Health Insurance?

jpete · Post by **jpete** » Fri. Oct. 30, 2009 8:25 pm

bear creek burnout wrote:
One reason that the insurance would be cheaper is that the insurance companies take at least 35% as profits. Geese, even the Las Vegas casinos are limited to less than twenty percent profit.
Where do you get these figures from? Try 2% to 6%....I don't want to do business with a failing company....they should be profitable.....check your facts carefully next time....

I'd be careful about what the "books" say. We all know Enron and WorldCom were "profitable" before they went super nova. A kid I went to high school, 20 years ago, got a job at an insurance company in Boston after we graduated. At that time, he was reporting $16 profit for every $1 in premiums. That's a little more than 2.2%

bear creek burnout · Post by **bear creek burnout** » Fri. Oct. 30, 2009 10:09 pm

jpete.....that's totally absurd....think man think....$16 profit for every $1 of premium? That's 1,600% of premium...net of expenses.....Sell the ranch and invest in that company....absurd.....
Reverse the #s.....$1 profit for every $16 premium....now that's believable.....
Most people obviously don't understand insurance pricing, actuarial science or business in general.....and it shows....

In health insurance, including insurance provided directly by employers, and social insurance, actuarial science focuses on the analyses of rates of disability, morbidity, mortality, fertility and other contingencies. The effects of consumer choice and the geographical distribution of the utilization of medical services and procedures, and the utilization of drugs and therapies, is also of great importance. These factors underlay the development of the Resource-Base Relative Value Scale (RBRVS) at Harvard in a multi-disciplined study. (Hsiao 1988) Actuarial science also aids in the design of benefit structures, reimbursement standards, and the effects of proposed government standards on the cost of healthcare (cf. CHBRP 2004).

jpete · Post by **jpete** » Fri. Oct. 30, 2009 10:18 pm

You can cite all the studies you want. I'll go by the empirical evidence I see exhibited by every insurance company in the world. There's a reason why the tallest building in every major city is an insurance company. And it's not because they are operating on razor thin margins.

BCBS just built a $100+ million building here, paid $20 million to get out of a corruption lawsuit and paid all the executives bonuses.

Don't expect me to believe them when they cry poverty.

bear creek burnout · Post by **bear creek burnout** » Fri. Oct. 30, 2009 10:27 pm

"It isn't what we don't know that gives us trouble, it's what we know that ain't so."
Will Rogers

"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance -- it is the illusion of knowledge."
Daniel Boorstin

"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds"
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Take your pick......

Black_And_Blue · Post by **Black_And_Blue** » Fri. Oct. 30, 2009 10:38 pm

Freddy, did you ask them why the increase and/or do you know the answer?

jpete · Post by **jpete** » Sat. Oct. 31, 2009 6:28 am

bear creek burnout wrote:"It isn't what we don't know that gives us trouble, it's what we know that ain't so."
Will Rogers

"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance -- it is the illusion of knowledge."
Daniel Boorstin

"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds"
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Take your pick......

While I appreciate your pithy quotes, I'll say "Right back at you."

As I said before everyone "knew" Enron was making money hand over fist right before it imploded. Books can and are regularly cooked. If the insurance companies are running on such thin margins, they've got a better accountant than Enron did because they've been able to keep up the illusion much longer.

Do a little checking into the 1945 McCarran-Ferguson Act and the 1973 HMO Act and think about the effect of these two pieces of legislation.

Freddy · Post by **Freddy** » Sat. Oct. 31, 2009 6:46 am

Black_And_Blue wrote:Freddy, did you ask them why the increase

Yup, they're crying poverty. "We paid out 77 bazillion dollars last year and only took in thirty eight cents, it will be years before we are out of this black hole". Or something like that.

2% profit? Riiiiiiiiight. I do believe it, but, you have to realize that 2% is after everyone got their 72 million dollar bonus and they paid cash for the newest 100 story building in downtown Boston.

coalkirk · Post by **coalkirk** » Sat. Oct. 31, 2009 8:00 am

Freddy, I am self employed and my wife works with me. (well it started out that way, now I guess I work for her) Anyway we have to purchase our helth insurance and we have Blue Cross/Blue Shield. We pay about 1,200. per quarter. We purposely have a high deductable of $10,000.00. If we need to go to the docs, we pay. The insurance is for catastrpohic stuff like auto accident or I need a brain transplant. If you don't have any chronic health issues, it's an affordable strategy. IKt's also a strategy that apparently won't be allowed under Obamacare if I understand what they are proposing. I would not be allowed to pay for my routine care and carry a high deductable.

Black_And_Blue · Post by **Black_And_Blue** » Sat. Oct. 31, 2009 9:28 am

Medicare liabilities est $73,475,000,000,000 and rising. http://www.usdebtclock.org/

Choices for corrective action :

1. Raise taxes.
2. Reduce benefits.
3. Lower costs.

Constitutionality aside, Federal tax increases are burdensome and a crippling economic policy.

Reducing benefits is unpopular and politically suicidal.

Lowering costs requires direct control over medical personnel compensation and price controls of industry goods. This removes both the incentives to work and inhibits advancement of medical technology.

...

"Posterity! You will never know how much it cost the present Generation to preserve your Freedom! I hope you will make good use of it. If you do not, I shall repent in Heaven, that I ever took half the Pains to preserve it."

— John Adams

* Is this Generation willing to do the hard things necessary to preserve Freedom and Liberty for posterity?