So the aggregated resources of huge corporations are aligned against a lone individual unfortunate enough to require a costly treatment.
this is an interesting issue, does anybody else have comments about this? or have any reference articles to share?
Actually worse than this under Hippa family members are not permitted to see or access a patients medical records. Even after they die... the insurance companies can sue the estate of the deceased for all claims paid out plus attorneys fee for fraudulent representations and the family can not easily defend the action.
I've been very healthy, so I don't know much about health insurance. How the heck are the insurance companies permitted to share the patients private information with each other? Seems like a gross violation of privacy. And anti-competitive.
Cause you have to agree to the release and sharing of your medical information as a condition for the insurance quotation and coverage.
You have to sign a application/contract/waiver to get insurance. That's how they get away with it. I only found this out from asking good questions from our insurance agent she did not volunteer it. Its very discriminatory in that they can only get away with it when you are privately insured. Let me state I live in CO. Maybe it is different in say Massachusetts, Vermont, or Minnesota which are more social program friendly from my understanding.
Oh, of course. Seems to me that's a large portion of the problem right there. It should just be illegal to require medical history. I suppose initially that would make it more expensive, but it would have huge efficiency benefits. Just think of all the paperwork that would be completely eliminated. Could make the price go down in the long run.
Insurance is not the solution, it's the problem. Most of society hold sthe belief that insurance is a buffer between costs and what you pay which results in lower out-of-pocket expenses as a result. However, the truth is everyone with insurance pays MORE, not less. Insurance also is an incentive for medical providers to charge more for two reasons: 1 - Private insurance funded patients provide a stream of guaranteed money to the medical provider. Why charge less when charging more means more profit without risk of losing business? 2 - Public insurance does a poor job at compensating medical providers, therefore medical providers muct charge more to everyone else to compensate - or so they say. Insurance is not the solution to our medical woes. Outlawing medical insurance is the real solution - or at least part of the solution. The other parts of the solution are to reduce the cost of higher education and tort reform.
Government is not going to do a better job in keeping me healthy. Social security is going to get steam-rolled after the next election just an example of how they did a great job managing your pension. Some mandates are in order to avoid excessive profiteering by insurance companies for sure. That goes hand in hand with tort reform to avoid defensive medicine which is very costly. Entitlement programs are expensive. Switzerland has a good system. If everybody is required to own insurance then the risk pool is larger lowering rates for most people and ensuring basic necessary care for all.
Private insurance: People with pre-existing conditions get a risk surcharge which can be quite tough. They can even deny access to private insurance completely for some people. "Public" insurance (it's not run by the government, only regulated): They have to accept everybody. Some major problem is certainly that many people do not really understand the nature of medical conditions, how modern treatment works and what it costs. That is ok. Not everybody has to understand every field of human activities and knowledge. But then people should be protected from making decisions that can ruin them. There are some probably pretty young people discussing in this thread that feel like being immortal and who cannot imagine getting sick (I do recall feeling like this several years ago). When your body feels strong and healthy you cannot think of getting handicapped in some way. But unfortunately I also have seen many young people getting struck with some heavy disease from one moment to the other. They really deserve to be protected from then falling into financial disaster too.