Health Insurance Sometimes Borders on a Racket
Posted by CircuitGuy 9 years, 10 months ago to Economics
We took our kid to a doctor for a minor but persistent respiratory problems. The doc suggested two possible diagnostic tests. We asked some questions about whether the results would affect which interventions we used. I thought the results may or may not be of some use, so I asked what it would cost. He said something like, “Oh no, do you have to pay for medicine [outside of health plan premiums]?” We told him yes, but the cost would not be a burden for us at all. We talked through it and we all decided the tests wouldn't affect the treatment and would only be worthwhile if someone else were paying for it.
This is the THIRD TIME in the past four years a doctor has suggested something that costs several thousand dollars and withdrew the suggestion after we took a moment to work through a quick-and-dirty cost/benefit analysis.
There was an opposite example with my wife's pregnancy. The doc started to say we could have so many ultrasound tests and then said, “oh wait, you're private pay. Nevermind. You can have them every day if you want. They're $183 each.”
These insurance plans that insure against every little trifling expenditure are a gravy train for providers. They start with people wanting to turn over responsibility for managing expenses to a company or gov't.
People should be free to make stupid health decisions, like my decision to indulge in Taco Bell and other unhealthful habits.
This is the THIRD TIME in the past four years a doctor has suggested something that costs several thousand dollars and withdrew the suggestion after we took a moment to work through a quick-and-dirty cost/benefit analysis.
There was an opposite example with my wife's pregnancy. The doc started to say we could have so many ultrasound tests and then said, “oh wait, you're private pay. Nevermind. You can have them every day if you want. They're $183 each.”
These insurance plans that insure against every little trifling expenditure are a gravy train for providers. They start with people wanting to turn over responsibility for managing expenses to a company or gov't.
People should be free to make stupid health decisions, like my decision to indulge in Taco Bell and other unhealthful habits.
Exactly! Second, third, other sources of evidence, and whatever it takes for rational people to form their own opinions.
I'll certainly admit that neither McC nor Mitt were anywhere close to being my preferred candidates, but either would have been a damn site better than what we ended up with.
The only chance for a positive peaceful resolution and return to original American ideals is to recognize the unholy alliance of the DemRep Party and to destroy it.
Those who irrationally cling to HOPE in the unending lies told by the DemRep Party are part of the problem and are another obstruction to a peaceful solution.
Open your eyes!
Judge results, not promises.
Are your goals to have bigger more intrusive government?
That is the only result of the DemRep Party of the past 100 years.
The strike was a literary device, that's all. Even AR said so. She didn't believe that "stopping the motor of the world" could ever work in the real world. We must take positive action to bring about the change that is needed. Inaction is only going to allow the tyrants to become permanently in charge.
Are your goals to have bigger more intrusive government?
That is the only result of the DemRep Party of the past 100 years.
I was getting lonely on this point....
When I was 16 and read Atlas, I just couldn't understand why Dagny couldn't let go. Now I do.
ethics do not permit them to take their own lives.
Moreover, faking reality isn't allowed in the Gulch.
You thought I didn't have a 'g'? what? OH..never mind...I don't...IT'S.AN.EXPRESSION. Christ Almighty!
Dealing with ailing parents, as khalling and many others can tell you, is no fun. One area that I struggle with AR's ideals is with familial relationships. I love my parents, wife, and kids. John Galt would say that I am not sacrificing for them; rather I am exchanging values, albeit perhaps belatedly with my parents or in anticipation of a future relationship with my kids. However, I am quite sure that my parents would tell me that they sacrificed a lot for me. I am repaying that in part now, but I'm not sure it is even possible to exchange equal value to what your parents gave to you. Pardon me for being a little mushy here, but for me, this is a sticking point between where I am and being a strict Objectivist.
I have kids too. I chose to. I never felt like I was sacrificing anything I willingly gave up to be their parent. It's totally counter productive to being a good parent and example.
I try not to do something like this for my kids grudgingly. If I experience vicarious joy from my kids, that's not grudging. I avoid doing it b/c that's what people think good parents do.
It reminds me the bible passage where Jesus says fasting for God isn't really for God if you walk around letting everyone know how pious your fasting is.
I don't believe in religion at all, but some of its ideas are part of my me.
Anyway, I say we're sometimes tempted to grudgingly do something for someone, but this altruism is no benefit to the giver or receiver.
It is time to start working on that Gulch of mine.
Not sure that all here who are "likable" will meet the threshold of the majority.
At some point the libertarians should have critical mass to justify getting into the mainstream debates. Once they're in the debates, more people might vote for them. That's one good thing about voting for a libertarian unlikely to win.
I have heard about instant runoff voting, and it sounds like it would help with this. At least it would cause me to vote libertarian every time.
That is a two sided sword: if you force upon me to endure Progressive leadership, because you refuse to vote against it...then "you're the murderer, not me.
What is the difference? It's inside your head.
And I reject the notion that voting against Liberal Progressivism is not the moral choice.
I believe that defeating Hillary next year to be a noble crusade, and if I end up jousting at windmills, at least I will have tried....
"I will not help you to pretend that I have a chance. I will not help you to preserve an appearance of righteousness where rights are not recognised. I will not help you to preserve an appearance of rationality by entering a debate in which a gun is the final argument. I will not help you to pretend that you are administering justice."
"But the law compels you to volunteer a defence!"
There was laughter at the back of the courtroom.
"That is the flaw in your theory, gentlemen," said Rearden gravely, "and I will not help you out of it. If you choose to deal with men by means of compulsion, do so. But you will discover that you need the voluntary co-operation of your victims, in many more ways than you can see at present. And your victims should discover that it is their own volition - which you cannot force - that makes you possible. I choose to be consistent and I will obey you in the manner you demand. Whatever you wish me to do, I will do it at the point of a gun. If you sentence me to jail, you will have to send armed men to carry me there - I will not volunteer to move. If you fine me, you will have to seize my property to collect the fine - I will not volunteer to pay it. If you believe that you have the right to force me - use your guns openly. I will not help you to disguise the nature of your action." Hank Rearden
I want to be able to look that person in the mirror in the eyes every morning and not be ashamed.
did I say YES!!!!!?
.
You keep looking for black and white, while the real world is an infinite shade of gray.
What if Scott Walker gets the nod?? Is he a progressive sellout, too??
Rocky, that is your error, and that is also my point. The real world is NOT an infinite shade of gray. Everything IS black and white. There is a right and there is a wrong. Half right is still half wrong..it's the wrong that poisons the whole well, even if it might be perceived as being diluted wrong. Wrong is still wrong, big or little. We are where we are today because of that very way of thinking. Oh we'll just compromise on this and that and before you know it we're sitting on the edge of a cliff asking "how'd we get here". Because we let the wrong IN. Every corrupt thing (schools, business, people) if you follow it all backward to where things started to go bad...it's when the compromising with the wrong crept into the equation. And once it's in...it grows and grows and grows... just like the government.
The other issue in WI is that we have a separately elected State Superintendent of Public Instruction, who has the direct control on these things. The Gov can only influence indirectly.
FACT: third party votes have no positive impact.
FACT: third party votes CAN have negative impact (e.g.: Ross Perot).
FACT: third party votes are a waste of time.
RP was certainly the best one for the job every time he ran.
It sounds like almost nobody likes insurance companies managing their care.
I often see the argument that a little poison is just as bad as a lot, it just takes longer to kill you. That's the wrong analogy. We have a system where the momentum is in one direction. That cannot be changed all at once (not even by stopping the engine of the world). In fact, the only outcome of such a drastic change would be tyranny - which I doubt that many of us here are looking to implement. To change the momentum is going to take small but persistent movements over a long time. I fear that anymore we don't have the time nor fortitude of national leadership to do what is necessary.
Still staying home?
Medical care service is the product being demanded, NOT insurance. Demand for insurance is by looters who think that with insurance the medical care service is free. TANSTAAFL. The solution is to return supply and demand to equilibrium using the natural pricing mechanism of the market. Insurance prevents that mechanism from operating. Both government supported insurance and private insurance has caused this imbalance.
After you voted for more of these socialist policies, do you recognize your own hypocrisy ?
If we had catastrophic insurance and folks paid for their routine care needs, things would be rational. The only thing worse will be gov't paid healthcare.
You read my mind...this was the norm while I was growing up.
I have always felt that the introduction of HMOs started the spiraling down. Suddenly there was no reason not to go to the doctor for a sniffle. The attitude became "why not see a doctor? I have unlimited visits, and I've already paid for it."
Yes! What's weird about the cases I've seen in the past four years is that they involved thousands of dollars.
At this appointment, someone at the clinic mentioned some other non-medical approach, and said "but that would cost over $100". It just blew my mind. Their typical customer has a hard time paying $100 for something health related but pays thousands of dollars without a second thought. It's a complete market failure.
It's not news to me, but it was weird to hear it stated so plainly. It almost seemed like a scripted commercial for how badly a centralized system allocates goods and services.
I personally always prefer PPOs, but that has become a rare option in my part of the country.
I agree with mostly every word of what you said: "We are deep into it."
You mentioned a market could resurface. There will always be a market. When you introduce a system, the poor will use it. People who can afford it will always buy and sell things in a market.
Yes! We move coins around on a table trying to arrange them so they're worth more, as if there's some trick that makes goods and services appear for free.
"After you voted for more of these socialist policies"
Someone else said something like that. I obviously never did. What's up with that?
Whatever new extremes of exec power, intrusiveness, and spending are now precedents for the next person, unless there's a backlash.
(Buzzer goes off)
'Oh...sorry, wrong answer!"
Remember Joe the Plumber? Obama made national news telling him that "when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody."
DING DING DING DING DING DING!
You are right. I should have said the "other one of the two establishment candidates". My sentence wrongly implied there was no libertarian candidate. I agree completely we need a libertarian, or at least someone promising to reduce the influence of the executive branch.
I categorically reject the thing you said about President Obama being the worst choice.
Why would anyone invest their time, and money?
I don't have a solution. It was just weird to get a little real-life window into a system strugling and failing to do the job of a market.
BTW, it would have been neat to hear the answer if you could have politely asked that customer the relationship between her finding a lower-cost provider and single-payer. You would think she might say, "well the market worked this one time."
Or is he so corny, that he might be part of an ethanol subsidy....
Leave him alone, guys!!!
What is this elsewhere of which you speak and why are you taking stuff there?
Anyone else tired of 'piling on'? I am.
CG believes its ok to take from one man to give to another if he approves of the reasons.Neither Ayn Rand, nor I, nor most of the people on this site,would ever sanction that evil.
I have no interest in Objectivism as it's fundamental premise is false and I have no reason to study something that is fundamentally wrong.
Please invite me to leave, also.
You seem to be setting out the dinner place cards....
Whenever I run across someone who rubs me the wrong way, I just avoid their posts.
Eventually they hang themselves.
But to answer your question, I don't define what is, or isn't, welcome here...see if someone else wants to tackle that.
Hint, hint.
We've never claimed to be anything else Robbie. You don't "need to be an Objectivist", but it is important to remember that Galt's Gulch Online is not a place that seeks to be everything to everyone.
Galt's Gulch Online is a place that seeks to be a refuge for those who appreciate, and look to further propagate, Ayn Rand's ideas. And, we understand that our guests are not all going to possess the same level of understanding of those ideas.
We're going to have guests who have just recently been introduced to Rand and seek further clarification, we're going to have guests who have a complete understanding and seek the like-minded, and we're going to have guests who have been misinformed, think Objectivism is something it isn't, and require an adjustment - like you.
We appreciate your presence because you challenge us. We engage with you because your opinions on Ayn Rand and Objectivism are based on common misconception and false assumption and we want you to understand what Ayn Rand actually said and what Objectivism actually is.
We like you because you're smart, sincere, vocal, and we see you as potentially a great ally.
But, Galt's Gulch Online is not a place for anyone to proselytize their ideas. It's a place for us to proselytize ours.
And you... are our target. ;)
There are so many levels to answer it on.
- I imagine some people here have traits of characters in Fountainhead or AS, people who refuse to be denied making stuff happen, and people not making stuff happen b/c it's their life and they don't have to.
- I have a strong fantasy of people forming a Gulch, going off to live deliberately and be left alone. It would be kind of like how the US was formed, based partly on ideas that were mostly a philosophical fantasy, but they became real and became the model of gov't around the world. I imagine Gulches forming an leading a post-state world based on ideas that seem impossible now.
- The website is a nice place to take break and talk about something unrelated to work.
- Every once in a while I see some new idea to think about.
That's a topic worthy of its thread or section of the website. My reason is I think he will put forward policies consisent with what I think is right better than the other choice.
Perhaps the dirty reason is a little urban/rural narrative works for politicians, they use it, and it sort-of works on me. One side says something that sounds good to urban people and bizarre to rural people. The other side does the opposite. Sometimes they're reall issues, but whatever they are, the urban/rural nonsense allows the duopoly to avoid talking about reducing the intrusivenss and cost of gov't.
The only real difference is around the edges on where they want to spend non-entitlement monies.
It seems like you're just saying rude things. It wasn't a question, rather just a weird brief window I got into a system trying to do what a market should do.
I've know about the problem for 10 years, but I rarely come into contact with it. I know some of the causes. I don't have a remedy.
I guess my remedy is not entering managed care insurance contracts and slowly build wealth to self-insure against all perils.
I wish the people here would quit voting him down...I like seeing his comments, and I wouldn't blame him for leaving!
I lost mine, and I can't figure who is mad about what...or if they actually agree, but don't realize it.
This could go into extra innings....
I've never claimed to be an O, and by stating my position, more often than not I merely get shouted down by those who are "strict" and cannot live-and-let-live with someone with whom they probably agree 95% with, certainly on morality and ethics. But they insist that their basis is the only "rational" starting point.
There's a big difference between rational and reasoned debate and mud-slinging. For example, I was recently called a Nazi. I don't think that anything that I've ever posted on this site would garner such a description.
I've said my piece. You know where I stand.
Why would it be a huge argument? "I'm not going. these birthday parties are becoming ridiculous, it's way too expensive and I need some time to myself because I'm a human being and sometimes humans need time alone." Kids NEED to know and appreciate that fact. A loving relationship recognizes that too. Respect. Sometimes..what you want IS what you need. (In the grand scheme of things, we all need some solitude.)