Health insurance Hell!!!!!!!!!!!!

What has happened with health insurance lately? Why is there such huge jumps in our premiums while there is a very noticable cut in offered and covered services? Insurance companies blame the greedy trial lawyers. Lawyers blame the bumbling doctors. Doctors blame everyone else. The truth seems pretty evident at least to me. They are all to blame.
Let's look at Doctors first. Now for the most part they are a competent lot, but as with every profession there are a few bad apples in the barrel. The problem here is these quacks don't get their license pulled until they have screwed up repeatedly, harming their patients and costing the insurance companies millions of dollars in pay outs. I really do not think the solution is to limit awards in these cases. The solution should be to yank the license and quickly. Don't let these goofballs go on harming their patients until finally the local medical board decides that it is finally time to take action. 1 or 2 mistakes is ok after all everyone is human but come on some of these guys have screwed up 5 or more times and are still practicing. Kind of scary if you ask me.
Next let's take these greedy lawyers. Now before I get bombarded with tons of hate mail from all the nice lawyers let me remind you that in every profession there are a few bad apples. Not all lawyers are bad, let me say that again NOT ALL LAWYERS ARE BAD!!!!!!! There are some however who will take any case regardless of whether it has any merit and the Doctors will likely settle because the cost of settling is small compared to defending it in court. I say let's run all the cases before a State review board to see if they have any merit. Those that do let them proceed. For those looking to get rich quick from the Doctors, lets make it hurt them a little. Force them to pay a fine and make them have to apologize publicly to the Doctors whose reputation they have tried to destroy.

Lastly let's set our sights on the insurance companies. Oh boy now here is a great example of GREED!!!!!!!! These companies declare millions upon millions of dollars in profit each year, they bestow huge, multimillion dollar bonuses upon their executives and then turn around and say " we have to raise the premiums or else we will go broke." I figure any insurance company that makes more than let's say 40 million in profit should not be able to raise premiums at all. For those under the 40 million cap they can raise rates but only at the same rate as inflation. So no more huge 20% or better rate increases.

One more rant here on Drug companies. I realize it does take money to research new drugs, but if it costs roughly 40% less in Canada then here in the U.S. something is truly wrong. Why should we subsidize the rest of the world? These are the exact same drugs from the same manufacturers but they can be sold for less in another country than what they get here. Maybe it is time to amputate the politicians from the deep pockets of the industry. Or better yet kick the politicians off their cushy, tax payer sponsored, health program and force them to pay what everyone else is. That would probably get it fixed in no time flat.
Then again maybe I have been smoking something besides my Marlboros or maybe the pollution has finally seeped deep into my brain and is affecting my thinking. I don't know. All I know is it sure ishell with health insurance.

Locked Post

Advanced Search

Watch this post

Do not email me updates for this post Email me updates for this post

Successfully updated karma reason!

KarmaGirl

Join Date 03/2001

+118

There is health care reform starting to happen. But, as everything, don't expect it to happen overnight.

The first thing that has seen the light of day is the small business help. This forces insurance companies to charge the small businesses within the same scale as large businesses. Small businesses used to have to pay a premium because they had a small account, which is really a bunch of crap when you think about it.

People have to become more proactive about their health, and we need to have a better reasonability test on what people can sue over. Even if the patient doesn't win, it still costs money. As is, insurance companies are just paying people off because it is cheaper and easier than going to court. That is a huge reason why insurance costs so much for the doctor. An average doctor pays $65,000 a year in malpractice insurance (just malpractice, not other liability). That is 1,000 patients at $65 each just to pay for it. So, they raise rates and pass the cost on to the insurance companies which in turn have to raise rates (I think you see where that is going). But, if people would quit suing for things such as "too much scarring" than that wouldn't be as much of an issue.

The other forgotten issue with the sue-happy country that we are, is that doctors run more tests than they really need to. Since every doctor is always evaluating if they will get into legal trouble, they run all sorts of tests so that they can prove in court that they acted with the best knowledge possible. (Doctors have lost cases because they didn't perform every test possible). So, people endure more tests than they need to, and insurance has to pay for them. This also raises the cost of insurance.

With Canadian drugs, that becomes sticky. If we say that it is OK to buy from Canada, why shouldn't the drug companies send their jobs over there? Sometimes the "cheapest" isn't always the best for the general good of the country. Losing jobs just creates a new set of issues.

Successfully updated karma reason!

I do agree that a portion of the blame is suit happy idiots who want to just get rich quick of the money from the insurance companies. That is why I suggest creating a board to evaluate suits before they can proceed and fining the idiots if the case is without merit.

As for Canadian drugs..... Why can the company afford to sell a drug in Canada for $40.00 but will charge $120.00 for the exact same drug here in the states. Sure the Canadian government does set price regulations on drugs. But we Americans subsidize that price regulation. Why should my hard earned money go to help pay for Canadian subsidies? If the price is $40.00 in Canada it should be $40.00 here also.

Successfully updated karma reason!

KarmaGirl

Join Date 03/2001

+118

Because the Canadian government is using its tax dollars to lower the cost of the drug. It starts out the same, just the drug companies get Canadian tax dollars and are forced to pass the savings on in the form of capped prices.

You know what else gets a lot of Canadian tax dollars for finance? Video Game companies. The Canadian government uses tax resources as some sort of venture capitol fund.

You have to look at the whole picture when comparing prices in different countries.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Welcome Guest! Please take the time to register with us.

There are many great features available to you once you register, including:

Richer content, access to many features that are disabled for guests like commenting and posting on the forums.
Access to a great community, with a massive database of many, many areas of interest.
Access to contests & subscription offers like exclusive emails.
It's simple, and FREE!

View all recent posts

Mark all posts as read Delete cookies created by the forum Return to Top

Stardock Forums v Server Load Time: Page Render Time: