Health Insurance 44

[tbonebanjo]

I was just wondering how many companies still have good insurance and how many have gone the way of Obamacare. I am in a small MEP firm in Maryland. Our health insurance just changed, our premiums went up and our coverage went way down. I have maximum out of pocket expenses of $12,500 per year, $4000 deductable per person, tnen start the copay schedules. Should I start looking for other employment or are all companies being affected this way?

 

[IRstuff]

That's very similar to the pricing on airplanes.

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[glass99]

One upside to the gross overpayment we all make to our healthcare system is that its a stable core of the economy. Unlike we in the real estate business who are either in a frenzy of activity in the boom or crawled into a cave like a hermit in a bust, health care just marches on. I have never heard of a laid off doctor.

If you think of it as a form of stimulus, and you compare it with say bailing out wall st, GM or quantitative easing, its actually quite a bit bigger and probably preferable.

 

[JohnRBaker]

Along those lines, there are some in the world of politics who have already commented on the fact that America can't really afford to have a more cost effective health care system for those very reasons. If the preventative care provisions actually reduces the long term cost of health care, as was argued when they were scoring the economic impact of the AKA over the next 10 years, some think that this could lead to significant layoffs and the closing of many hospitals and longterm treatment facilities.

As someone once told me years ago, as long as it continues to COST hundreds of thousands of dollars to DIE from cancer, there will be little or no economic motivation to CURE it for less.

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[swall]

Tunalover--could you elaborate on your comment about COBRA recipients only paying the cost of the plan? My understanding of COBRA, is that you are basically picking up the tab (plus a slight fee) of your employer's plan. BTW, I'm COBRA right now (voluntarily quite my employer to retire early).

 

[geesamand]

For the OP, who seems to have been completely neglected in this discussion:
"I was just wondering how many companies still have good insurance and how many have gone the way of Obamacare. I am in a small MEP firm in Maryland. Our health insurance just changed, our premiums went up and our coverage went way down. I have maximum out of pocket expenses of $12,500 per year, $4000 deductable per person, tnen start the copay schedules. Should I start looking for other employment or are all companies being affected this way? "

My company is offering a private, high-deductible plan with $3000 deductible for a family (I think $1500 for an individual), after which you pay only copays. The company starts off our HSA each year with a $1250 contribution. I don't recall what my out-of-pocket maximum is, but each year I end up spending the deductible and not a whole lot more.

David

 

[cranky108]

John, I do think you might be on to something. And that would explain why the goverment wants to entrench as much of the current systems as possible.

I'm not so sure it that preventive care is what may be driving this, but if so many old people can't afford health care, and the goverment which has inserted itself can't afford, then we may have a large number of old people dieing in the streets, which would put the goverment in a very bad position. Tends to make voters change how they vote.

The healthy eating thing may also be in trouble because of the water issues in CA, which is where most of the fruits and nuts in this country come from. So we will be seeing more imported fruits and nuts soon.

The problem appears to be that socialists want to be the 'be all and end all' for everything, but they can't seem to fund it all.

 

[SomptingGuy]

I always read these discussions knowing that "Americans think death is optional."

- Steve

 

[glass99]

If everyone had a large deductible, people would shop for care so the system would be more efficient. Of course, it would be nice if your salary went up a bit if someone changed the game in this way.

But maybe inefficiency is the answer. Aside from the millions of middle class jobs, all those high priced hip implants even create some engineering jobs! Doctors do have a bit of engineering fetish, and its possible that health care could be the new defense industry in respect to big stable R+D budgets. Like defense, we waste trillions of dollars on stationing troops in Berlin for decades, but the upshot was we got microprocessors. Massive efficiency followed in the form of the internet, so it was worth it. Would this have occurred if the DARPA folk were a bit more efficiency minded? Who knows what we boffins will come up with!

 

[cranky108]

The truth is, many jobs depend on people over paying for things they may not need. So the size of our economy, and tax revinues, depends on jobs to produce things we don't need.
Now that we have shiped the production of those things we don't need to China, we now need to invent jobs for services we may not need.

 

[glass99]

cranky: yes, for quite a long time now "need" has been a small part why people buy things. You don't need a 3000sft house any more than you need a meal at the local restaurant. Perhaps more interesting is the idea that some portion of health care is want and not a need. I am not talking about the obvious cosmetic surgery and hypochondria, but folks with serious ailments in extreme old age who are making their insurance companies pay huge amounts to extend their life by a few months. If you are 90 years old with overlapping dementia, heart disease, cancer, and kidney failure with only 3 months to live, do you really need a crack team of the best 10 doctors in the city at your bed side 24/7? Its tough to see the bigger picture if its you or someone you love, but it really is pretty ego-centric luxury to suck up resources in this way. Maybe I will think differently when I am old...

 

[IRstuff]

Yeah, let's bring in those death panels! ;-)

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[hokie66]

cranky,
I don't think you need to import any more fruits and nuts. CA has plenty of those, water or not.

 

[glass99]

The "death panel" issue exists whether you are conservative or liberal - I don't want some MBA w*nker at Aetna deciding when to pull the plug on Grandpa! I don't want some DC bureaucrat making the call either.

 

[cranky108]

The other side is that the poor don't need death panels, they can't afford the cost, and they die. The rich also don't need death panels, they will pay, and go where ever they need to for the care they want. Death panels are for the reduction of goverment insurance costs for the rest of us.

The term 'life begains at 40' is sort of a joke when viewed from the point that life at one time was only about 40 years.

The presumption the lifes will be longer in the future, assumes that we will be productive longer. And the issue resting that is that natural selection only eleminates desease, etc. that cut life shorter than reproduction. Man must step up to extend life beyond that. However if life does become longer, and the death panel charts don't follow that, then we will be truly wasting human experence for little political gain.

 

[glass99]

cranky: yes, it is true that it is the folks in the middle that are most affected by the death panels.

 

[IRstuff]

"The "death panel" issue exists whether you are conservative or liberal"

Yeah, that was supposed to be ironic...

Up until recently, care was was rationed, so it's not necessarily about affordability, but also about profit. There are stories galore about insurance companies that play the "coverage denied" game until patients give up, die, or sue, just to make an extra buck. Interestingly, people die on organ transplant lists because of the shortage of viable organs, but it's illegal to sell organs. Seems to me that this would be a perfect solution for redistribution of wealth in a truly equitable fashion. There are lots of poor, with lots of organs, and there are the rich, in need of organs..... Aside from the nagging ethical issues...

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[glass99]

IRStuff: ok, irony is good. You are right though, insurance companies are not to be trusted. They are not capitalists like we folk who make innovative widgets, they are sleazy brokers who ration access without adding value. What % of GDP goes to insurance company OH&P?

 

[beej67]

The "death panel" issue exists whether you are conservative or liberal - I don't want some MBA w*nker at Aetna deciding when to pull the plug on Grandpa! I don't want some DC bureaucrat making the call either.

Tough luck there, glass, they already do that, and already did so well before Obamacare. It's called a "QALY Calculation," and insurance companies have been doing it for my entire lifetime.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality-adjusted_life_year

Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East -

http://www.campbellcivil.com

 

[glass99]

beej: Nice formula! I hope they don't type the wrong number in their calculator before they pull the plug on Gramps.

 

[JohnRBaker]

As for the various comments about what sorts of things are keeping the cost of healthcare up, here's another case in point:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/30/doctors-big-pharma_n_5908350.html

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.