet of benefits that will mean significant costs for everyone?)

By: Almoderate

Almoderate — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 18:09:04 +0000

Wait… if the newly insured are the SICKEST? Weren't these exact same people arguing just a few months back that most uninsured Americans were of the young and healthy who simply chose not to purchase it? And weren't they also arguing that the poorest were on Medicaid while the old and expensive were on Medicare?

And while I agree that it's absolutely necessary to continue providing care (rather than revoke it) for those who need it most, it's been shown in other countries that providing a pool of young, healthy patients will offset the cost of the sicker patients. Of course, we're also talking about countries where health insurance companies aren't obligated to pad the bottom line for shareholders or provide huge bonuses to their CEOs… Those may be the extra costs the health insurance industry is trying so hard to cover…

And as for that report… I wonder if the fact that it was financed by the health insurance industry and run by a company that had to settle in 2007 over some massive accounting fraud might make call that report into a teensy bit of question…

By: DLS

DLS — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 16:51:40 +0000

Yes, they're on to something. The reason we know it, is Max Baucus's response to what they (the health insurers) were saying about the dire consequences of health care “reform” (including the risk, or the threat, of much higher insurance premiums). Are these, or are these not, just scare tactics? The real-world answer to this question is Baucus's response, which wasn't to scoff promptly at what was said, and accuse the industry of engaging in scare tactics, but instead, Baucus chose to engage in bureaucrat-blather. This is evidence, despite how it obviously appears at first encounter, that what the insurers are saying has an element of truth to it, by Baucus's response and effective own admission.

By: PulSamsara

PulSamsara — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 16:24:24 +0000

Insurance Companies do not like Health Insurance Reform Bill …..
… And ?

Why would any thinking human being expect anything else.