Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Strategies & Market Trends : Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: mishedlo who wrote (25993)	3/19/2005 4:21:08 PM
From: Elroy Jetson	Respond to of 116555

United Healthcare is just creating an HMO option under the name of "Performance" health care. HMO plans provide far less choice, and frequently provide less care than a PPO plan, in return for a lower premium. Kaiser Permanente, based in California, is the original HMO plan. Kaiser Industries created the plan for their employees. They built their own health care facilities and hired doctors as Kaiser employees. Members pay trivial co-payments and have no deductibles. Their care is generally adequate, but can fall critically short in providing expensive state-of-the-art care. Like Canada, Kaiser and most HMOs, go out for bid for pharmaceuticals. Being far smaller than Canada they have less negotiating clout and must heavily restrict their approved list of drugs to a "formulary" of those drugs they were offered the largest discount on. Vioxx was approved, but Celebrex was not. Even before the recent damaging revelations, Vioxx was known to be an inferior drug. So you can see where this leads you on the pharmaceutical side - HMOs stock only Brand X. If you're a poor person, you prefer an HMO for very low out-of-pocket cost for average care. If you're sick and can afford to be better, you want a PPO or better. .