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Biotech / Medical : A HEALTH INSURANCE FORUM -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: GT who wrote (4)	7/17/1998 7:04:00 PM
From: John Hunt	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 8

If you would like a superior health "insurance" notion, consider this: Instead of paying an HMO or Blue Cross enormous fees to help you manage your health care money (at a roughly 30% "advisor fee"), try paying for your health care yourself. Health insurance, as it is currently in the U.S. is not just a joke, but rather an embarrassment, and the single biggest cause of our so called "health care crisis." What do you get by giving your money to an HMO? You get bureaucrats and clerks making decisions about your health care, and you pay them (in aggregate) a 30% premium for the service. Instead of paying an HMO, take the money that you would pay them and invest it, along with some other spare funds, in a reasonable panel of stocks and bonds. With some of the money, get a catastrophic insurance plan ( about $60/month for a family) with a deductible of $10,000. Then, who makes the decisions about your health care? YOU! You may choose to go to whatever doctor you wish, and pay them CASH MONEY ( or VISA/MC for that matter). You can pick the doctor who will provide the service you request at the cheapest price available, or pay a premium for a doctor who you hear is more skilled, or in whom you have more trust. It is your choice, because it is YOUR money. If you want to save some dough, ask the doc if you REALLY need that blood test or that more expensive antibiotic. Half the time, the response will be: "Not really. Let's see if you get better by yourself." Indeed, 90% of visits to a doctor are for things that go away on their own anyway. The $10,000 (or $5000 or $100,000 or whatever you can afford to pay on your own if you lose the gamble) catastrophic coverage will protect you from financial calamity, which is what insurance is really all about, isn't it? It is not like you buy fire insurance so that the fire engines will come! Our society has contorted reality to the point that health insurance is synonymous with access to care. How stupid we are. Cash, Visa, or chickens, for that matter are reasonable payments for health care received. This notion, of paying, and controlling ones own health care, solves most all the problems with health care delivery and costs. Prices will come down because competition, which does not exist in any true form now, will be present at the individual doctor/patient level. The doctor and patient will be on the same side again--trying to get the patient well without destroying his life savings--instead of on opposite sides--not referring the patient to a subspecialist because it costs the Doctor money. If a patient wishes to see a subspecialist, no problem: pays your money and you get to go. People who wish to save money can stay with their Family Practice doctor who can provide excellent care much more cheaply for most disease processes. The key to bringing down health care costs and solving the problems with our system is to place the decisions regarding an individual's health care into the hands of the people who bear the emotional, physical and financial consequences of the decision. This is certainly not the insurance companies, and in today's system, is not the patient either( no fincancial consequences). No, all the consequences need to fall on the same shoulders--the patient and the doctor. Patients will be empowered--> what a concept! Consider it. It makes abundant sense, I think. John