Sorry, my license is only good in CA and my only experience with WA is having one of my clients move to WA at about the time in the mid 1990's that your legislature went more berserk than even CA's about mandating benefits into health insurance that were never actuarily designed to ever be a risk to be covered by said "insurance."
So the national "insurance" company I had them with in CA naturally decided to not renew that policy in WA that had gone beyond the pale as far as the rest of the states were concerned.
That "Simple Care" concept is a good one, except that I'm not sure it's truly an actual "insurance" policy against a mega-claim, is it? I'll have to go back and read your previous comment/description of it on the thread, I guess. Your suggestion to them sounds terrific!!!
If anyone has been whoring around this and the Workers Compensation Insurance issue, it's been the Litigators and Allegators, making allegations like Consumerist Activists, but who are really Socialist Activists that collude with the Media Activists, passing themselves off as supposed Journalists!!!
Yes, you are absolutely correct again about the "Hucksters!" Unfortunately, in a free society with a free market system, the legitimate brokerage community comes off as a "Special Interest," or a bunch of "Lobbyists" whenever we organize to make it hard for these creeps to do business!!! We begin to be likened to "Unionists" feathering our own nest, which is probably true!
That's exactly why "Caveat Emptor" cannot be done away with through government! The buyer MUST beware AND be aware which he/she will become when paying for the routine expenses out of their tax free accumulation account in an HSA, prior to meeting their high deductible. Now it'll be part of their "Nest Egg" involved in paying the small bills and they'll "Pay Attention" instead of ignoring the basic problem of what's been feeding the inflation in healthcare costs for the past 30 years!!! (third party payors)
Insurors actually love competing for covering a quantifiable, measurable risk that has a lower frequency of occurance! They hate the administrative cost of constant first-dollar claims. They want the time to earn a return on premiums before they are paid out in claims again based on a stable risk pattern. HSA's are one of those rare "Win/Win Propositions!" You might call it a synergistic solution in the making.
One may criticize President Bush and the House Republicans for the Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit, but the HSA part of that bill has real redeeming social value for the entire medical system in the United States!!!
Well, for that, we can thank the Naderist Deborah Senn, who as Insurance Commissioner made it her mission to ramrod these socialized medicine bennies through the legislature. She actually ran for the US Senate, and was narrowly defeated in the Rat primary by Maria Cantwell, who won the election over RINO Slade Gorton. Now, Cantwell is a bought and paid for subsidiary of Hillary, and I really don't know which one of them would have been worse.
That "Simple Care" concept is a good one, except that I'm not sure it's truly an actual "insurance" policy against a mega-claim, is it?
No, its just an association of providers and patients. The cost for patients is $29 per year for an individual, and $39 for a family. They charge prospective providers even more, about $150 for an initial listing, and a third of that for an annual renewal. This covers the costs of the website, and of issuing cards and such. It's designed to ideally work with catastrophic coverage, and gets used by people who have no health insurance. You can check out their website at www.simplecare.com
One of the problems I have with it is that they have very few providers in my area, and most of those are naturists or osteopaths. I wouldn't mind driving an hour or so to find a provider in Tacoma, with as infrequently as I use medical services.
I agree that the HSAs were the "sleeper" provisions of the Medicare bill, and it was one of the reasons I was happy that legislation passed. It's also the first thing John F'n Kerry would kill if he could. The challenge comes from finding super cheap catastrophic coverage. It's like auto insurance, I'm a careful driver, with a sterling record, I just want the cheapest stuff available to have a card to show to a cop who stops me for a burned out taillight.