Posted on 08/18/2017 11:29:21 AM PDT by Brian Griffin
My proposal is smaller - catastrophic medical coverage. I read last week that an individual high-deductible catastrophic medical insurance plan would run about $30 a month for a $1,000,000 plan that starts perhaps after the first $50k. That covers everything beyond what a working person can take a loan for - true insurance and nothing else. If FedGov is going to get involved at all, that is the most they should be willing to mandate.
If President Trump wants to increase the number of people with insurance, he should require that, and I’d bet he would have a lot of takers even among the young and healthy if insurance companies were allowed to set rates based on age and health. Don’t require me to buy coverage for birth control pills, no more than I’m required to buy car insurance for gasoline. If government is going to overreach at all, that is more than enough.
You lost me on “...with the federal government generally paying...”
What do both of you do with people who won’t pay anything—real freeloaders?
Do you allow tiers of private coverage on top of the public coverage?
“Do you allow tiers of private coverage on top of the public coverage?”
One would be perfectly free to buy the $50,000 to $1 million top-up coverage already recommended by someone here.
Yes, give people choices.
Emergency Medicine for max 3 days and only that . . . should be one choice?
Premium of every Adult covered should be adjusted for lifestyle, smoking, drinking, drugs, promiscuous sex, race care driver, risky life style.
“You lost me...”
The federal welfare state isn’t going away soon.
To make it go away would require at a minimum the repeal of the general income tax on the middle and working class people of the USA plus trade reform to give the welfare class sufficient job opportunities. Think of the 1834 Poor Law reform that was enabled by the English Industrial Revolution.
I hope my type of policies would be so effective and so popular that total federal health care coverage subsidies could be reduced.
“What do both of you do with people who won’t pay anything—real freeloaders?”
My personal preference would be to repeal the EMTALA, but that isn’t going to happen with our RINOs.
Perhaps their housing voucher, food stamp, EIC, etc. amounts could be debited to pay their share of future premiums after an unpaid hospital visit.
Hospitals like to get the deductible paid before arranging for the pain doctor to see the patient.
“Premium of every Adult covered should be adjusted for lifestyle, smoking, drinking, drugs, promiscuous sex, race care driver, risky life style.”
Smokers and drinkers are already paying sufficient adjustments via excise taxation prior to about age 60.
As for the race car driver, the auto insurance company often is making the essential adjustment.
Adjusting for illegal drugs and promiscuous sex is not practical.
Many HIV drugs are or soon will be off-patent.
I have proposed unhealthy food taxes, but no one here seems to want them but me.
You keep posting these hair brained useless suggestions
You obviously have never used Medicare. If you want to know what it’s like ask any doc or nurse. The reason ordinary patients pay so much is to make up for the losses on Medicare patients
“smoking, drinking, drugs, promiscuous sex, race care driver, risky life style”.
You forgot obesity and eating habits-sugar consumption, etc-and gun ownership-there is no reason for a private company or anyone else, for that matter-to have info about your personal life when you are PAYING for their product at the quoted price-that is why there are shared risk pools and why it is called “insurance”-the government has no business in it at all...
As a workers comp case manager, I can assure you that risky and dangerous occupations must pay higher rates than cubicle and sales jobs-race car drivers already pay more for insurance, too if it is their profession-I believe charging more money based on a person’s personal life is discrimination, never mind your personal life is no one’s f’ing business in the 1st place...
I’m all for cafeteria plan insurance-buy what you want today, change it up or down tomorrow if you decide to, paying accordingly more or less-that is how competition works-you are the customer, so you shop for the best deal...
“Don’t require me to buy coverage for birth control pills”
You can drop all types of drug coverage.
My plan covers things by default:
1. to satisfy the Maine senators and
2. to refute the Democratic claim that people are losing coverage by requiring people to choose to drop coverage
3. to make broader coverage more attractively priced.
However, my plan reapportions subsidy money to make basic drug coverage very attractively priced. Most pre-existing condition problems involve drugs.
The basic plan drug coverage is intended to include almost all drugs insurers think are good deals.
Young women generally will not buy coverage without birth control pill coverage. Most young men won’t retain the drug coverage. To give the young men a price break would not fly politically. To give people a price break if they don’t use the basic drug coverage is possible.
Most of the expensive drug pre-existing condition problems are dealt with by the 80%/70% federal reimbursements for coverage provider losses.
Medicaid and Medicare both exist. The question is not what to do with the poor or the elderly; that is (more or less) decided. The question is what would be sufficient for everyone else. If the public mandate is for catastrophic coverage, anything beyond that is a choice.
If someone who chooses no additional coverage wants birth control pills, they can pay for them or not get them. If someone with no additional coverage wants any other non-covered elective drug or procedure, the same answer applies. Private coverage should be allowed, just as all other private contracts are allowed.
“You obviously have never used Medicare.”
I live in Florida. My older relatives have used Medicare. It has worked quite well for them.
Most of what is lost on Medicare is due to fraud such as double billing, unnecessary tests other overcharges by the doctors and other providers-you are telling Noah about the flood...
Birth control pills save insurance plans money, making insurance premiums cheaper.
Births and congenital surgery are expensive.
Pills are made in factories and are cheap. Bangladesh offers free birth control pills.
“You keep posting these hair brained useless suggestions”
I have done my best. Feel free to do better.
It’s not as easy as you think - ask the Republicans in Washington serious about reform.
“You obviously have never used Medicare. If you want to know what it’s like ask any doc or nurse.”
My neighbors have both worked in the medical trade most of their working lives and are now on Medicare, Tricare, etc.
Mrs. Democratic Neighbor thinks all of us should be on Medicare.
That is an economic point and a good one, but it is not relevant. Saving private companies/individuals money is not the proper role of government. BC pills would not save catastrophic coverage plans money. Medical insurance is an economic transaction, and it should be up to the customer and the insurance company what is and what is not included. FedGov should not be involved at all. If they are to be involved, requiring catastrophic coverage should mark the upper limit of that involvement.
“I’m all for cafeteria plan insurance”
What I’ve done for office visits and outpatient care is to keep the benefits reasonable and to provide partial rebates.
This makes their coverage more like bulk purchasing deals than insurance, making picking and choosing both possible and fairly fair.
I’ve added coverage based on hospital co-pay days in case people need more office-based care.
Too Complicated.
Since we have broken the constitution and mandated insurance, let the market solved the problem.
No mandated benefits. Set the basement as the insurance company pays 0% and catastrophic coverage for anything over $25,000. For the young and healthy, paying the insurer negotiated rates would save them 50-80% compared to uninsured medical costs. $25,000 is not an insurmountable debt for a young working person. The combination should be very affordable.
For pre-existing conditions, I would not be adverse to a temporary subsidized high risk pool.
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