Quote:
Originally Posted by Larryjk
fabsroman, What concerns me is people that will feel they are getting free health insurance (health care) andd will start going to the doctor for every sniffle, when they didn't go to the doctor for anything before. It will bankrupt the system. I have health insurance because I felt it was necessary for my family, more necessary than a few 6 packs a week. It was not easy to make the payments at times, but I did it because it was necessary. I felt like I never used part of what I paid for. But then my wife had a heart attack and triple bypass surgery with complications. I would have been bankrupt without the coverage I had. Many people say I was really lucky. I say "No", I was prepared.
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Larry,
I completely agree with you. We have pretty good health insurance, auto insurance, life insurance, malpractice insurance, short term disability, long term disability, etc. with pretty high limits. Obviously, we hope we never, ever, need to use any of them. If that is the case, yeah, it will feel like we paid all that money for nothing. However, it is exactly what it is. It is insurance to protect you should something catastrophic happen. We self insure for the small stuff. For instance, we don't have collision on the cars since the blue book on them is something around $3,000 or less. That saves us $450 a year in premiums and we are pretty good drivers. Likewise, we went with a HSA this year wherein we have to pay for the first $5,000 out of pocket, pre-tax, for health care. However, we save almost that much in premiums each year versus the premiums for the Cadillac plan.
I hear you regarding the "free" aspect of the health insurance issue and there is an easy way around that. I think every plan should have a co-pay that goes with it. Let's say $50. That will prevent a lot of people from just going to the doctor for every single sniffle. However, it will allow them to go to the doctor when they have something serious. It will allow them to get treatment for something serious before it becomes really serious and they have to be admitted to the ER and it costs us taxpayers a lot more because we have to foot the bill anyway.
I agree with the federal government giving health insurance credits to those below a certain income level, but I don't know if I would make that threshold 4 times the poverty level and put it at $88,000. Then again, it will be a sliding scale so those families making $80,000 will not get that much of a credit. I think the credit should be based upon allowing a family that is in the poverty level of $22,000 to purchase a level of health insruance that is neither a POS nor a Cadillac plan. Something that will cover serious illness but require a somewhat significant co-pay for doctors visits in the first place for the common cold, a cut, etc.
When I was sick last year, it was hard to understand how my health insurance company had the leverage to have bloodwork bills cut by 75%. Essentially, on $5,000 of blood work that was billed, all of $1,200 was paid. However, the poor guy without insurance would have been paying the entire $5,000. I'm pretty sure the same thing was done with the health care providers. That part really sucks. Why would health care providers be willing to accept 25% from a health insurance company but demand 100% from a person without health insurance? That just doesn't seem right either.