More Workers in Private Sector Dropping Health Insurance Coverage

JSOnline via AP ^ | May 5, 2006 | Kevin Freking

[Leatherneck_MT]

No worries :)

Yes I agree, if a Doc is flangrantly incompetant he should be sued out of existance. If criminally negligent, should go to jail.

But most of what hits these doctors as lawsuits, don't pass the stink test.

[Alberta's Child]

When are people going to learn that insurance is a scam.

Insurance companies make a PROFIT, they can't make that profit unless you pay them more than they pay for your medical bills.

. . . buying insurance virtually guarantees that you will pay more over your lifetime for medical coverage than you would have if you hadn't bought insurance.

Baloney. The insurance company makes a profit because a pool of policy holders as a group -- not each and every individual policy holder -- pays more in premiums than they they would have paid for their own medical bills.

Insurance is not a "scam," because the basic purpose of having insurance is to protect yourself and your assets in the event you face a catastrophic event of some sort. This is why people are perfectly willing to insure their homes, for example, yet never feel like they've been ripped off if they go through their entire lives without filing a single claim.

When you buy homeowners insurance, you're not paying the premium in lieu of paying for repairs -- you're paying the insurance company to assume the risk of paying for repairs.

[TheSpottedOwl]

OMG : ( If they looked in our freezer, we'd be crucified. BF breeds snakes, and we have cryo-frozen rats and mice in there. It sounds gross, but there is absolutely no danger of contamination of human consumables.

Lol, so if the fridge can't hold the recommended temperature, will they give you a new one? Hahahahahaaaa!

[TheSpottedOwl]

I have a small 19" TV with rabbit ears. Remember rabbit ears?

I sure do remember them ;-) Remember when you're trying to turn them, and someone on the roof is hollering at you, trying to find out when to stop adjusting the rooftop antenna?

We live in an area with no tv reception. You have to buy cable or Dish just to get your basic channels. It bites. 157 channels, and nothing's on! Our tv is a third hand pile of crap that was dropped three times during various moves. We have a clock radio that is basically useless because of reception problems. Stereo? Hahahaha!

Right now we're taking advantage of a year contract on Dish and the phone company's DSL. They won't tell you how much it will cost when the year contract is up. I will have no problem switching providers. Yes I know. We are poor. We don't deserve tv reception, or internet access. /sarc

[lwg8tr]

Look for an HSA plan in your state. Most are affordable for most budgets. Your logic is only part right. Don't sweat the small stuff but have insurance for the major catastrophes. I can tell you going with nothing is child abuse. Your kid gets sick, real sick and no good doc or hospital will see you. Oh yea they will triage the problems in the ER and may refer you to someone that will take payments. I for one don't want the cheapest doctor, I want the best. I was in the insurance biz for 8 years and I can tell you healthy people get real sick and get in accidents your deluding yourself if you think not. My father was 62, never sick a day in life and he got Cancer, 250k worth. Could you afford 250k, I could’nt. Let's look at some costs and see if going without insurance is affordable to you. I got this off my Cigna health plans website

Heart Attack (Just ER visit): $8,700, plus approx 15k in follow-up, therapy and Dr. Fees
Cancer(Breast)- Total cost average with 4 year survival $52,000
MRI - $5700
Im picked 3 procedures most families have a good probability of encountering. It's a matter of priorities, do you value a nice house, cars, vacations and meals out over your family’s well being?

Average costs in America
Car payment: $343 per month
Cable bill: $63
Meals out weekly $50
The average American spends $1500 on xmas every year

That’s about 550-600 bucks a month, whalla there is your insurance payment. There are a lot of excuses for not having insurance if you can get it, just not very many good reasons. Please rethink your position, your going to be committing financial suicide sooner or later. Most backruptcies are filed why? Medical bills. Look it up.

[mlc9852]

LOL - I need to try the aluminum foil trick because I get really bad reception.

[mlc9852]

You're right about nothing being on. All those channels and maybe two or three you even care about watching.

[TheSpottedOwl]

I agree. These lawsuits hit lower to middle income families very hard. "You know what" runs down hill.

[RipSawyer]

Is that study adjusted to account for alternate coverage under the spouse's plan? At no or nominal payroll deduction, overlapping coverage can be OK but when the premiums outweigh the marginal benefit increase, why bother? I'm sure some drop coverage due to cost but there are other reasons why someone chooses to self-insure.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I have coverage with my employer but I never use it, I keep it for my wife who has chronic problems but she says we are spending more for health care than when we had no coverage at all. She used to get all kinds of breaks on prescription medicine but now the co-pay is more than she used to pay for the prescription.

[TheSpottedOwl]

Exactly! Local channels(Fox for the morning show, and the Simpsons et al), TV Food Network, whatever channel wrestling comes on, and one or two others. Bah!

We're usually on the internet, but want to stay connected to local news. Hell, our lives would be meaningless without the freeway car chases ;-D

[conservative physics]

Young healthy people who are forced into buying policies subsidize the elderly, it's the same scam as welfare.

Since you spend most of your life young and healthy and only a few years old and dying, the insurance companies make a killing off of you for most of your life because of your irrational fear of something happening to you at a young age.

Here's how it works. Take some 20 year old guy who spends a moderate amount of money on an insurance policy... say $200 a month... chances are that guy will live to be 70+ in fairly good health... so for 50 years he gives money to the insurance companies... to bail him out if something unlikely happens (car accident, stroke at 35, ect..) On the surface that doesn't seem like so much ... only $200 a month for some peace of mind... but your forgetting about the power of compounding interest. That same $200 a month invested from the age of 20 to 70 at a 8% return would have resulted in $1,377,048 dollars in savings... which means that even if he spends a MILLION dollars at age 70 to pay his dying hospital bills... he still would have been better off having never had insurance, by $377,048 dollars.

That's why it's a scam.

[moehoward]

Bump

[Diana in Wisconsin]

"RWJ Foundation supports socialized medicine..."

Yep. I knew I could lure you in on that one, LOL!