claimsboys

"Wot" speaking of correct spellings?

scot47

He doesn't get anything else right. Why should he be able to spell ?

claimsboys

Desert Dubliner

A discussion where you are clueless on the subject and I am posting links for you to 'discredit' by posting other links ain't gonna happen. I like saucy debates with informed people, but for link-warriors I have nothing but disdain.

Therefore, if you are looking for a reference - for you I am the reference as I obviously know much more than you on this particular topic. And as a reference, I would appreciate if you would at least use the information I provide correctly. You seem to have googled McCarran-Ferguson Act, which is nice, but unfortunately you processed the information in a logically erroneous fashion. The point for which this Act was introduced is spurious - what matters is that the Act subjected health insurance companies to state regulation and this resulted in a vast diversity of state regulatory requirements pushing the administration and compliance costs up. It logically follows that the year of introduction of the Act is irrelevant in the context of insurance costs, the actions of the state regulators are. Sorry to have to explain this to you on the upper-primary school level but this seems to be the level where your logical thinking is at the moment.

Furthermore, I could post the Forbes link but since you have already dismissed Forbes (again erroneously - Forbes has become liberal rag-tag comic-book financial magazine, if you followed it you'd have known) there is obviously no point. As I said my-link-is-better-than-yours kind of discussion ain't gonna happen in the sand pit of BE forum. I honestly could not care less whether you believe me or not and whether I convince you or not. Your opinion on this matter is highly irrelevant for me because it is obviously based on incomplete facts and false logic, influenced by your ideological preferences.

Similarly, your conclusion on the fault of the various Republican presidents and state administrations for the rising costs of insurance is based on fallacious logic. Your reasoning goes like this: the rooster crowed and the sun came up therefore rooster crowing makes sun to come up. Utter nonsense.

Go study and come back with meaningful questions rather than 'give me a link which says what you say'.

Nonsense.

Desert Dubliner

This is in 1984 doublespeak.

Bob

You're living in a land of theory.

Sure if you're covered by pre-existing you can get it covered in a new policy, if you move to a job that offers it. Thing is, plenty of companies get around that by not offering benefits for the first 90 days of hire, meaning you get a 62 day break in creditable coverage, so the new policy can block pre-existing. You also get issues with kids ageing out of parental cover and not being able to get covered.

Private insurance is worthless, can pay sky the limits for a policy to cover whatever might be your problem, but the cover can be voided as soon as you actually end up needing it.

Admin and advertising does not double the cost of healthcare in the USA.

There is also a reason the US is one of the least socially mobile countries around, and lack of holiday allowance on a new job is only part of that.

It's cracking stuff for folks who might be diabetic or asthmatic and be uninsurable and have a couple hundred a month in prescription charges.

Yup, great system.

Got nothing to do with the fact that it's a profit driven industry, who spends more money on lobbying politicians to keep the status quo than some countries actually spend on healthcare for all their citizens/residences.

Bob

That's the first thing you've said on the subject I can agree about.

Desert Dubliner

This is simple to solve, the government should give same tax-deductions to individuals as they do to companies so employees can buy their own policies.


This is nonsense. You have a contract, you get what's in the contract. You're not dealing with Mao Tse-Tong here so that the outcome depends on how the beloved leader feels today.


They don't double but they are a significant contributor.


Mobile phone industry is also profit driven and so is every other industry, the problem is not in the profits, the problem is in politicians.

Eeyore

I have never heard of anyone in the UK or Ireland having to declare personal bankruptcy due to medical bills, while this is a common occurrence in the USA, where it's the cause of over 50% of personal bankruptcies.

Equally, I have never heard of anyone in the UK or Ireland - or any country with some form of universal healthcare (which is most developed countries in the world, the USA being the most glaring exception) - who couldn't afford to change jobs because they would lose their cover for their pre-existing conditions.

If the enormous cost of healthcare in the USA was matched by the quality of the service and a concomitant increase in positive outcomes over other countries, the American system might have something to commend it. But while the USA ranks among the bottom quartile of population health indicators such as life expectancy and infant mortality, the evidence seems to be that the vastly inflated cost of healthcare in the States isn't buying an overall superior experience, it's mainly buying shorter waiting times for non-urgent treatment.

Desert Dubliner

Luckily bankruptcy is a reasonably simple process in the US. Don't know about UK but in Ireland the bankruptcy legislation is obsolete and cumbersome, people's incomes are burdened for 12 years after the bankruptcy etc. In the US the bankruptcy does not carry the same stigma and in any case failure to make adequate provisions like health care will result in a severe financial stress. Housing, health and education should be the top priority but some prefer electronics and other trivia and expect that someone else should pick up the tab for healthcare.

I already explained on this thread that there are differences as to how some factors like infant mortality are measured. In the US they attempt to save babies after 16-20 weeks gestation unlike in most other places in the world. Such babies die in vast majority of cases and in the US these become infant mortality cases while elsewhere these babies go into the bin. Same is with life expectancy which is influenced by lifestyle choice. You will find that healthcare statistics (treating diagnosed illnesses) are much better in the US than those general categories. Number of CTs or MRI units per '000000 of population is the highest in the US. The chances of surviving a diagnosed cancer is among highest. Unlike most other developed countries the US has the largest and the most diverse population. You can hardly compare US with say Sweden or Japan in that respect.

Ultimately, I don't get what your point is. Are you saying medicine should be socialised for best outcome? Ask yourself - what are the most heaviest regulated industries? It is banking, legal and health and all three are expensive, broke and screwed up. So the answer is more government and regulation? No logic in that whatsoever.

Bob

You've just shown you live in fantasy land.

Until the Obama thing kicks in, private polices are worthless.

Yes, insurance companies do cancel your policy as soon as you end up being sick enough to require expensive treatment, depending on the state that may be the end of it, in others they refund the annual premiums.

The US isn't a special little snow flake. Profits are a big thing about why it costs the country double what many other countries spend on healthcare, but leaves the country with 60M without coverage and as many with inadequate coverage.

The problem is, insurance companies and healthcare business doesn't want to change, they make to much money so they spend as much on healthcare to lobby politicians to prevent change and they're still quids in.

This is a subject that comes up almost weekly in the US forums, along with gun control, shite holiday allowance and dodgy bacon. You're the first person to say it is down to having 50 states having different laws.

There are people on this forum who work for these insurance companies, people who work in the medical field, people with private/small business/large business polices and yet you're the first. Very impressive.

Another thing, car insurance, or any other insurance is also based on each separate state and again while being more expensive than other countries, this is mainly down to liability and medical cost reasons, but people don't get denied cover or get retroactively dumped when they crash a car.

Desert Dubliner

Bob, I am sorry but you are as clueless as Ms Thorpe and so are the forum members of the forums you seem to frequent.

Firstly, in relation to car insurance the states don't mandate that your car insurance should cover pimp-my-ride or drug-driving-counselling treatments and other unnecessary stuff so no comparison there. Secondly, you quote widely misunderstood figure of uninsured it's not 60 million it is 48 million and - 12 million of those are eligible for government programmes but never bother enrolling. In ERs of hospitals you will find hospital staff trying to enroll people (so hospital can get paid for services they otherwise provide for free to 'uninsured' - annual spend in the US on unpaid services is $40b). Another 10 million make between $50k and $75k per year, another 8 million are not US citizens, good part are in between policies. But this is just another example how figures are misused in an ideologically charged debate. Thirdly, there is no way an insurance company can cancel your policy unless a) you lied on the application or b) you failed to stick to your part of the contract. You are misrepresenting the reality.

I may be the first person to mention the problem of lack of interstate competition but only among the unintiated. Check the Republican counter proposal and you will find cross-state competition being one of top 4 measures. People don't read stuff but they know it all, because 'others don't talk about it'. Amazing.

Desert Dubliner

Here's the summary of Romney's plan:

Really obscure stuff, isn't it??!

Bob

You've basically just shown you don't have a clue.

HarryTheSpider

Well - I don't know which USA I am living in, but it doesn't look much like yours. How do I get to yours, and I wonder now if I can move my Green Card application over to your USA?

I should add that obviously ONLY having 48 million without health insurance makes all the difference, and clearly negates Bob's argument utterly (Bob: you should know better ). And whilst 12 million might be eligible for government programmes but haven't enrolled, it doesn't mean they couldn't be bothered. It MIGHT mean they're not able to or don't know about it or can't know about it. You only have to see the way voter ID/fraud has been tackled in some states, and access to abortion in other states to see how easy it is to disenfranchise swathes of people. Blow me if your logic isn't sounding suspiciously like it's built out of all the cr@p Aristotle cautioned us against in this regard. With regards to insurance being cancelled - happens all the time, because the insurance company knows you probably can't sue them in the courts to start with, and if you fight your corner they'll point to some admin cock-up, small print etc and split the difference...