08:43 – Barbara had a carry-over vacation day that she had to take or lose, so she’s taking it today. She’s doing some farming work out in the yard and we’ll work on building more chemistry kits later.
I must admit that I’m not following the ObamaCare thing closely, figuring that it’s all politics and it’ll work out however the politicians decide it’ll work out. Whichever way it works out, I suspect a lot of people are going to be unhappy, including those who think they’ll be happy with one outcome or another. I suspect, no matter how the individual mandate thing unfolds, a lot of people who now have insurance through their jobs are going to find that they no longer do. But the real killer is going to be the pre-existing conditions thing. Forcing insurers to cover pre-existing conditions means that what they’re selling is no longer insurance by any reasonable definition. And, I will point out something that I’ve seen no one else point out: age is a pre-existing condition. Wait for the lawsuits. And the physicians and insurers declaring bankruptcy. Family-care physicians are hanging on by their fingernails right now. ObamaCare is going to put a lot more of them out of business.
2 questions I haven’t heard asked, and which I’ll play Devil’s Advocate by posting:
1. Why exactly should your employer purchase your health insurance? I know the history behind it, etc, but it very much skews the market. You purchase your home, auto, and other types insurance on your own.
2. When exactly did the SCOTUS decide that the explicit list provided in Article I, Section 8 and the further limits provided by the 10th Amendment, were no longer valid?
There is no reason other than if you don’t offer quality employees such perks, some other company will. I’ve held a position where my employer paid my full health insurance, as well as a car allowance, even though I didn’t drive FOR work, only to and from.
I have no ability to explain SCOTUS and their actions.
The US health “insurance” system is no such thing. It’s a cost-transfer system, taking money from the generally healthy and subsidizing the unhealthy. Add in the tax breaks and the regulations and you end up with the mess that we have today.
I’d much prefer an actual insurance system, in which you cover your expected medical expenses yourself but most people get insurance for disasters. That’s not really an option today in the US because a disaster coverage plan costs 90% or more of what a full-coverage plan costs. Ridiculous. As a self-employed consultant I usually prefer to do without insurance and just set aside what I’d be paying in premiums and pay cash for whatever treatment I needed; I came out well ahead every year.
By the way, some doctors are willing to give you a better price on visits if you’re paying for it yourself. Less so with labs and clinics because they’re all staffed by drones working for a corporation, but if you’re paying for it yourself the doctor is less likely to have you go in for tests X, Y, and Z “just to be sure”. It might take a while to find a doc or a dentist who’ll take cash and is taking new patients, but once you do it can work pretty well.
My real concern is the expansion of Congressional power. Who wants 500 people telling you what’s good for you. But most of the people here know we lost that a long time ago.
I think there is a lot of subsidizing unhealthy lifestyles in the current system. There is also a lot of medical treatment that isn’t subsidizing unhealthy lifestyles.
Bill wrote:
“There is no reason other than if you don’t offer quality employees such perks, some other company will. I’ve held a position where my employer paid my full health insurance, as well as a car allowance, even though I didn’t drive FOR work, only to and from.”
What if Company A offers health benefits and Company B offers an extra $10,000 per year? I get various minor benefits at work, like a health-and-wellbeing allowance ($300 a year, I think) but I’d rather just have the cash and make my own arrangements. I don’t think the one-size-fits-all schemes offered by companies are likely to suit most employees, so I’d rather just get the cost the company pays to the insurer and make my own arrangements.
Some people down here used to put a certain amount each year to cover health problems, but the government (of left and right) want them to take out private insurance. They use a carrot and stick: get a proportion of the premium paid by the government if you have insurance and get to pay extra tax if you don’t.
I run a small business with 12 employees. I absolutely hate having to make decisions about peoples healthcare (buying our group insurance). BTW, our group health insurance price has gone up almost 100% since Obamacare was passed two years ago. And we are on Blue Cross Blue Shield PPO which is a non-profit here in Texas.
I would like to see us expand Medicare to all people with lots of copays, etc. The societal upheaval from that single action would be massive though. Right now, I believe that Medicare is only paying about 1/4 of its actual costs so that will have to be fixed as the rest of us are subsidizing it. And I think that I should be able to purchase supplemental health insurance so I can get more treatment if necessary.
If that does not happen then we need to get rid of the law that all visitors to the ER must be helped, regardless of health insurance status. If you cannot pay then you do not deserve treatment unless you go to a charity hospital.
If one of these does not change then I expect all ERs to close in the near future. Especially ERs in the inner cities.
Don’t even get me started on Medicaid. That one is scary as Medicaid is paying for over one half of the old folks in nursing homes here in Texas. About $10 billion/year as far as I can determine. That is 8% of our state budget.
I would call an additional $10K a year a “perk” equivalent to or greater than health insurance. It’s all in how you negotiate, and being smart enough to negotiate a $10K increase will likely mean you’re also smart enough to use some of that increase to fund for your own future health care issues. Most people are not.
Canada, of course, has it’s “universal” health plan, but it doesn’t cover everything, or even most of everything. So our additional health plans are for eye and dental care, pharmaceuticals, and the like. A group plan often (though not always) nets a better health plan than an individual can afford on their own.
I used to work for an even smaller company that actually had an insurance plan I liked. My employer paid for a high ($2500) deductible health plan and a health savings account to which my employer paid $150 per month. Years after that company ceased doing business, my health savings account still has a $4000 balance.
I think such plans are a great idea, and I wish my wife’s employer offered something similar. I think it does more to encourage cost management and healthy lifestyles than anything in Obamacare
<iI’d much prefer an actual insurance system, in which you cover your expected medical expenses yourself but most people get insurance for disasters. That’s not really an option today in the US
There is such a plan, sort of. I am on a high deductible plan. My premiums are lowered significantly and my employer kicks in $50 a month to the health savings plan. The insurance pays nothing until I have paid $4000, 80% until I have reached $8000, then 100%. That covers major events that would bankrupt me. My wife’s hip replaced would have almost bankrupted me. Even the $6K I had to pay (deductibles were lower last year) was not easy. I just recently, almost a year later, paid off the hospital bill.
Blue Cross Blue Shield PPO which is a non-profit
Yeh right. We have them here in TN. Ever seen their buildings? Ever looked at executive compensation? They may not be selling stock but they most certainly are making a whole lot of money.
That one is scary as Medicaid is paying for over one half of the old folks in nursing homes here in Texas
Having just dealt with Medicaid for my aunt, who fortunately pass on last week, such a program was a benefit. Her last three years were spent on Medicaid in a nursing home.
Now before anyone gets their panties in a wad consider the circumstances. She was in assisted living for 5.5 years, self paid. During that time she went through $300K+ of her own money. No one can plan five years ahead. Everyone thought it was enough to last her until the end and leave a little inheritance. Did not happen.
Without medicaid what would happen? Could I afford the $180.00 per day that a nursing home cost? Could I afford the $3800 a month for assisted living? Why should I be responsible for paying for her care as it is more than my monthly income. Should I live on the street so the government would not have to pay? What is the alternative other than medicaid? She paid premiums all her life into medicaid, even while she was on medicaid she paid medicare and medicaid premiums. In her case the system worked as it was designed.
I would call an additional $10K a year a “perk” equivalent to or greater than health insurance.
My company currently pays about $12K a year for my health insurance. Multiply that by nine employees and the outgo is over $100K a year. Problem is that a normal year our entire office does not have $25K in medical expenses. Exception was last year when my wife had major surgery. Yet the insurance company claims that unless our rates go up we as a group are not profitable to them. That is one hell of a profit for basically doing very little.
Like I said, health care in the USA is a huge societal question. I am beginning to think that it is over 20% of our GDP. Maybe as high as 25% of our GDP.
I am not begrudging the Medicaid spending for destitute old folks in nursing homes. I am just becoming aware of how much we as a state and nation are spending on this one item. As the baby boomers reach this age and infirmities, it will become a crisis.
I do not know how to fix all of these issues, yet they are inter-related. We have a total hodge-podge system and we are only talking about half of the money spending.
BTW, my BCBS PPO cost per employee with a $1,000/year deductible is $500/month/each.
As the baby boomers reach this age and infirmities, it will become a crisis.
I think it goes further than that and is really not a problem with the baby boomers. I think it is a problem with the quality of medical care, the technology and knowledge, that years ago did not exist.
Because of this technology and knowledge people get effective treatment for more diseases and afflications. If not a cure then at least a significant extension of life. In the late 1800’s people died of “consumption”. I suspect it was cancer, stroke, heart attack, etc. that was just never diagnosed.
I know that if my aunt had not received the medical care and attention that she did receive she would have died years ago. The medical care, and subsequent cost, kept her alive. Was it worth it. Hell no. The last two years of her life was an existance, not a life. But the laws and society would not have it any other way. I had to fight the nursing home and state to have a feeding tube and IV withheld when my aunt would no longer eat on her own. It might have extended her life another three or four months and served no purpose. And it would have been costly.
Yes, baby boomers (I am one), will tax the systems resources. The medical system and the advances in care will tax the system more than the baby boomers.
Yes, it is amazing to watch some people use any medical technology they can (or mandate it) to keep people alive. The Terri Schiavo nonsense was both heart breaking and illuminating to me. At some point, people must be left to pass without further intervention. I don’t know exactly where that point is but I am fairly sure I can identify it in most cases.
Thank you for fighting for your aunt. Well meaning people are dangerous !
What I find interesting is which group of people insists on keeping their family members on life support long past when it makes sense to do so, and which group takes a more reasonable approach.
Contrary to what most people would guess, it’s the devoutly religious people who are far more likely to insist on extreme measures and the atheists who are far more likely to be willing to let it go when it makes sense to do so.
I’ve always wondered why religious nutters are even willing to use antibiotics and other drugs and surgeries, not to mention insisting on extreme measures. If they really believe the crap they insist that they believe, isn’t doing those things attempting to frustrate the will of god? Wouldn’t you think they’d be anxious to meet their maker? Why isn’t early death welcomed by religious nutters?
Ditto for rabid environmentalists. (To be sure, environmentalism is their religion and Gaia is their god.) If humans are a blight on the planet, then why don’t they kill themselves today and let their essence rejoin nature? At the least, why don’t they let nature take its course when they get ill?
SteveF, didn’t you know that the Rabid Environmentalists will number amongst the 500 million that will be left to tend to Mother Gaia after Climate Change (Hallowed Be Thy Name) kills off all the polluting sinners?
Years ago I was on a minibus returning from making a blood donation when I heard some guys who worked in our local parliament. Parliamentarians were entitled to the use of a car provided, maintained and fueled at taxpayer expense. One of the guys mentioned that one of the two Green MPs in the Assembly had chosen the most highly optioned, high performance, gas guzzling cars available under the scheme. So much for their green credentials. I would have been impressed if that MP had taken a pushbike instead.
I am a religious nutter who does not wish for, and will not tolerate, extensive and heroic life-saving efforts to keep me above the grass should it come to that and I am otherwise a doddering wreck about to check out anyway…oh wait…I AM, in fact, a doddering wreck, etc.
When it time to go, it time to go.
And I only take aspirin or Benadryl under some pain or allergy distress, the extent of my drugginess these daze. It’s been months since I’ve taken either.
Faced with agonizing pain and misery and inability to function, etc., I do not wish for any strenuous efforts in my behalf other than whatever relief from it can be managed as I exit this earthly plane. And I will make clear however I have to, that they better jack up the doses for a big 255-pound adult male primate who in his day could pound down the booze and the dope in enough amounts to literally kill lesser beings toot sweet, so no goddam skimping on the pain meds, mofos.
As I see it, employer funded (all, most, some, etc) insurance skews the market quite badly. I’m 47, single, self employed, and have a long orthopedic history and hypertension. To some degree I’m a bad risk, but so is the guy with five speeding tickets in the last two years, or the people who live in beachside condos. They can get their insurance, albeit at a high price, without the Federal Government imposing itself.
In my case, no insurer in Florida will sell me insurance as an individual. (The insurance company I had left the state, and I’ve checked every other option.) But if for example I took a job with the state, they’d be more than happy to sign me up. So why not let me pay the same price that any state worker gets? Obviously the state picks up some % of the total cost (I don’t know exactly what) but many employers would be willing to pay some of the premium simply as a competitive perk.
Insurance companies do not operate in the customer’s interest anymore. They have not for a long time. My dad worked in the insurance industry when I was very little, until the lawyer legislators conspired and contrived to upset the risk pool by allowing companies like Allstate to cream the crop of the risks, and left everybody else with significantly increased premiums. That is not how insurance was created to work.
Disgusted, my dad left the insurance industry and became a lawyer himself. Not sure what that meant.
Nowadays, I see enough behind the scenes to know that medical care delivers miraculous results, but as an industry, is seriously broken. By the way, Blue Cross Blue Shield is an association of companies owned in different places in different ways. Not all are non-profit.
The trend today in the insurance industry is to de-mutualize mutual insurance companies. In mutual insurance companies, the customers actually own the company through mutual participation with their premiums; and they have a voice and can vote on how the company is run, based on how much in premiums they pay each year. There is no reason on this hotting up Earth for any insurance company to be anything but mutual.
Guess what happens when they de-mutualize? There is one right near me in Indianoplace, who demutualized some years back. Do I have to tell you that shortly afterwards the top layer of executives engaged in a deal that brought each of them multi-millions? Like Mitt Romney, they then loaded the company with scads and scads of debt, while transferring even more wealth to themselves. And premiums in all their lines have skyrocketed since de-mutualization.
Meanwhile, those executives say that mutual insurance companies are “old-fashioned” and “outmoded”. Yeah, because with a mutual company the top executives cannot become rich beyond belief. Meanwhile, people on this forum claim I am a whiner for criticizing this stuff. It’s a free country. What’s wrong with executives making millions? Let them do business the way they want to. They deserve that freedom.
Okay. It’s your country; have it your way. Lynn is right: healthcare is going to bankrupt this country. Dean Baker frequently gives the facts and figures that indicate how severe it is going to be. And instead of devising laws and regulations that keep executives from earning fabulous fortunes at YOUR expense in significantly increased premiums, we are at the crossroads of deciding that government can MANDATE that you to pay those damned executives to get rich!
What a country!
What can be done? Baker frequently outlines solutions. Take certification of doctors and lawyers away from the self-regulating bodies of those groups. Also take away the role that such self-regulation exercises over law schools and medical schools. Their self-interest is served by insuring there is a constant shortage of doctors and lawyers and limiting the attendance at law schools and medical colleges, which keeps wages for doctors and lawyers high. Baker points out that IF wages for a particular group are high, then there IS a shortage of them. Allow schooled foreign medical and law school graduates a path to become certified in the US as doctors and lawyers, increasing competition. Allow anyone in the US to obtain medical care in other parts of the world where rates are MUCH lower (and that is EVERYWHERE outside the US); healthcare quality is as good or better than in the US; and consequently, longevity rates are significantly higher than in the US. That would relieve the cost burden on both insurance companies and government programs like Medicare.
Nah. Forget that. We’ll just go bankrupt first, instead.
What a country!
Insurance companies here in Oz have been ripping off their customers since at least the late Sixties. My father was involved in a car accident back then that wasn’t his fault. He spoke to the other driver’s insurer who said “We know we’re at fault, but you try and prove it” and wouldn’t pay.
This infuriated my father, and a friend who had recently finished law school agreed to represent him cheaply and he won the case.
As to de-mutualisation, In around 2000 the local road service organisation covering NSW and Canberra, the NRMA, decided to demutualise. They also ran a profitable insurance arm, and the members agreed to de-mutulaise. I got about $300 or so (had been a member for nearly 20 years) but the result was a disaster for the company. The price of yearly road service membership skyrocketed and the company got into a bit of financial bother. Within a few years the board members who had pushed de-mutualisation were off the board, but not before some serious financial disasters.
I’m also dead set against politicians who promise not to sell state assets and then do so after the next election. Labor Party governments in New South Wales and Queensland have recently been slaughtered at the polls for doing that. The South Australian Liberal (=conservative) government sold (actually, leased for 200 years) ETSA (the Electricity Trust of South Australia) in the late Nineties after promising not to do so. Electricity prices went up and the government went down at the next election. I don’t like bad policy from governments but I hate barefaced lies even more.
On a USB cable I recently got with a MP3 player there’s a thick tube at one end. Anyone know what that sort of thing is for? I think I’ve seen them on power cords before or after laptop transformers, and elsewhere.
That’s probably a ferrite bead. It reduces RF emissions.
Anyone know what that sort of thing is for?
Ferrite bead that blocks high frequency signals from passing through the cable. The bead is actually a tube where the cable passes, makes u-turn back through the bead and then out. Some do more than one turn but typically not more than a couple of turns.
The bead then acts as a transformer of sorts and will suppress high frequency signals which induce a very very small counter voltage and current of opposite polarity effectively cancelling out the signals.
The bead acts as an inductor, not a transformer.
/pedantic
Thanks guys, I thought it was something like that.
They can get their insurance, albeit at a high price, without the Federal Government imposing itself.
But all you can get is state minimum liability for others, not yourself or your car. And those risk pools are closely monitored by the state. There is no equivalent coverage in medical.
I got hit by someone covered by such a policy. It was a PITA to get paid, and I ended up losing $3000 on the crash due to their slow and incompetent adjusters. The guy that hit me was lawsuit-proof -i.e. had no money.
I had that book as a kid!
The bead acts as an inductor, not a transformer.
I said sort of like a transformer. A true transformer is nothing more than two or more inductors that have their magnetic flux coupled together so the ferrite bead does not qualify as a transformer. I was trying to keep it simple so that one could envision the windings. So yes, I was not 100% accurate and thank you for the correction.