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Originally Posted by AmeliaG
If you are a cash patient, most doctors will give you a cash price which is lower than insurance.
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Most do, but not all and that's if the person can afford it at all.
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Originally Posted by AmeliaG
If you need a $40k operation, you can go to Thailand and have it done for $8k, while staying in the equivalent of a four star hotel room your loved ones are welcome in, with a personal 24/7 nurse.
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That's if you can get to Thailand.
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Originally Posted by AmeliaG
Let me give you a more personal example. Someone close to me has cancer. She has had multiple bouts with it. For most of her adult life, she has had the fabulous government option insurance everyone talks about being so great. So, for decades, the government has paid thousands of dollars a year and she has paid thousands of dollars a year to insure her and her family. She tells me that she appreciated the peace of mind, but, looking at the total math, the insurance companies still came out ahead.
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It costs $5-$8k per chemo treatment alone and an upwards of $100k just for treatments. Before pills, hospital stay, therapy, etc. Cancer costs average $150k-$1m+. Just at 100k, that's 33 years of insurance payments just for chemo. This is all paying for it yourself, cash.
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Originally Posted by AmeliaG
The insurance company is the house and the house always wins. Insurance is a for-profit business. They want to take in more premiums than they pay out in claims. They want to gamble with your premiums in the market. And they want a government bailout, because you can't have insurance companies fail, if they lose your premium money in poor gambles.
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Yes they are a for-profit business... which is why we should be pushing for regulation. AIG got a bailout, the rest don't own banks thus got nothing.
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Originally Posted by AmeliaG
Look at your own math. If having a baby with insurance supported inflated prices is equal to about 2.2 years of paying premiums, how many babies would you have to have before your premiums far exceeded the cost of having the child? I think the security issue becomes more important with children involved, but, with all the insurance companies dropping coverage for children, in the wake of this awful piece of legislation, I surely don't think that end of the population is being helped.
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When they have the addition of a new child on the policy? Unless something is wrong afterward, they make out great. That's also why having lots of people on insurance helps. People like me who haven't used it still pay in while others in my family have to get surgery done every few years to replace devices in the body. The more people we add in, the more prices can drop.
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Originally Posted by AmeliaG
I've said it before and I'll say it again: Those medical costs are inflated by the existence of the insurance industry. Take out the middleman scaring you with his protection racket premium pricing and medical services will charge what people can afford. It is basic business that the market would have to right-price, if it were not so heavily assisted. Why do you think healthcare in America costs so much more than elsewhere?
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And we'll still be left with millions that can't pay for the flu shot let alone afford services to a point of getting check ups to stop problems before they happen, which is what really adds to the cost.
It also costs more because we do the most research and dev, which isn't cheap. Sad thing is other countries force the costs and ours don't. Ie: we need more regulation, not remove what was created or what's already going - correct it!
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Originally Posted by AmeliaG
You don't seriously think there is a for-profit insurance plan out there where I could pay $25 a year, just in case I have a baby who needs to be on a ventilator at $1,800 a pop for every 15 minutes?
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You couldn't have a baby with it or pay for medical services with it... it's not for that. It's for discounts, cheaper co-pays, cross service discounts, pill discounts, help pay for products. These aren't really anything new and a wide range of optoins exist. Anything major like that comes in, they just tell you go to the ER.
This is the free market at work, big business offers it one way, small business another and lots of people playing in the middle. If you want to take out insurance companies, you're screwing with the free markets. I'm fine with regulation, I'm not fine with killing an entire Industry.