Trade organizations are typically non-profits. In that respect, the NFL is similar to a chamber of commerce or industry-specific trade organization, it's just much better known.

Themselves

You don't say.

My only point regarding my organizations non profit status was that they are required to provide a percentage of indigent care.

Michael was asking who paid for the cost of treatment for non insured individuals. Another factor of the ACA is that the Federal government are now looking more closely at hospitals and health care facilities who claim to provide indigent care in exchange for the tax exempt non profit status.

Of course some are wolves in sheeps clothing.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/17/us...pagewanted=all

Not exactly news however. I am sure this has come up many times.

It is certainly a very odd way of going about things. One can only assume deliberately.

That was the same with "Medicare Advantage". When Medicare Reform was passed, there was no oversight or regulations so any insurance company could offer "Medicare Advantage" plans with reduced benefits (in the fine print) to Medicare recipients and collect a 14% subsidy above the 100% it cost the government through traditional Medicare and when people got sick and found out they really weren't covered for certain procedures, they returned to Traditional Medicare during the next open enrollment period leaving the government paying for sick people and the insurance companies paying for healthy people. ACA banned all plans that were less than 4* and reduced the subsidies and the good plans are thriving.

I think I'll finish up all my work this week and then spend a few days getting answers to buy a policy.

To be honest a lot of the politics which have come up in the thread I have mixed feelings about- I don't think people should be having the many unproven shoulder and knee surgeries which have become for-profit routine, and I do think many of the aches and pains of aging are just part of life. That said if I get so ill I drop down in the street the law says I have to be taken to an emergency room and looked after, possibly generating a massive bill I may never pay.

I was well-off when I came to the US, and I have no debt and live frugally now I'm not. It's only been the healthcare that's been a problem for me, not just financing it but it's so complicated, and almost farcical, all these separate bills for one facility, and nonsensical charges.

I don't agree with the criteria every policy must offer either, maternity care for example- what percentage of the population needs that? It doesn't seem very democratic.

Oh and re Medicare, I was visiting friends a week ago, they are trying to organize that and running into the same red tape- can't use the doctors/facilities they are used to, can't work out the exact charges etc. They were as frustrated as I am.

It's a poor analogy as the article I linked to notes. The NFL doesn't represent the "industry" of American Football as a whole, but the interests of a small group of team owners that are effectively a cartel. Their designation, like a lot of things in this country, is a result of lobbying $$$.

I agree. But let's not focus on maternity cover, which isn't actually all that expensive.

Let's stop offering cover for cancer. THAT'S expensive. And about the same proportion of the population needs it as needs maternity coverage.

It's only democratic after all.

Because to produce insurance policies tailored to your specific requirements would be to add costs.
Insurance works best the bigger the pool is.

That could describe many of these organizations. Homeowners Associations, neighborhood business associations and the like have non-profit status even though they represent limited memberships.

Pregnancy is a choice. Cancer is not.

If you are not going to cover anything that's a "choice", where would you stop? Certainly no STD would be covered. Nor would most medical care that is the result of accidents that are caused by the individual in question. Broken leg whilst playing soccer? Your choice to play soccer...

Hard to describe those organizations as effective cartels.

Even with heavy smokers?