Godless Dave

Less, because my employer pays the first $1200. The reason I get it so cheap is because it's through my employer, so they can negotiate group rates. If you buy the same coverage as an individual you're hosed. I think a partial solution for self-employed and retired people, as well as people whose employers don't offer insurance, could be to organize into large groups of consumers that can negotiate with the insurers. Plus, the larger the risk pool, the lower the premiums (potentially).

Calzaer

If I get insurance right out of college, and get that discount rate of $1400 a year, that's $58,000 by the time I retire. (note: Retirement is 65, right?)

If I put that into an ING account instead (about 2.2% interest, IIRC), I'd have ~$60,000.

What kind of a medical problem would I have to develop to drain $60,000? Are they common? If my risk of getting a $60k+ illness is pretty good, then an insurance company is a good investment (in that it will pay out more than I put in). If not, it's a bad investment. Also considering co-pays and rate hikes, the "bad investment line" could be as high as $75k.

I'm on Zoloft. Without insurance, that would cost me about $70/month ($840/year). With insurance, it's still $20/month ($260/year), and that's the insurance military dependents get (exceptional). So with the bargain insurance above, assuming the same co-pay, I have a choice of paying $1660 a year or $840 a year. Are routine doctor's visits going to add up to another $820 more? What if I break my arm? If so, then health insurance is a good investment. If not....

Dr Rick

Any serious illness or injury that dropped you into an American operating room and/or intensive care unit could wipe-out those five-figures within a week. Examples would include a car wreck with comminuted or multiple fractures, a heart attack necessitating by-pass surgery, a fall down the stairs or off of a bicycle with a head 'bonk,' cancer of almost any type that required surgery, staging, and chemo.

I wouldn't take the chance; it's a gamble, and if you lose, they'll take your future house and life-savings, and then put you and your dependents out on the street.

Rick

auto-da-fe

first my sympathies to Godless Dave, as a man who has suffered sever allergies for all his days, i feel for you man. I know the pain of 50 sneezes an hour for 8 to 10 hours a day and sinus headaches as a common everyday occurance. as a bit of a hijack, i found that ryhnocourt and zyrtec combined on a daily basis and not just prn, was a fairly effective treatment and kept my allergies to a minimum, though didn't relieve them totally.

speaking as a representative of the insurance community (though my specialty is life insurance and annuities, i have studied health insurance and supplemental health insurace) there are reason why certain quesitons are asked. i will admit that the reasoning behind claritan vs. zyrtec escapes me, but please don't always assume that is a financially motivated decision. not all insurance companies are bad, and some actually have the best interest of its clients at heart. perhaps (and i am purely speculating) claritan has much lower side effects (as shown by its recent approval for OTC) therefore has a lower chance of causing more problems than resolving.

i personally applaud you for not lying and to sticking to your ethics so Kudos to you Godless Dave


(edit: edited for spelling, although it is still probably not correct)

Buddrow_Wilson

Calzaer, the main flaw is you are assuming you will remain healthy until retirement. If that was the case why not do neither until retirement, then pick up health insurance? That would save the most money!

Dr Rick

It is; Claritin is available otc, so insurance companies don't have to pay for it.

Claritin went otc because the patent on it is about to expire; that is the sole reason that Schering petitioned the FDA for otc approval. There was no new safety data that spurred them on, and its safety-profile was well-established years ago.

Pharmaceutical companies have discovered that they can earn big bucks from their drugs even after their patents have expired by making them otc and then marketing them for brandname recognition. To be sure, a generic drug-maker can also produce an otc drug once it is off-patent, but experience and marketing research have shown that consumers will overwhelming opt for a brandname otc over a generic. The majority of the general public does not know and perhaps does not even care that the analgesic in Bayer is aspirin, which costs about 1/5 to 1/10 as a generic, or that the active ingredient in Pepcid AC is famotidine, also available at a fraction of the cost generically and often sitting on the store shelf right next to the brandname drug.

I could agree but would limit that assertion only to non-medical insurers; no health insurer of any kind has any concern for the consumer, and they have no incentive to care about them other than fear of litigation or government regulation. Unlike life and disability insurance companies, which people tend to stick with for years, health insurers know that the average enrollee will change companies about once every two to three years, so there is no brand or company loyalty to be built. Furthermore, most people do not choose their health insurer; their employer does it for them, so the consumer isn't really a customer or client that the insurance company needs to keep satisfied.

auto-da-fe

one could argue that the recent trend in health insurance companies to bend more towards preventative care rather that diagnostic, after the fact, care is in the insureds best interest. although admitidly this example does also have a financial motivation (much cheaper to keep someone healthy, rather than make them healthy after they are sick), it is still nonetheless in the insureds best intrest to get checked on regularly.

Majestyk

Agreed.

Dr Rick

I don't mean to come across as though I just don't agree with anything that you post, but I don't agree with anything that you just posted.

It is a myth that preventative care is economical. If you prevent a person from dying today, that person will invariably get older and contract some other illnesses. It is much more cost effective for a person to die in their sixties than in their eighties; the former not only allows us to skip years of hospital and medical bills, but also social security payments. A child that dies from a pneumonia will never have to be put through school or into protective custody. The purpose of preventative care is not to save money, though that myth is still widely believed; it is to get people to live longer and better, but that stategy also costs us more money in the long run.

Medical insurers, with the possible exception of some non-profits, have no interest in encouraging preventative care beyond vaccinations, which can reduce healthcare costs within the relatively short 3 year time frame of their concern. Almost every other preventative care measure costs them money. If a woman has an abnormal pap smear or colonoscopy, the follow-up costs for further diagnostic testing and treatment can total thousands of dollars, all to prevent a cancer that would likely take several years to manifest itself, and also likely to be a problem for some other insurance company; remember, the enrollee is likely to have a diferent insurer within three years. Insurers have been dragged figuratively kicking and screaming into paying for preventative care by regulators and politicians, not by their CEO's, accountants, or actuarial analysts.

Rick

Loren Pechtel

Wouldn't help much.

There's a big reason employer-provided insurance is cheaper. It comes down to risk.

The average worker is healthier than the average non-worker. You don't get many people with really serious health problems in the labor force.