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

To: Lane3 who wrote (6508)	3/25/2009 12:53:09 PM
From: i-node	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 42652

What made health insurance unaffordable for anyone but employers was that employers made their benefits more and more generous to compete with other employers and to keep their employees happy. That's how health "insurance" became pre-paid health plans, no longer insurance. And that's how costs got so high. Had employers not gotten involved, we would still have families buying "major medical" policies. I'm not sure about that. I mean, I agree with that being the way it evolved, but I don't think one could conclude that it wouldn't have evolve that way with or without employers. I see no evidence that it is the employer provided plan that caused the problem. It is a natural progression, as insurance became more widely adopted, that it would be sold as a total solution. After all, there is a profit to be had. Look at the life insurance business, for example. The amount that is employer provided is nil compared with health coverage. Yet, it has evolved in much the same way -- people use it for everything; not only is it life insurance, it is an investment, an annuity, a source of borrowing, a way to fund your kids' college, the list goes on. It is a natural progression for the scope of insurance coverage to expand. I think it likely would have happened without regard for the employer's involvement. Nobody in my family -- my dad or any of my siblings, has ever been other than self-employed (well, I worked for someone else for a couple years). Yet, we all have more health coverage than we need. I have "high deductible" insurance, as does my wife, but it certainly is far more coverage than we would have had 40 years ago. The products were offered, we took them. They were not forced on us and we could change insurance at any time. I think the problem is really with the fact that the claims are assigned to a third party, never to be seen by the person receiving the service. Most people receiving an EOB either don't know what it is or never look at it; into the trash it goes. My last trip to my physicians office I noticed something different -- pasted up on the door as I was leaving was a "superbill" (encounter form, fee slip, whatever you want to call it). In big red letters it said, "DO NOT LEAVE WITH THIS FORM!!!" Imagine that. The patient is being told that whatever he does, DO NOT LEAVE with an itemized statement of the services he was provided. THAT KIND OF THINKING is the problem.

To: Lane3 who wrote (6508)	3/26/2009 11:19:31 AM
From: Peter Dierks	Respond to of 42652

The reason employers offered paid insurance originally was to attract talent when wage controls did not allow them to compete based on price for the best employees. The whole cycle has gotten out of control. If you don't like employer provided healthcare then you should have loved President Bush's proposal to make a level playing field. Give employers and individuals exactly the same deductibility of insurance by eliminating the tax preference for it and tax employer payments as income. Right now one of the largest problem remains state regulation of the insurance market which allows lobbyists and bleeding hearts to dictate what must be covered in various states. This causes the price to be higher than if individuals or groups chose what to cover. If you want $100 per month insurance, in a free market some company would design a few different coverage options to get you there.