Obama's Dead Souls

By letting them fail. All the capital held in that corporation goes first to fund the service Providers. The contracts for health coverage is sold to anyone that will buy them AND honor that obligation. What they pay the distressed company might be pennies on the dollar. That means the buying firm gets those revenue generation contracts at a price that will be profitable and the insured will get their service they signed up for.

The market works if failing companies are allowed to fail.

thinkstoomuch wrote:

PeterZ wrote:...snip...

It is this type of one size fits all balderdash that increases costs. Much better to let the states decide what requirements are for their residents. The feds should use their interstate commerce authority to enable selling insurance across state lines. Yes, individual states can set standards that their residents require. The states cannot prohibit out of state companies from selling policies that meet those requirements.

Snipped to just address this point.

As someone who remembers regionally limited banks and thinks this was a good thing, not too big to fail. If we allow them to sell across lines then how do we stop them from getting to big to fail.

This question has been bugging me for a long time. Much more intensely since this whole topic came up here. It may be related to how my antiquated understanding of how insurance companies work. Insurer takes the premium collected invests it to make more money than they are going to pay out.

Again thanks in advance,
T2M

By letting them fail. All the capital held in that corporation goes first to fund the service Providers. The contracts for health coverage is sold to anyone that will buy them AND honor that obligation. What they pay the distressed company might be pennies on the dollar. That means the buying firm gets those revenue generation contracts at a price that will be profitable and the insured will get their service they signed up for.

The market works if failing companies are allowed to fail.

The thing you have to be careful of here is an insurance company signing people up and paying out as long as no one gets anything extremely expensive but then when someone gets cancer, requires an organ transplant etc. filing for bankruptcy leaving the poor person without health insurance. In this case no one may want to take on the contracts for health coverage because the liability of paying for the very expensive care would outweigh the value of the companies assets. Some minor appropriate regulation (not the Obamacare Frankenstein) should be able to address the problem though.

Daryl wrote:We complain here about our health system, but the government provided base level is affordable, at 1.5% of taxable income for most people.
It covers nearly all that is listed plus more. It doesn't cover dental unless it is a medical dental problem that affects the body overall. Our medicines are about $30 a prescription, unless you are a pensioner when they are $5.90. Elective surgery has long waiting lists, an example is hip surgery that means waiting times of years to replace a painful eroded hip joint, but immediate surgery for a broken hip. I can't see why you'd restrict maternity cover to only women of childbearing age as nature has done that already.
Medicare generally doesn't cover cosmetic surgery for vanity reasons, and generally you don't have a choice of surgeon or venue for operations.

On top of that you can have various levels of private paid care. Our top level one for a couple costs $220 a month and covers everything.

You continue to argue by citing how wonderful the government healthcare in Australia is in support of Obamacare. This is what we are going to get.

WE are getting much higher premiums for the vast majority of us plus, (90 year old women are REQUIRED to buy a more expensive policy that covers maternity care), limits on the types of life saving care we can get (death panels) and significant regulation that will restrict access to private care outside the system.

Now we learn that Obama is so damn incompetent that he could not even get his website to work.

Republicans are not to blame for this mess. Republicans were not allowed to participate in drafting the legislation so it was purely Democrat. Most members of Congress were not even allowed an opportunity to read the volumes legislation before voting on it. As former Speaker Nancy Pelosi famously said, "we have to pass the legislation to find out what is in it."

The justification for this FUBAR seems to be that it always was a conspiracy to destroy our private health insurance system so that they can force the people to accept a single payer system. This is blatant fraud.

The whole point of insurance is that the insurer has big enough cash reserves to cover not only an individual's expensive medical care but any plausible group Of people needing such care simultaneously. To be effective, medical insurers need to have cash reserves measured in Billions of $$$$$. They do not need to have cash reserves worth hundreds of Billions of dollars which put them in the "too big to fail" category which IMHO Is to big to be permitted to exist. Such oversized insurance companies can be broken up if need be using existing antitrust laws that were used on Standard Oil. Of course this requires political leadership.

biochem wrote:

By letting them fail. All the capital held in that corporation goes first to fund the service Providers. The contracts for health coverage is sold to anyone that will buy them AND honor that obligation. What they pay the distressed company might be pennies on the dollar. That means the buying firm gets those revenue generation contracts at a price that will be profitable and the insured will get their service they signed up for.

The market works if failing companies are allowed to fail.

The thing you have to be careful of here is an insurance company signing people up and paying out as long as no one gets anything extremely expensive but then when someone gets cancer, requires an organ transplant etc. filing for bankruptcy leaving the poor person without health insurance. In this case no one may want to take on the contracts for health coverage because the liability of paying for the very expensive care would outweigh the value of the companies assets. Some minor appropriate regulation (not the Obamacare Frankenstein) should be able to address the problem though.

biochem wrote:

By letting them fail. All the capital held in that corporation goes first to fund the service Providers. The contracts for health coverage is sold to anyone that will buy them AND honor that obligation. What they pay the distressed company might be pennies on the dollar. That means the buying firm gets those revenue generation contracts at a price that will be profitable and the insured will get their service they signed up for.

The market works if failing companies are allowed to fail.

The thing you have to be careful of here is an insurance company signing people up and paying out as long as no one gets anything extremely expensive but then when someone gets cancer, requires an organ transplant etc. filing for bankruptcy leaving the poor person without health insurance. In this case no one may want to take on the contracts for health coverage because the liability of paying for the very expensive care would outweigh the value of the companies assets. Some minor appropriate regulation (not the Obamacare Frankenstein) should be able to address the problem though.

Totally agree. One might require bidding on the entire pool of customers; sick and healthy. Also requiring the insured go to the front of the line of creditors should mitigate the risk. So, assets are liquidated to fund treatment of the sick insured and would follow whoever wins the bid to buy the entire client pool. If the client pool is too large, perhaps breaking our proportional groups so that no one group is better or worse than the average.

These problems are easily solved with just a little forethought. The market can work if it is allowed to.

The statement "You continue to argue by citing how wonderful the government healthcare in Australia is in support of Obamacare. This is what we are going to get.", has two misconceptions. I, along with most of my fellow citizens, complain continually about our healthcare system; and I don't necessarily support Obamacare.
What I do say is that the national health systems in most developed countries are affordable, and while not perfect seem to be much better than the US has had to date. I confess I was ill researched in that I assumed Obamacare was a true national health service, however from what is written it appears to be a contracted out individually funded insurance mess, with all the blood sucking middle men still raking off profits. I know that the US right wouldn't stand for it but you appear to need a national consensus on cutting out the current system altogether, levying a separate TAX on incomes, then implementing a purely government safety net system. The industry can then offer deals on upgrades. Lots of successful national systems available to copy. Unfortunately you seem to distrust government too much to accept something that works well everywhere else.

Another recent poll posted over on the bar.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/165998/ameri ... erage.aspx

Seems most Americans would fit that affordable in their own view. The only time it gets to be an issue is when the politicians get involved. Then all the sudden it is broken. Ignoring the fact that the bigger something gets the more corruption there is going to be. Also the more big money will control things.

Classic example of media driven frenzy. Just like the frenzy for mental health care by all those activists. Wonderful, its broke "lets throw out the baby with the bathwater."

US has become a mob. Why do we need to let the Federal Government get involved. The more it gets involved the worse it gets. Once again look at the recent Virginia State Election results.

Sometimes better truly is the enemy of good enough.

T2M

Daryl wrote:The statement "You continue to argue by citing how wonderful the government healthcare in Australia is in support of Obamacare. This is what we are going to get.", has two misconceptions. I, along with most of my fellow citizens, complain continually about our healthcare system; and I don't necessarily support Obamacare.
What I do say is that the national health systems in most developed countries are affordable, and while not perfect seem to be much better than the US has had to date. I confess I was ill researched in that I assumed Obamacare was a true national health service, however from what is written it appears to be a contracted out individually funded insurance mess, with all the blood sucking middle men still raking off profits. I know that the US right wouldn't stand for it but you appear to need a national consensus on cutting out the current system altogether, levying a separate TAX on incomes, then implementing a purely government safety net system. The industry can then offer deals on upgrades. Lots of successful national systems available to copy. Unfortunately you seem to distrust government too much to accept something that works well everywhere else.

Daryl,

I really wish you would stop thinking the US is just like everywhere else. We aren't. Our government had been predicated on the individual or locality taking care of things himself/herself. Until quite recently that was simply the way things were. The individual/town/state took care of what needed doing and the Feds stood back and worried about very few things.

This emphasis on the feds doing more has some serious risk for the US that the rest of the world doesn't share. Because the feds have been seen as non essential by most people for most of our history, taking advantage/cheating those programs are not seen as an especially egregious antisocial activity. In many circles taking advantage of government programs is admired. This is true for the wealthy and for the less well off. The aggregate effect of having fat government budgets impacting a very large number of people is much like tossing bloody chum to a shark feeding frenzy. Here is an example.

http://www.naturalnews.com/042936_food_stamp_fraud_EBT_glitch_Walmart_raid.html#

Would Aussies do this? Would your government be so lax? I doubt it. Between such behavior of everyday Americans and the crony capitalist gorging on the larger programs (Solindra and investment bankers forex.), the bigger the government program the more intense the abuse.

That's the sort of difference in mind set that makes a strong central government ineffective in the US right now. Might we change in the future? Sure. Right now, we are not suited to have a powerful central authority controlling the distribution of a large part of our resources. That would be like tossing a bleeding elephant into the ocean teeming with sharks. Government simply can't act fast enough to offset American ingenuity. Too many Americans would see opportunities for enrichment and be overwhelmed with that temptation. Innovation and overcoming problems is an ubiquitous American trait after all. We will overcome the barriers government sets to prevent such abuse because we don't have enough of the social antibodies for us not to prey on those programs.

The option is for us to either become more like the rest of the world or reduce the central authority. The American Right would reduce the central authority. The American Left would turn us into statist Europe. If the Left succeeds, the US will have to be a very totalitarian state to keep our citizens from taking advantage of the government. A totalitarian US is not a pleasant thing to contemplate for its citizens nor for any other nation that is forced to deal with it.

Daryl wrote:snip
I know that the US right wouldn't stand for it but you appear to need a national consensus on cutting out the current system altogether, levying a separate TAX on incomes, then implementing a purely government safety net system. The industry can then offer deals on upgrades. Lots of successful national systems available to copy. Unfortunately you seem to distrust government too much to accept something that works well everywhere else.

PeterZ, I am sorry if I've given offence with my ignorance, but "I really wish you would stop thinking the US is just like everywhere else. We aren't. Our government had been predicated on the individual or locality taking care of things himself/herself. Until quite recently that was simply the way things were. The individual/town/state took care of what needed doing and the Feds stood back and worried about very few things." is a statement that I do agree with.
Over many years of work, international travel, and general social life I have noticed that Americans are generally different to the citizens of other countries, and I've been curious as to why. Stereotyping is dangerous and I agree that individuals come in all types, but societies generally have customs and mores unique to them.
A possible theory is that because you have not had the welfare nets, you have had to develop a more combative edge concentrating on building individual wealth for personal security.
When doing international business we undertook training in various customs so as not to give or take cultural offence, and the US ones were very much along the lines of count your fingers after handshaking, as we were warned of a take no prisoners approach.
An exaggerated example (altered to protect me) was
when we took delivery of new US sourced kit and noticed that essential components were missing. The response was "Check Clause 137 (c) where it says they are optional extras that you can only buy from us for an extra 50% of the bid price". Our protests that the kit wasn't up to spec was met with "So sue us, but expect a long fight as we have deep pockets, and it will embarrass your government department, and you personally".
Next major tender that came up I returned their bid unopened. Massive protest when I pointed out that we had the right to refuse to deal with unethical companies, and would do so in the future. "But that's just business, we all try to make as much profit as possible".
Other country's vendors look to the long deal, not the quick killing. Cost them many millions and they failed to get me sacked, or the decision overturned.
Next really big fleet upgrade we went Eurocopter.

No offense taken, Daryl.

There are indeed many people here who are very short sighted in similar ways as you describe. Trying to squeeze each dollar out of the first transaction rather than investing in all the future transactions. These sorts of people also hold public office either through elections or appointment. The bigger the pool of wealth to be gained the more likely those sorts of folk will be sniffing about.

The truly fortunate flip side to those greedy SOBs is the American view of charity. We as a whole view helping those in need as a personal responsibility not a public one. As you likely know individual Americans give more to world wide charities than the private citizens of any other nation. I believe the two seemingly contradictory characteristics are born from the same view of personal responsibility. That individuals are responsible to watch his or her back or read the contract and that individuals are equally responsible to take care of those in need.

Delegating those responsibilities is risky at best. So no, Americans don't trust government. Many might trust those they agree with to run government, but they do not trust in the idea of government. If the world were wise, you guys wouldn't want an America with a powerful central government. Well more powerful central government. Such a thing would be an awful neighbor to share the planet with. We are bad enough as it is.