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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: combjelly who wrote (537876)	12/21/2009 2:18:09 PM
From: Tenchusatsu	3 Recommendations Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1576894

CJ, > There is no transferring of an obligation to pay. There are only two reasons why you would force people who don't want health insurance to buy some anyway: a) You want to save them from their own "myopia." b) You want to expand the number of people paying into the system. It's that easy. Inode's characterization is spot-on. Tenchusatsu

To: combjelly who wrote (537876)	12/21/2009 2:31:50 PM
From: i-node	2 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1576894

The claim you are pointing to is the claim that it isn't really insurance, but something else. I think you're conflating a couple of issues. When someone gets into a state Medicaid program, it is not "risk management". Ordinary health insurance can be (but isn't always) "risk management"; state Medicaid is NOT, ever. State Medicaid is simply a way of having the state pay for the health care of those who can't or won't afford it. And one of the things we DO know about the new legislation is that it will put millions of people into state Medicaid programs. THIS, specifically, was what we were discussing when the subject of "risk management" came up. State Medicaids, which will now be responsible for payment of some 1/6 of health care (therefore, about 1/36th of the entire economy), are in no way akin to "insurance" or "risk management". State Medicaids are not about people purchasing an insurance policy, and in fact, there is no "policy" involved. State Medicaids entail simply a list of procedures, drugs, services, and equipment that government pays for. If you qualify, government will pay the tab. If you don't qualify, it won't. This has nothing, whatsoever, with the concept of risk management, in which the objective is purchase ("purchase" is an essential ingredient) an indemnity arrangement (again, "indemnity", not primary liability is the operative concept) under which the purchaser (patient) will be indemnified in the event of a loss (medical procedure). Medicaid involves no indemnity. You bill Medicaid. If they don't pay, you're done -- unless it is a noncovered service (in which case you screwed up, because you can't collect money from a Medicaid patient because they don't have any). The estimated 30 Million people who will be covered by Medicaid under this new legislation are not, in any way, involved in "risk management".