Comments on: The Health Care Industry vs. Health Reform http://mountainsageblog.com/2009/07/02/the-health-care-industry-vs-health-reform/ Political News, Opinion and Discussion Wed, 17 Mar 2010 02:58:57 -0400 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: skyagunsta http://mountainsageblog.com/2009/07/02/the-health-care-industry-vs-health-reform/comment-page-1/#comment-24485 skyagunsta Fri, 03 Jul 2009 09:52:24 +0000 http://mountainsageblog.com/?p=4652#comment-24485 The evening news had a snippet of Obama's town hall meeting yesterday in Virginia where, a woman who was formerly employed, is now suffering from a 9th occurrence of a cancerous tumor, has no employment, therefore no healthcare, and therefore, no way to pay for her health care .... Obama's answer was to say, "come here [whatever the name of the woman was] and give her a hug. Please! the woman might need a hug, but that is not going to give her healthcare. She needs a President who will buck the system and who will say, "healthcare, like medicare, an entitlement for all." That was Hillary's way. It needs to become Obama's way. The evening news had a snippet of Obama’s town hall meeting yesterday in Virginia where, a woman who was formerly employed, is now suffering from a 9th occurrence of a cancerous tumor, has no employment, therefore no healthcare, and therefore, no way to pay for her health care …. Obama’s answer was to say, “come here [whatever the name of the woman was] and give her a hug. Please! the woman might need a hug, but that is not going to give her healthcare. She needs a President who will buck the system and who will say, “healthcare, like medicare, an entitlement for all.” That was Hillary’s way. It needs to become Obama’s way.

]]> By: William Chirolas http://mountainsageblog.com/2009/07/02/the-health-care-industry-vs-health-reform/comment-page-1/#comment-24483 William Chirolas Fri, 03 Jul 2009 03:56:18 +0000 http://mountainsageblog.com/?p=4652#comment-24483 I normally post as "papau" so my ID still required at least a minimal effort to find (all the bio details are posted under "papau" but it takes a small search - "papau" is just the Greek word for grandfather). When I saw Mr. Potter posting I decided to directly support his comments under my actual name. Health insurance via the casualty companies is only a slightly worse situation than my world of health insurance - including "long term care" - as administered by the life insurance companies. On the life insurer side we had the same 65% of premium not going to benefits on some policy forms situation, with only group health insurance for massively large companies getting reasonable percentage of premium payouts - with the smarter large companies dropping the "insurance" concept and cost altogether and just getting actuarial support and claims administration. But the attitude on the life side was to never hide what was going on. When I first saw the casualty insurance lobbyists at work, I was horrified. How could these people spread so much partial truth in a way that was in the end a telling of a lie? How could they pretend there was "innovation" in anything coming from the health insurance industry. My first job was working with Ed Bartleson and Jim Olsen adding a few items to the amazing accomplishment that was their paper on "Reserves for Individual Hospital and Surgical Expense Insurance", a paper that put on solid footing a new industry and ended the need for massive "claim variation" margins in premiums that was the standard causality approach. Over the next 40 years adjustments for new benefits - new medical procedures - was the only "innovation" I ever saw. State politics made scarce premium dollars available to "alternative medicine" and chiropractors - the latter a profession based on a theory known to be nonsense (although the hands on emphasis of the chiropractor did do one "good" in forcing MD's to stop the "minimize patient contact" attitude that had built up over the years). There is no "innovation" coming from the health insurance industry - there is only new ways to tie everyone to just one insurer. Indeed in most states health insurance is a shared monopoly for less than a handful of companies, with it not unheard of to have one company having more than half the coverage in a state. I look forward to Mr. Potter's future articles. I normally post as “papau” so my ID still required at least a minimal effort to find (all the bio details are posted under “papau” but it takes a small search – “papau” is just the Greek word for grandfather). When I saw Mr. Potter posting I decided to directly support his comments under my actual name.

Health insurance via the casualty companies is only a slightly worse situation than my world of health insurance – including “long term care” – as administered by the life insurance companies. On the life insurer side we had the same 65% of premium not going to benefits on some policy forms situation, with only group health insurance for massively large companies getting reasonable percentage of premium payouts – with the smarter large companies dropping the “insurance” concept and cost altogether and just getting actuarial support and claims administration. But the attitude on the life side was to never hide what was going on.

When I first saw the casualty insurance lobbyists at work, I was horrified. How could these people spread so much partial truth in a way that was in the end a telling of a lie? How could they pretend there was “innovation” in anything coming from the health insurance industry. My first job was working with Ed Bartleson and Jim Olsen adding a few items to the amazing accomplishment that was their paper on “Reserves for Individual Hospital and Surgical Expense Insurance”, a paper that put on solid footing a new industry and ended the need for massive “claim variation” margins in premiums that was the standard causality approach. Over the next 40 years adjustments for new benefits – new medical procedures – was the only “innovation” I ever saw. State politics made scarce premium dollars available to “alternative medicine” and chiropractors – the latter a profession based on a theory known to be nonsense (although the hands on emphasis of the chiropractor did do one “good” in forcing MD’s to stop the “minimize patient contact” attitude that had built up over the years).

There is no “innovation” coming from the health insurance industry – there is only new ways to tie everyone to just one insurer. Indeed in most states health insurance is a shared monopoly for less than a handful of companies, with it not unheard of to have one company having more than half the coverage in a state.

I look forward to Mr. Potter’s future articles.

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