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November 22, 2012 at 5:36 pm #605666
hooper1961MemberThe Federal Government has mandated that everyone buy health insurance. In yesterday’s (11.21.2012) Seattle Times there was an article discussing the mandate. The mandate does not allow for any risk costing except smoking and age; from what I have seen.
The age costing appears to limit the cost to an older person to no more than 3 times that of a young adult that essentially foists higher cost onto the young adult! These same young adults are being saddled with horrendous debt. How is this equitable?
There are other factors that need to be allowed to equitably assign charges.
Car insurers charge premiums based on risk. Motorists at higher risk pay more. Health insurance needs to also charge based on risk (factors that are controllable).
I understand that an open comment period to the mandate is to occur soon. Whether our feedback is listened to or not is another story.
November 22, 2012 at 5:53 pm #778117
DBPMember
Â
Look, blooper . . . er . . . I mean hooper . . .
How long is it gonna take for you to realize that people are just not that interested in this stuff?
(And don’t mistake their interest in tweaking you for interest in the topic.)
Have you tried one of the thousands of actuarial science discussion groups out there on the Internets? There’s even an actuary dating service out there, I think.
It’s called “Odds Are.”
November 22, 2012 at 6:04 pm #778118
hooper1961MemberDBP
People who purchase health insurance on their own should very well be interested in this subject. I have already seen my cost go up 14%. Without reasonable risk costing the new mandate will foist substantially higher cost on low risk people that is not fair.
How would you like it if your car insurance company charged you a premium based on the risk factor of a teen age driver?
November 22, 2012 at 6:11 pm #778119
JanSParticipantHappy Thanksgiving, Hooper. this is one day to put these things aside, and be thankful that you have a full life . Have a great day.
(because I can’t believe you’d rather be miserable and kvetchy today)
November 22, 2012 at 7:10 pm #778120
hooper1961MemberNovember 23, 2012 at 5:52 am #778121
JoBParticipantNovember 23, 2012 at 6:27 pm #778122
hooper1961Memberinsurance needs to be risk based otherwise it is not fair. i understand that with health insurance some factors are outside ones control; but factors that are controllable need to be assessed accordingly.
how would it feel to be charged for car insurance like a high risk teenage driver when you are a low risk middle age driver?
health insurance premiums need to allow some risk costing other than just smoking to be more equitable.
November 23, 2012 at 6:31 pm #778123
JanSParticipantwell, then, if that’s how you feel, Hoop, why don’t you tell that to the insurances…you know, the horses mouth :)
November 23, 2012 at 6:36 pm #778124
kgdlgParticipantI don’t think you can compare auto and health insurance. Because for the people who choose to illegally go without insurance, the rest of us don’t have to pick up the tab for vehicular damage. Unlike health insurance, where those millions without it de facto utilize emergency care and drive up the overall cost for everyone. That is the point of the ACA, that if we bring in millions of the younger and healthier uninsured, it will, on balance be overall less expensive than the craziness we have now. Would you rather 30% increases for the insured year to year, or bring everyone in, and reduce those year to year jumps down to CPI or hopefully something close to it? Obviously the proof is in the pudding and it is too soon to judge about cost reduction. We will need to need a full year of implementation before we will know how it works.
November 24, 2012 at 1:10 am #778125
JoBParticipanthoop..
“how would it feel to be charged for car insurance like a high risk teenage driver when you are a low risk middle age driver?”
i don’t know how to tell you this…
but as you age it doesn’t matter what your driving record is… the smallest infraction of any kind kicks you in the risky old codgers pool.
I don’t know who told you that life is fair
but you really shouldn’t have believed them.
November 24, 2012 at 1:12 am #778126
JoBParticipantkgdlg
“Because for the people who choose to illegally go without insurance, the rest of us don’t have to pick up the tab for vehicular damage.”
but, we do…
we insure against them by paying a surcharge for uninsured motorists :(
November 24, 2012 at 1:29 am #778127
DBPMemberI remember one time, as part of an insurance-related thread started by himself, hooper said that he lost some stupendous amount of weight. I think it was 100 lbs, but it could well have been more.
When I read that, I thought: BAM! Interesting topic! I would so like to hear about how ANYONE could lose that much.
Do you think such a topic can even be entertained? We’ve tried it before, but it devolved into a put-down fest and we got shushed.
November 24, 2012 at 9:36 am #778128
JanSParticipanthey..it’s the editors call…so respect it. Sheesh!
November 24, 2012 at 9:40 am #778129
JanSParticipantBetter yet…..if you want to talk about that subject, start your own blog and you and hoop have at it ..
November 24, 2012 at 11:24 am #778130
WSBKeymasterRegarding 2 deleted early-morning posts:
Anyone who has chosen to repeatedly not respect WSB rules has chosen to no longer participate here. Sorry that for the first time in three years, we’ve seen a couple people make that choice lately. – Tracy
November 24, 2012 at 3:57 pm #778131
hooper1961MemberDBP it was 70 lbs. I eliminated alcohol (except an occasional glass of wine), no sweets (except occasional ice cream) and exercise. And try to get 8 hours of sleep every night.
JoB (post 11) – we do get screwed by motorists who choose to illegally without insurance via higher rates they call it under-insured motorist premium!
November 24, 2012 at 5:28 pm #778132
JoBParticipanthoop..
so your answer is to get screwed by paying an underinsurance premium for people who don’t insure their health?
because we do you know.. we pay that premium in inflated insurance costs
and again in tax supported medical care dispensed through emergency rooms.
without the mandate we all get double dipped hoop.
and that’s not fair.
November 24, 2012 at 5:32 pm #778133
elikapekaParticipantIf you have a large enough pool, these differences become less and less apparent. Another reason why Medicare for all would have been the best solution.
November 24, 2012 at 5:40 pm #778134
JoBParticipanthoop..
I want to congratulate you on your weight loss.
I know it probably wasn’t easy for you.
but if giving up booze guaranteed weight loss..
i would be one skinny minnie.
I haven’t had a single drink in 20+ years.
i have eliminated sweets as well…
except for the occasional dark chocolate splurge.
i even eliminated the cocacola that was keeping me going..
and still upped my exercise.
i am still waiting for those pounds to fall…
but not holding my breath.
you see..
i have a few decades on you..
and the gender disadvantage
and a chronic illness or two that makes what you call exercise difficult at best
and immune dysfunction that does a tap dance on my metabolism
those aren’t excuses, just facts.
if losing weight was either easy or appropriate for everyone the trillion dollar weight loss industry would never have gotten off the ground.
You may be slimmer than you once were hoop, but that only means you are carrying around your genetic load in a package that pleases you more when you pass the mirror.
It’s what you do to stay slim that impacts your health… and even that doesn’t always negate whatever genetic or environmental load you carry forward from your childhood.
did you know that childhood poverty is the number one risk factor for chronic illness?
Isn’t that amazing.
We can lower our national healthcare cost by simply feeding children.
and no-one has to be made to feel guilty in the process.
November 24, 2012 at 7:23 pm #778135
hooper1961MemberJoB another option is to simply stop providing charity care. There is nothing in the US constitution that requires people to be provided charity care.
regarding weight – i went to a third world country and saw no overweight people except american tourists!
November 24, 2012 at 8:04 pm #778136
DBPMemberI’ve been to Third World countries too, and my impression was the same. Where I went, there weren’t many Americans. But there were plenty of Europeans and Australians who did a pretty good Archie Bunker impression.
Here’s a shot of some of my in-laws in Cambodia. The whole village pretty much looks like this:
Folks in the Cambodian outback are skinny for several reasons, including:
â–º Low fat / low sugar diet
â–º Lots of backbreaking physical labor
â–º Parasites
Methinks we should be discriminating about which aspects of their lifestyle we choose to emulate.
*****************************************************************************************
FYI: It’s an established fact that one can be “overweight” and still be perfectly healthy. A surprisingly large percentage of people who have heart attacks are slender.
November 24, 2012 at 8:51 pm #778137
JanSParticipantthanks for those last two paragraphs, DBP. Yes, being thin does not necessarily mean being healthy. Ewell (sp) Gibbons, others who lived very healthy lifestyles, and…wonder of wonders, had heart attacks and died.
About those third world countries…another reason they’re thin is possibly because there ain’t a lot of food? Famine, starvation does take a toll…and malnutrition is rampant in some places…but they’re still thin, so that must be OK, huh, Hoop?
November 24, 2012 at 9:16 pm #778138
miwsParticipantNovember 25, 2012 at 2:10 am #778139
JoBParticipanthoop..
providing charity care is cost effective..
especially when that charity care goes to children
you my friend are penny wise and pound foolish…
November 25, 2012 at 3:50 am #778140
elikapekaParticipant‘At this festive season of the year, Mr Scrooge,’ said the gentleman, taking up a pen, ‘it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the Poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir.’
‘Are there no prisons?”
‘Plenty of prisons,’ said the gentleman, laying down the pen again.
‘And the Union workhouses.’ demanded Scrooge. ‘Are they still in operation?’
‘Both very busy, sir.’
‘Oh. I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course,’ said Scrooge. ‘I’m very glad to hear it.’
‘Under the impression that they scarcely furnish Christian cheer of mind or body to the multitude,’ returned the gentleman, ‘a few of us are endeavouring to raise a fund to buy the Poor some meat and drink, and means of warmth. We choose this time, because it is a time, of all others, when Want is keenly felt, and Abundance rejoices. What shall I put you down for?’
‘Nothing!’ Scrooge replied.
‘You wish to be anonymous?’
‘I wish to be left alone,’ said Scrooge. ‘Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I don’t make merry myself at Christmas and I can’t afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the establishments I have mentioned-they cost enough; and those who are badly off must go there.’
‘Many can’t go there; and many would rather die.’
‘If they would rather die,’ said Scrooge, ‘they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”
—from A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
Merry Christmas, Hooper!
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