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Politics : A US National Health Care System? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lane3 who wrote (5970)	2/9/2009 9:28:30 PM
From: John Koligman	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 42652

Hey Lane, sounds like you just outlined our health insurance problem in a nutshell very well! It's nice of them to jack up my rate 20% in this kind of economy. I'm happy that they have such good pricing power.... Regards, John <ng> " In that range, they'd rather not have your business. I've talked to people who couldn't get any just based on age. So, to insure you, they expect to be paid a premium."

To: Lane3 who wrote (5970)	2/10/2009 3:00:03 PM
From: Peter Dierks	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42652

The size of the pool doesn't matter much except for big ticket items like heart transplants where one incident can throw premiums out of whack. If the problem is excessive cost then a choice must be made how to spread risk to reduce it. To assume a variable and then state that the answer must be to adjust another variable is not a effective means of solving problems. This is America, which for the moment at least is based on the assumption that people are rewarded according to their ability and or efforts. If the problem is that certain procedures are too costly to allow the risk shared cost to be affordable isn't it wisest to investigate to see if there are some people who want insurance but whom would waive the right to certain cost prohibitive procedures to remain healthy? This is one cost of Balkinized insurance. State regulators dictate what can be offered. There are lots of people who would accept insurance at half the cost which excluded procedures they deem themselves to be at a low risk of. Offer insurance which excludes organ transplants and other insurance which excludes coverage of cancer. Maybe even offer insurance that excludes all of it. At a monthly premium of $50 a great number of people who choose to go without insurance now could afford it, and the "problem" would probably solve itself. Of course that assumes that the problem is uninsured and not that government is not dictating what health care people can receive. With most of American insured then the debate could change to what additional coverage the government might be willing to offer to its poorest citizens.