Whoa.

Whoa indeed. It's been a long time since I saw a tongue that firmly implanted in a cheek.

The cost of French health care, which for decades has been in a deficit, if roughly 10% of France's Gross National Income.

It should be illegal for an insurance company to be publicly traded. Period.

Curt

DCT. I'm just that impressed with the execution.

DCT =? Dream Come True?

Awe shucks.

G

I wasn't sure whether to believe it or not, because there are some posters here that would post that in all seriousness. I had to rack my brain on whether or not I thought you were an asshole. I guess it came down on the not side

What's more important than avoiding extinction?" Well, if your options are make a profit unethically, or go extinct while staying ethical, that's a hell of a case for letting an organisation that doesn't need to turn a profit take over. That was my point.

I'd rather an organisation that we can tune-up to effectiveness, rather than waiting for a conscience to grow in a board room (especially given that such a thing varies between counter-productive and illegal, depending on how vocal the shareholders are).

I haven't seen anything in here that shows it's more practical to potentially lose billions or trillions over time by not testing on a smaller scale.

A larger test, assuming it works, may create better results, if it fails, it creates a monster. If a smaller test creates definitive results, even if they are small savings, would create a totally different foundation for debate. If this approach was used and it was created with the intention of being a state run program if it works, I am for it.

Some folks would move to that state, however, in a short term test, a few years, it would be minimal and likely could be controlled for. It wouldn't be difficult to track who moved into a particular state and had pre existing conditions compared to the number or % of people who moved there previously, controlling for normal population increses/decreases in the area.

We can't afford to make potentially giant financial mistakes in this country right now. Hope, isn't a good gameplan. If you build it, they will not come, unless you are lucky or in a hollywood film.

There are great big tests all over the planet and right here in the US. MA clearly hasn't collapsed into soviet-style totalitarianism, so most of the worst predictions of the anti-health care bill crowd are clearly false.

There are great big tests all over the planet and right here in the US. MA clearly hasn't collapsed into soviet-style totalitarianism, so most of the worst predictions of the anti-health care bill crowd are clearly false.

What bothers me about our current economy is the consistent insistence that a business must grow faster than inflation or else its not successful.

Again, my criticism is specifically of the health insurance industry, who are victims of the "if your growth rate is nearly identical to the inflation rate, your business is unsuccessful" fallacy. Absolutely, if your growth rate is not at least the same as the inflation rate, you're losing money. I just don't see why a company has to grow that much above the inflation rate just to be successful.

And everybody agrees that the business decisions to prevent being bought out (or allow that business to buy somebody else out) takes precedent over providing the service customers have paid them to provide?

my criticism is specifically of the health insurance industry, who are victims of the "if your growth rate is nearly identical to the inflation rate, your business is unsuccessful" fallacy.

True enough. Still, what sorts of innovations can we expect from the health insurance industry when they grow faster than their market? Should we not expect lower prices, and better coverage, when they grow at a pace similar to the growth of the market? Why do we instead see moves to limit the amount of coverage, to get rid of expensive customers? Surely, with millions of customers not using their coverage, the folks who develop cancer should be well covered, right? Doubly so since there will be more customers next year, each one dumping thousands of dollars into the coffers of the insurance companies.

Instead, they're acting like turning a massive profit is the only way they're keeping their heads above water. Frankly, if I have $1000 left over at the end of the month, after all of my expenses double, I'd say I don't need to cut my expenditures just to say afloat.

But maybe that's just me.

Sorry. I'm in the middle of a big project and don't have much time.

Let's put this "massive profit" in the health insurance industry thing to rest.

From Forbes Most profitable industries ranking, 2008:
http://money.cnn.com/.../industries/profits/

1. Network and other Communications Equipment: 28.8% net margin

3. Pharmaceuticals - 28.8% net margin
4. Medical Products & Equipment: 15.8% net margin
...
9. Insurance Life, Health (stock): 10.2% net margin
......
28. Health Care: Insurance and Managed Care: 6.2% net margin
....
43. Health Care: Pharmacy and Other Services. 2.6% net margin.

Doesn't look to me like insurance companies are making "massive profits".

What's microsoft's net margin? 32.57%. Halliburton? 12.1%. How about Aetna? 5.88%, Cisco Systems? 15.61%. Cigna? 6.02%. Xcel Energy (a regulated industry)? 7.87% You can verify these numbers with a couple of minutes on smartmoney, schwab or any of the brokerage websites. It's all publicly available.

So where did this "massive profit" thing come from? Is it a false meme that's been repeated till it's believed? At single digit margins, you have to run just to stay in place. The industry doesn't look like it's all that profitable. From the numbers above, if anybody's making out in medical care, it's pharmaceuticals.

If we get everyone into the insurance pool, paying actuarially sound rates, we may get lower prices and better coverage. I can't say. Good growth affects revenue but doesn't have an automatic effect on margins, good or bad. It's easy to come up with either scenario for margins.

We're into an incredible mess now for a lot of reasons that I find too complex to sort out right now. Oh..... I personally got cancer and was well covered by my insurance company. Anybody who had a policy like mine, bought on the individual market, was covered the same way.

Where does all the emotion about insurance companies come from? Is it rational?

Where does all the emotion about insurance companies come from? Is it rational?

Christina Turner feared that she might have been sexually assaulted after two men slipped her a knockout drug. She thought she was taking proper precautions when her doctor prescribed a month's worth of anti-AIDS medicine.

Only later did she learn that she had made herself all but uninsurable.

Turner had let the men buy her drinks at a bar in Fort Lauderdale. The next thing she knew, she said, she was lying on a roadside with cuts and bruises that indicated she had been raped. She never developed an HIV infection. But months later, when she lost her health insurance and sought new coverage, she ran into a problem.

Turner, 45, who used to be a health insurance underwriter herself, said the insurance companies examined her health records. Even after she explained the assault, the insurers would not sell her a policy because the HIV medication raised too many health questions. They told her they might reconsider in three or more years if she could prove that she was still AIDS-free.