Health care is a big problem. Our health insurance rate for a family of 3 has just gone up to over $700.00 a month. That's $8400 per year. Our premium has increased about $100 per month annually for the last 4 years. This is out of control. Where is this money going? Our only major claims in that time frame were a hernia repair and a lung biopsy, both outpatient procedures.

I'd like to hear from others regarding their health insurance status. I do believe this will be a major issue in the 08 election provided we do not get a terrorist hit again.

My view about insurance is out of the mainstream. I have always thought that buying insurance is synonymous betting that you will lose. If taking that same amount of money and making your own investments allowing the interst to accrue, you would more often than not end up a healthier wealthier family. This of course requires will power, to actually put upon yourself, to take that money out of your budget (but not out of your life) and invest it in your family. With life insurance in particular the only way to win is to die early. That's not really a win to me.

Are you not talking Social Security here? But I digress. Many moons ago when we were paying 2 or 3 hundred a month it was worth it. I had an emegency appendectomy in 1986. Total bill on that was $9000 with a 36 hour hospital stay. Today that same event would cost $20,000. Same gut, same scalple and same useless appendage. Where is that extra money going?

No, , that's more money that you could better use yourself. But I can see why you may think so.

Litigation, bureaucracy and higher profits because the insurance companies can afford it with all the money they get from participants.

But your $700 per month at only 5%PA compounded monthly is $8,631.01 the first year. In just 60 months (5 years) that works out to $47,802.60. What are the odds that you will get that sick.

And here's 10, 15, 20, 25, and 30 years repsectively.
$109,150.50
$187,881.85
$288,922.42
$418,593.70
$585,008.47

With no increase in premiums.

And if you still aren't dead.... after a full 30 years...

The great part is, you get to leave your kids what you don't use. This is only for those who are willing to gamble that their medical bills will be less than that.

My math may be a little off but not much.

Last year I had a three day hospital stay.
No surgery, one sophisticated nuke medicine test.
It turned out to be a case of heartburn.
Total cost: 45,000 dollars.
Cost me 1,500 out of pocket.
I wasn't even really sick.
Imagine what can happen if you become really sick in the US.
It is sickening.
I personally think the American people are idiots for letting this situation get to the point it is now and they will not fix it.
There is an insidious CALVINIST mean streak in American culture, if you are old, sick, or not wildly wealthy, it is your OWN ###### FAULT, so go ahead and go broke and die, you loser!

IMHO, its a combination of a number of things. The main culprits as I see it at the moment are:

Insurance conpanies raking in profits. 9/11 saw insurance premiums raised in every catagory. Are terrorists going to come and wreck my car? Why did my auto ins. go up?
Solution: good question - but there ought to be *some* sort of standard / transparancy in the calculations of insurance companies to keep this kind of thing from happening. This indicates that maybe the ins. cmopanies aer not operating in a completely fair and competitive market...

Costly litigation While insurance rates don't need to be that high (again, I suspect price fixing to some degree) , there are some really rediculous suits that come up, and there are a few "bad apple" doctors who keep getting sued.

***Of course, I would not want to go to a hospital without safeguards. (for example- my wife had to have an emergency C-section and the Dr. butchered her. *I* could have stitched her up much better. >.< I can't do anything about it out here.(went to a 'good' hospital, too)) ***

Anyway, I c't remember them not, but a small percentage of Doctors have a large percentage of lawsuits. Take away their licenses and ou have a much more efficient system, badabing. No need to give up anything other than some quacks.


Speaking of price fixing ... how about the cost of prescription drugs and such? They really are much cheaper all around in Canada (of all places! for those paleocons) While i STRONGLY suspect some nefarious backroom dealing (Bush's prescription drug plan is an outrage, although Bush is by no means the only politician guilty of catering to the drug companies) I suspect the attitude of "insurace will take care of it, so we can charge whatever we want" goes a lot farther in producing waste. (call me a liberal for saying that )

84.7 percent of Americans have Health Insurance, that does not account for the large amount of Americans that recieve heathcare but choose not to purchase it.

There are shockingly high immigration rates of skilled laborers, particuarly doctors, from Europe and Canada to the US.

It is known that there are large amounts of Wealthy Southern Canadians who reguarly sneak across the border to seek their healthcare in the USA

Nearly every major pharmaceutical and medical breakthrough in the world since WW2 has been made in the USA.

There is no case for introducing Collectivized Healthcare in the US.

Moving on, maybe TQ should pause to consider exactly WHAT drives up US healthcare prices before immediately leaping to socialism.

Tort reform, anyone?

Interestingly enough though I do believe we should be able to buy drugs from Canada. There is no case for the US government to hinder the free market and introduce economically protectionist policies so that the pharmaceutical corporations in the US can stay as rich as they are now.

Phil, apparently you did not see my thread on the subject of Health Savings Accounts. It is something that is going to filter into all parts of the economy. At the present time, it is being spearheaded by small businesses, but will eventually be everywhere.

And in response to TQ's $45,000 bill, I suppose that he believes that if the government pays it it will miraculously appear out of thin air? I can live in another universe also, but that still does not solve the problem by pushing things on to anogther, more inefficient and cumberson, system.

Yes John, I went back and reread it. Looks like the way to go for now. But what happens when the premiums on these high deductable policies become burdensome? The system, I fear, is broke. I will agree with those that affix some of the blame on an out of control legal system that drives up the cost of malpractice insurance and in doing so has other costly consequences.

.......

Study: Malpractice Worries Hurt Health Care
Tuesday, May 31, 2005

CHICAGO — Fear of getting sued leads an alarming number of doctors to practice “defensive medicine,” such as ordering unnecessary tests and avoiding risky procedures, a survey found.

The practice has been around for decades, and is no secret to many patients. But the survey of 824 Pennsylvania doctors suggests it is surprisingly common, researchers said.

A separate study found that caps on malpractice (search) damages and other changes in liability law appear to have less effect on the nation's supply of doctors than ardent supporters of tort reform (search) contend.

The studies were published in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association (search).

Ninety-three percent of the Pennsylvania doctors surveyed in 2003 said they sometimes or often practiced "defensive medicine" because of malpractice concerns.

That means they engaged in unsound practices that exposed patients to potential harm, said Dr. Peter Budetti, a physician-lawyer and public health professor at University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center. He called the numbers staggering.

"Perhaps the greatest irony is that defensive medicine may be counterproductive and actually might increase malpractice risk," said Budetti, who wrote an accompanying editorial.


Examples include performing breast biopsies in women with lumps unlikely to be cancer, hospitalizing low-risk patients with chest pain, and eliminating high-risk procedures or abandoning the practice of medicine altogether.

The prevalence of "defensive medicine" is surprising and troubling, said Dr. William Sage, a Columbia University law professor and co-author of both studies. Sage said the practice is probably widespread, especially in states "with unstable malpractice environments."

The other study found that the supply of doctors increased throughout the nation from 1985 to 2001, even in states with no malpractice reform laws. Government data show there were 497,140 professionally active doctors, excluding osteopaths, in 1985, and 709,168 in 2001.

Compared with no-reform states, the supply increased about 3 percent more in states with reforms such as malpractice award caps, the analysis found. That small increase runs counter to arguments from "some of the most rabid tort reformers," who predict "a flood of wonderful doctors just because we capped damages," Sage said.

The supply study also found little evidence that doctors are leaving one state for another with a more favorable liability climate. That, too, contradicts what some advocates of tort reform have been saying.

Both studies suggest a need for comprehensive malpractice reforms rather than just capping damage awards or other piecemeal approaches, Sage said.

The Pennsylvania survey was done shortly after several liability insurers had left the state and premiums charged by the remaining insurers had risen dramatically.

The survey was completed by 65 percent of the doctors it was mailed to, all physicians in specialties at high risk of lawsuits, including obstetrics and general surgery.

But even if the 35 percent who did not respond said they never practiced defensive medicine, the numbers who did would still be alarming, said Budetti, who was not involved in either study.

Both studies were funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts.

Link

Boh Bpen Yang, in an ideal situation your model would work quite well. However people do get sick and some, catastrophically so. That 600K would not last long in many possible circumstances.

Interesting and insigfhtful debates on a tough real life problem for many people all over the world.

As I like to see things as if the cup is half full instead of half empty.

I would add, as bad as it is, in the infinite wisdom of a higher karma and or our ancestors luckful forsight that has put most of all here in countries where we have health care and where, though it is expensive indeed, we make more than a $100 a year and live where out fate of good health and a long life is and can be strongly influenced by where we are even with all its inefficenies and costliness.

Healthcare costs:

http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/conte...thaff.w5.74/DC1

I. International comparison

These developments in medicine have been worldwide. By their very nature, scientific advances know no geographical boundaries. Data on spending are readily available for 29 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries. In every one, medical spending has gone up both in inflation-adjusted dollars per person and as a fraction of national income.

Data are available for both 1960 and 1997 for 21 countries. In 13, spending more than doubled as a fraction of gross domestic product. The smallest increase was 67 percent, the largest, 378 percent.

In 1997, 16 of the 29 OECD countries spent between 7 percent and 9 percent of gross domestic product on medical care. The United States spent 14 percent, the highest of any OECD country. Germany was a distant second at 11 percent; Turkey was the lowest at 4 percent.

A key difference between medical care and the other technological revolutions is the role of government. In other technological revolutions, the initiative, financing, production, and distribution were primarily private, though government sometimes played a supporting or regulatory role. In medical care, government has come to play a leading role in financing, producing, and delivering medical service.

Direct government spending on health exceeds 75 percent of total health spending for 15 OECD countries. The United States is next to the lowest of the 29 countries, at 46 percent. In addition, some governments indirectly subsidize medical care through favorable tax treatment. For the United States, such subsidization raises the fraction of health spending financed directly or indirectly by government to over 50 percent.

http://www.thepublicinterest.com/archives/...r/article1.html

Today, as the fist link shows te numbers have changed but the general trending status back to 1997 for al th countries is very similar.

European and Japanese state paid for health care and pension issues are as big if not bigger issue for the coming generations of large number baby boomers like we share with them in the USA.


http://www.pnrec.org/2001papers/DaigneaultLajoie.pdf

a 1998 International comparison.

http://www.journal.au.edu/ijcim/2004/sep04...n1_article8.pdf

That is all!

Lots come to Thailand, too.

And maybe there is a keyword that you are missing ... wealthy. Where do not-so-wealthy Americans go? -Walmart to buy bandaids and tylenol. (Or the loan officer)

Not only that, but young people get sick, too. Albeit not as often