In article <9iuh85da5vbkrvb40hg924hrjfoiokmd68@4ax.com>,
Stephen wrote:

> On 16 Aug 2009 21:47:47 -0400, Daniel Bastos <dbastos+0### [at] toledocom> wrote:
>
>>If it is a fair insurance? Because when they deny treatment based on
>>languagelawyerism, then it becomes a corrupt communist authority? :P
>
> Are you using "communist" as a cuss word?

Yes. :-) On 16 Aug 2009 21:47:47 -0400, it was funny.

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"Sabrina Kilian" <ski### [at] vtedu> wrote in message 
news:4a893962$1@news.povray.org...

> off-off-topic, I come back to usenet and my first post gets to be a huge
> rant. Now I remember what I've been missing!

This isn't usenet. These groups are hosted on a private news server.
If you're going to engage in rants please get your facts straight :)

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"Darren New" <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote in message
news:4a88b8fd$1@news.povray.org...

> 2 - Your health is worth virtually anything you own.

Not by a long shot. If that were the case, we would not smoke, eat more than
necessary or unhealthy, work under hazardous conditions, drive, skydive, sit
in front of a computer 10 hours a day... etc. We would instead spend all our
time and money on our health.

> How much of your personal wealth would you spend to cure your cancer?

If cure were certain? For as it is, I don't see many patients spending their
entire wealth on treatment (not that I believe certain cure would change
that either).

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> 1 - If it's voluntary, only the sick people sign up for it.

I've not seen that anywhere, healthy people always sign up for health 
insurance too.  If the insurance company judges them as a low risk they get 
the same cover cheaper than if they are judged as high risk.

> The insurance nature suffers therefrom, especially if those who didn't pay 
> for it get treated anyway, which they do.

OK, if you get treated anyway without insurance then why do even the 
unhealthy people bother paying for insurance?  Who currently pays for the 
uninsured people to get treated?

> 2 - Your health is worth virtually anything you own.

No it's not.

> How much of your personal wealth would you spend to cure your cancer?

If it's a life/death situation then that's just one aspect of your health. 
How much of your personal wealth would you spend to have a finger sewn back 
on or to have a bad cut stitched up?

> The "utility value" of not dying outweighs almost everything else for most 
> people.

Sure, but "health care" covers a lot more than simple "you will die if you 
don't pay" situations, most people don't face those too often.

> Plus, by eliminating coverage for pre-existing[1] conditions, you pretty 
> much guarantee that shopping around for coverage makes no sense - if you 
> know what your insurance needs to cover, the private insurance company 
> won't cover it.

Yeh, it's a bit like telling a car insurance company that you're going to be 
crashing every 6 months and can they still cover you :-)

So, in America then, if you get a chronic condition do your insurance 
premiums sky rocket?  Are you then basically shafted into paying huge 
premiums with no chance to swap providers?

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On 17 Aug 2009 22:21:15 -0400, Daniel Bastos <dbastos+0### [at] toledocom> wrote:

>In article <9iuh85da5vbkrvb40hg924hrjfoiokmd68@4ax.com>,
>Stephen wrote:
>
>> On 16 Aug 2009 21:47:47 -0400, Daniel Bastos <dbastos+0### [at] toledocom> wrote:
>>
>>>If it is a fair insurance? Because when they deny treatment based on
>>>languagelawyerism, then it becomes a corrupt communist authority? :P
>>
>> Are you using "communist" as a cuss word?
>
>Yes. :-) On 16 Aug 2009 21:47:47 -0400, it was funny. 

That's the thing about fashion, one day it's not. :)
-- 

Regards
     Stephen

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Ken wrote:
> 
> "Sabrina Kilian" <ski### [at] vtedu> wrote in message
> news:4a893962$1@news.povray.org...
> 
>> off-off-topic, I come back to usenet and my first post gets to be a huge
>> rant. Now I remember what I've been missing!
> 
> This isn't usenet. These groups are hosted on a private news server.
> If you're going to engage in rants please get your facts straight :)

Having my facts straight wouldn't make for a very interesting rant, now
would it?

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somebody wrote:
> "Darren New" <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote in message
> news:4a88b8fd$1@news.povray.org...
> 
>> 2 - Your health is worth virtually anything you own.
> 
> Not by a long shot. If that were the case, we would not smoke, eat more than
> necessary or unhealthy,

You're assuming rationality. When you get an immediate life-threatening 
condition, you're not likely to make a decision that dying is *better* than 
paying for the medicine.

Of course, if you have kids, you might decide to trade some months or years 
of life to leave them an inheritance or something. Everyone dies eventually. 
  When that's no longer the case, it's unlikely you'd spend less than all 
your money to avoid dying.

>> How much of your personal wealth would you spend to cure your cancer?
> 
> If cure were certain? For as it is, I don't see many patients spending their
> entire wealth on treatment (not that I believe certain cure would change
> that either).

The point I was making was contrasting your health against (say) the size of 
your apartment, the taste of your food, etc. You might say "I really like 
steak, but it's too expensive to buy often."  You're unlikely to say "I 
really like living, but it's just not worth the expense of buying my heart 
medicine." The competition is between different heart medicines, not between 
heart medicine and no heart medicine.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
    back to version 1.0."
   "We've done that already. We call it 2.0."

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scott wrote:
>> 1 - If it's voluntary, only the sick people sign up for it.
> 
> I've not seen that anywhere, healthy people always sign up for health 
> insurance too.

If that were the case, we'd not have large percentages of people uninsured. 
But it's often the case that young healthy people will buy (say) only 
catastrophic health insurance (covering costs >$5000 perhaps), while someone 
who is already chronically ill will get lots of detailed insurance covering 
medicine, regular doctor visits, etc. Plus people with good teeth and eyes 
don't buy dental or vision insurance, and people who need to change glasses 
every year buy vision insurance.

> If the insurance company judges them as a low risk they 
> get the same cover cheaper than if they are judged as high risk.

It depends on the insurance, of course.

>> The insurance nature suffers therefrom, especially if those who didn't 
>> pay for it get treated anyway, which they do.
> 
> OK, if you get treated anyway without insurance then why do even the 
> unhealthy people bother paying for insurance?  Who currently pays for 
> the uninsured people to get treated?

The hospitals. That's why so many hospitals are closing their emergency rooms.

>> 2 - Your health is worth virtually anything you own.
> No it's not.

In some sense. I guess I should have said "your life is worth virtually 
anything you own."

>> The "utility value" of not dying outweighs almost everything else for 
>> most people.
> 
> Sure, but "health care" covers a lot more than simple "you will die if 
> you don't pay" situations, most people don't face those too often.

Right.

> So, in America then, if you get a chronic condition do your insurance 
> premiums sky rocket? 

The situations I'm aware of, the chronic condition happened after the person 
had already been getting insurance from the employer. The victims couldn't 
change jobs (because then it would become a "pre-existing condition", and 
the employer's premiums obviously went up some, but that got spread out 
amongst all the employees, which is the point of insurance.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
    back to version 1.0."
   "We've done that already. We call it 2.0."

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Stephen wrote:
> OK I know that not all Americans feel that way but it seems that the majority of
> vocal ones do.

We believe that it will lead to a reduction in the overall availability 
and quality of care.

Regards,
John

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On 08/18/09 10:37, Darren New wrote:
>>> The insurance nature suffers therefrom, especially if those who
>>> didn't pay for it get treated anyway, which they do.
>>
>> OK, if you get treated anyway without insurance then why do even the
>> unhealthy people bother paying for insurance? Who currently pays for
>> the uninsured people to get treated?
>
> The hospitals. That's why so many hospitals are closing their emergency
> rooms.

	For context, the hospitals only treat emergency cases if you don't have 
insurance/money. If it's a long term (but even life threatening), then 
they generally won't. There are always exceptions, though.

>> So, in America then, if you get a chronic condition do your insurance
>> premiums sky rocket?
>
> The situations I'm aware of, the chronic condition happened after the
> person had already been getting insurance from the employer. The victims
> couldn't change jobs (because then it would become a "pre-existing
> condition", and the employer's premiums obviously went up some, but that
> got spread out amongst all the employees, which is the point of insurance.

	Actually, sometimes the insurance company more or less forces the 
employers to drop insurance or go elsewhere.

	Some of you may know Wendell Potter, the health insurance insider who 
recently went public with a lot of their practices. This is from an 
interview:

"Another is, if you are employed, particularly with a small business, 
and your insurance—your employer gets his or her insurance through one 
of the large insurers, and if just one person in your company files a 
claim that the underwriters think is too high, if it skews what they 
think is the appropriate medical experience or claim experience, when 
that business comes up for renewal, they very likely will jack up the 
rates so much that your employer has no alternative but to leave and 
leave you and all of your coworkers without insurance. Either that or 
they may cut benefits or try to shop for coverage somewhere else. But 
the end result is, you may find yourself dumped into the rolls and the 
ranks of the uninsured."

	I read in another article of a case where they jacked the prices so 
high that it would have been the equivalent of paying over $40,000 per 
person per year. Any way they can find to dump the employer...

-- 
As long as I can remember, I've had amnesia.

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