Shopping is cheaper
than a psychiatrist!
Required Health Insurance Stinks!
From my articles it’s pretty obvious that I stick to alternative healthcare. I work hard at staying healthy, which in turn, keeps me from having to visit a doctor.
I was reading yet another article about healthcare reform in AARP magazine. This one got me angry. I am one of the 46 million who do not have health insurance. For me, it’s by choice. I tried it, didn’t like it and it certainly didn’t save me any money. All it did was cause a lot of stress, the very thing I try to avoid.
Gasp, you say, what if you had to have some major surgery! Let’s take a look at costs. By not paying for health insurance, I save around $400 a month. This saves me around $4,800 per year. If I put this into an interest bearing account, it will be worth much more in a couple of years or so. If I have to have surgery, I can take the money out of savings. As long as I stay healthy, I wind up savings thousands or dollars.
Now if I had insurance, yes a great portion would be paid for. But there is a deductible involved. I have to pay $1 or $2,000 out of pocket. Plus I will have lost the interest I could be earning in that investment account. hmm. Makes the choice interesting, doesn’t it.
So what made me mad in this article? According to it, politicians, industry lobbyists and reform advocates say that there are key areas of agreement when it comes to healthcare reform. Now I agree that we should pay doctors based on the effectiveness of their work, not the number of patients. I agree that health care costs are too high. And I agree that insurance companies need to be regulated better. I DO NOT agree that everyone should be required to have health insurance. Obama says he will press for hardship exemptions. That would account for about 99% of those 46 million, so why bother requiring the insurance? What about people like me who are healthy and just do not want it. Just like the car insurance I pay. I drive carefully and wind up paying for those who don’t. The one time I needed it, I had to go to the state insurance board to get the other party’s insurance agent to comply.
I admit that with auto insurance there are other people on the road to consider. When I was in my accident, if the lady who hit me didn’t have insurance, I would have been out a car. But health insurance is very individual. If I get sick it does not affect another person. To require us to have health insurance just stinks!
July 12th, 2009 at 5:40 am
Insurance reform + medical provider reform = health care reform, right? Utah health insurance reform has been center focus for the state, UAHU and private insurance carriers over the past 24 months. Mike Oliphant (UAHU board webmaster) runs a small Utah based health insurance website http://www.BenefitsManager.net as well as http://www.HealthInsuranceSource.net. Mike’s viewpoint provides a unique analysis which comes from being a “fly on the wall” observer in countless state session and insurance meetings. “Utah has been thrust into a state insurance reform pressure cooker which isn’t necessarily negative where I am an insurer, insured and patient”. Several interesting changes took place with H.B. 188 passage earlier this year which seems all too familiar to the ongoing federal health care reform attempt under Obama’s administration. The spirit of the bill allows private Utah market place remedies. It essentially guarantees a Utah health insurance carrier a “no loss” or “no gain” premise over competing carriers that operate within the “Utah Insurance Exchange portal”. On the surface it would seem unattractive to a carrier’s consideration (voluntary at this point). But you have to understand the carriers’ goal is to cover their administration fees and maintain a 3% profit. The Utah health insurance reform model claims this can be accomplished now by legislation and the watchful eye of the state’s risk adjuster board. The medical claim risks are essentially shared equally among the participating carriers. Therefore, the carriers can focus on administration efficiencies more so than competition over a fluctuating market share. Insurance carriers such as SelectHealth have efficiencies and risk management experience polished by long tested actuarial tables with health statistics and claim trends. Is it a bad idea to share that experience with a national carrier such as Humana? Would it surprise anyone to know that maternity NICU and anti-depressants represent the highest utilization in health insurance costs for medical and pharmacy in Utah? Compare this to Texas which suffers from abnormally high levels of diabetes and liver disease per capita.
The other half of the “health care reform equation” is medical provider and billing practices. The state claims this is on the agenda. It is popular belief among Utah legislators that reform stops with the insurance carrier. However, how can the insurance carrier continue to bear the risk and re-distribution of health insurance premiums back out the door in claims without provider billing reform? Add to this obstacle a continuing shrinkage of the insured populace. Obama’s administration proposes mandatory participation in a health insurance policy by employers of all sizes, self employed and unemployed populace. The logic being to shore up the unhealthy with healthy premium. When analyzing the Massachusetts’s system, you actually pay a penalty if you have no proof of coverage. The benefit level and health insurance price is nowhere close when you compare Utah health insurance quotes through http://www.benefitsmanager.net or dental insurance quotes at http://www.dentalinsuranceutah.net. Utah premium is easily half. This insight comes from a Utah health insurance agent whom often interacts with employers and residents looking for affordable coverage, making sure claims are paid correctly, implementation and explanation of the many policy procedures and putting a complex SelectHealth insurance language in understandable terms. Yet legislators claim agents to be of no value all in the name to save 3-4 off of Utah health%
With the latest announcement of hospitals agreeing to contribute $155 billion, where are the costs going to be shifted for this donation? In Utah, studies conducted by http://www.BenefitsManager.net revealed that cost shifting already exists in the ER. There is apparent lack of legislators in Utah and on the federal level proposing TORT REFORM. It is factual that a majority of US senators and representatives are lawyers. To push liability insurance premiums down that absorb as much as 15% in expenses with most medical providers is significant. Take 15% off total medical expenditures in US and you will see savings in the trillions.
If we go down the path of nationalized health care reforms, will we at some point be forced to address usage and ration? Will we have to define when to refuse further care for patients receiving critical illness treatments, intensive care unit, disease management, neonatal intensive-care unit for? SelectHealth documents that the single most expensive bills are NICU for newborns and seniors in acute / intensive care / pre-hospice.
Without TORT REFORM, medical provider costs will never drop. Liability insurance costs are approaching nearly half of the operating expenses for specialty care physicians, units and facilities. Humana health plans state that their costs of medical liability and defensive medicine accounts for nearly 10 cents out of every premium dollar collected. Compare that to Humana’s reported pharmaceutical claims of 15 cents out of every premium dollar collected. Or better yet, 21 cents out of every premium dollar collected is paid back to physicians for physician treatments.
July 13th, 2009 at 1:37 am
Excellent article and valid points. In my case, I’m insurance poor. And also in my case, I’ve diagnosed every ailment I and my family have ever had. I wouldn’t be so bitter about the cost of insurance if I could find a doctor who is as good a diagnostician as I. I do realize that the problem is insurance. I remember when we all paid for our own care out of pocket and doctors didn’t have to play the numbers game.
July 15th, 2009 at 12:50 am
I agree that it should not be required, but i do believe it is absolutely ridiculous to not have it. In your situation it sounds like it cost way more then mine does, and your deductible is way higher too. THAT is where the problem is. That it is not affordable for people who dont work for giant corporate companies. Our country should encourage smaller business to exist ( which would keep more jobs IN America but that’s a whole other subject) and one way they could do this is by making health care more affordable for them.
I am a HEALTHY 29 year old female. I run regularly, eat whole foods, and am always reading up on how to best take care of my body. This year alone i had a ruptured disk and cancer cells that had to be removed. With out health insurance i would have landed on the streets. Even with it i am still out a lot of money do to work lost and my deductibles and co pays. And i did have money saved.
I just wouldn’t want to encourage to many people to go without it. Its a pretty immature thought to think you are never going to get seriously ill or injured… no matter how healthy you are.
July 19th, 2009 at 10:55 pm
Some great comments here. To Mike, the statement you made about physicians collecting 21cents on the dollar is so accurate and so wrong. Accurate in that physicians have to charge the insurance companies a lot more just to get what they are asking for. One of my doctors told me she has to charge the insurance company $90 just to get the $55 she wants. That’s where the “so wrong” part I am talking about comes in. Like Annie says, remember when we just paid the doctor and no insurance company was involved.
All the same I do agree with Michelle in that with the high cost of medicine, if we do have an emergency like a heart attack (showing my age!), we would be in a world of financial trouble without insurance. I’ve looked into catastrophic insurance, but in Oregon it is still around $300 per month.
I wish I had the answers, but I don’t. I just know that I can’t afford a required insurance premium.
July 20th, 2009 at 4:33 am
Doesn’t matter how much alternative medicine you practice…the odds are, you are going to get sick at some point, especially when you start aging. And, when you do get sick, it’s going to cost you a bundle. Splitting the costs with healthy people makes care affordable for everyone…and eventually the healthy people get reimbursed because, when they get inevitably get sick, their care is affordable. Insurance SHOULD be reuired for everyone.