Howzit Brose, First off at least Hi has mandatory health insurance for those who meet the requirments and whose employers abide by these state rules. Second, all the money spent on the Iraq war would probably fund a national health insurace program. Third, there is medicaid for those who meet their requirments. The thing that used to get me was the only time I got hurt was when I had insurance. Aloha,Kokua
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Universal healthcare is the way to go … employers are required to provide health insurance, and if they don’t, the employer is required to pay a penalty to the state for this.
I am not a fan of the government running businesses and industry. We should be fighting to limit the powers of government (like our forefathers) not fighting to give them more power.
I also don’t think that the health care burden should be placed on small businesses (the lifeblood of the economy) by forcing them to insure their employees. Do we force businesses to pay for their employees food or housing?
What should be done is insurance companies should not be able to discriminate and refuse coverage based on pre-existing conditions.
The government regulation and intervention/control should be insofar as to putting guidelines on how the insurance plans/contracts are drawn up.
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LeeV: premiums for 50 people is not the same as premiums for 5000 people. The folks on Swaylocks, or Surfrider, or whatever surfer/shaper organization that develops will have that block of people to support their negotiations. I know of other trade organizations that do this very thing, offer reduced rate health care to their members. They don’t ask members to pay all the annual premiums up front, just their monthly dues - as Benny1 noted: $100-$200/mo.
That’s true…but the group still has to finance the deadbeats. That’s probably not a problem in the surf industry…
Some companies do have health insurance for their employees.
But I’m with John, the solution is for the USA to join the rest of the advanced societies
and have universal care. Hard to do now with our entrenched drug company/insurance
company/lawyer/care provider cartel.
LeeV: actually, no. It’s pay as you go. You join the organization and pay your dues. If you decide to take the health care insurance, you get the reduced group rate and pay the reduced premium. If you don’t pay your premium, then your coverage ends. You’re still part of the organization, you just don’t have health insurance. You benefit because you can get a group rate (rather than the individual $800/mo rate I was paying) and the health care provider benefits because there are potentially 5000 customers to serve.
MikeDaniel: it was hard to get a black man to be elected Presidential nominee too. Universal health care, might happen…
Gentlemen… It isn’t about how much tax money the government extorts from us, it’s about how they spend it. There is more than enough in the kitty now if they set different priorities. I could go waaay off topic on that one but…
There are more than 2 pharmaceutical lobbyists for every 1 member of Congress. The pharmaceutical industry spends more than any other industry on its lobbying efforts. ($758 million since 1998 as of 2005)
This does not begin to address the issue of insurance lobbyists and the AMA which happens to be the third most well funded lobby group in the country. Hundreds of medical groups have a lobbying presence in Washington. The AMA spent about $17 million in 2000, the latest year for which figures are available.
Bottom line is that until there is universal health insurance, our standard of care (or lack of) will be dictated by the above mentioned groups.
It is well documented that the uninsured typically end up costing the tax payers more than they should because they eventually do end up in emergency rooms with critical illnesses that might have been addressed in the chronic or acute phase if the patients had better access to health care.
We pay either way. In this case, it’s a very simple matter of when and how much we pay…
Good post, John.
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Sounds great but it won’t work. Here’s why
Interesting to read so many different takes on the subject. Many good points. And certainly there are many different aspects involved. But virtually all “health care plans” politicians espouse have no universal access. That does not exist in the U.S. today. No insurance company has any mandate that they have to sell a policy to any and everyone. They can deny you outright or they can create an obviously unacceptable charge, but they have the right to deny anybody. Yet they make fortunes with policies for businesses that have to accept all plus their dependents.
1987-1991 I paid up to $115 a month for catastrophic care coverage, at that time $2500 deductable. As near as I can tell today it will cost my wife and I between $800-1500 a month for regular insurance through COBRA should she leave her position, and quite possibly the latter figure once COBRA runs out…or maybe twice that latter figure.
By the way, it is a myth that today anybody can go to an emergency room or hospital and get a lot of care and walk away scott free…unless they gave false information or go on the run. Collections agencies! They will come for you. Bankruptcy isn’t easy any more.
My original thought was that the big surf industry corporations provide some kind of insurance to their own employees. I doubt Quiksilver is self-insured, but I could be wrong. If somebody at a high level is already dealing with this issue on a daily basis, and there was corporate interest in making something happen, it seems like there would be a pretty good market of core surfers of all ages who might be interested.
Or maybe just pay for an effective study to see if such a thing could be created…or create it and spin it off. The issue is more about access to buy it than cost…I’d put it at 60/40 access/cost. An overweight, cigar-smoking golf playing martini drinking steak eating predatory lender will pay less for an individual policy than the most enlightened glasser, if you get my drift…
Jeez…we have everybody else around Swaylock’s…no insurance agents? OOOhhh…another idea there…!
Everyone think differently.
When I in university,
basic health care, a doctor with a prescription pad
was part of university fees.
This is the general level of care that should be available to all from the govt.
This will get the illegals out of the emergency rooms and hospitals for
what should be basic care that has been exacerbated by neglect and the
perception that doctors are expensive. Most urgent care facilities charge
$60-$100 for a basic visit(you have a cold,flu, infection and need a prescription)
which is considerable less than most car repairs.
Beyond that pay as you go, or catastrophic health insurance must be
part of the equation. The worker must carry his part of the burden
to limit costs in healthcare. The state must be limited from rationing healthcare
and giving political favors and extra benefits to the politically connected.
The great leader must be restrained from imposing national comprehensive
health care which is nothing less than rationing and delay.
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Quote:you can if the sentence has the phrase “through your employer” at the end of it.
“through your employer” means nothing more than having access to a “pool”…having a large enough pool of people makes it profitable to insure even people with pre-existing conditions.
This whole issue in the U.S. is easily fixed, but sadly we have no real leaders on the national political stage. Surfers tend to have fairly unstable work histories. If somebody within the surf community or at least related to it or aware of it, who has the knowledge to do so, stepped up with some kind of plan to create a pool or PPO with national scope…well, let’s just say the insurers today aren’t losing any money.
What could be better than making a lot of money doing good for the world? Or even make a little money… There are quite a few people who’ve made huge fortunes off surfing in the past 20 years, who at least can move in the circles with people who could guide something like this to fruition.
It can be done. The convincing is the issue. Workers Comp can provide some exellent coverage for the shaper or industry craftsman that is making a living. In Florida…it covers 80% of work related injuries, 66 1/4 % of loss of income and a 100,000 death benefit. Guess…I suspect a premium on a single shaper would be about $1500 to $2500 a year. Any group of shapers can form a corporation and get group rates from insurance companies. The larger the group the better the rates.
Ok…what if we set up a group insurance policy, say 200 million people. We’ll call the group…The United States of America. How much would the premiums be?
“What should be done is insurance companies should not be able to discriminate and refuse coverage based on pre-existing conditions.”
Hey OB,
But insurance is based on probabilities and forcing coverage defies their business model–it’s no longer insurance but subsidy. I suppose one could argue that if they want to stay in business then they deal with that but I’m not sure that’s the best solution. Insurance companies actually have very thin margins. The main problem as I see it is that insured people have no idea how much their health care costs and so there is no price competition for services.
I was a carpenter for several years and there are construction consortiums that independent builders can join and gain access to a network of health care providers. There are other benefits, like a web site and library and such too. I think boardbuilders could create something based on this model (not a union, a consortium!). It would also be cool to see a swaylocks surf shop but I don’t know if that’s nearly as important.
Great topic Nels. People suffer terribly because of the state of health care in this country. C
The problem is that people want to be insured against every little thing, when insurance functions most efficiently for worst-case scenarios. Covered services appear to be free and thus get overused, inefficiently. Ooh, I have a paint scratch on my car door, call the insurance guy and make a claim. Of course they are not free, they just get passed along as higher rates. Ooh, I have a hangnail and need an aspirin, can’t pay for it myself. If only the government would make sure I had medical insurance! Imagine if everyone in the USA figured their medical care was cost-free (due to tax-funded insurance coverage).
Gotta wonder, what would Thomas Jefferson think of the federal government mandating health insurance??
Scariest 9 words in the English language? “We’re from the government and we’re here to help.”
Keith , I nominate you to be Great Leader.
I wasn’t advocating that Big Brother step in. Rather, wouldn’t a private (Kaiser, Blue Cross, etc.) group insurance policy covering 200 million people end up being way less than a $1,000/year per person? Jeeze, everyone could afford that!
I’ve never really understood why in the hell health insurance is supposed to be paid by the employer anyway…some evil mutation of the collective bargaining crap in the 30’s I guess.
Thanks - but if nominated, I refuse to run. Remember, politics is just show business for ugly people.
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Gentlemen… It isn’t about how much tax money the government extorts from us, it’s about how they spend it. There is more than enough in the kitty now if they set different priorities. I could go waaay off topic on that one but…
There are more than 2 pharmaceutical lobbyists for every 1 member of Congress. The pharmaceutical industry spends more than any other industry on its lobbying efforts. ($758 million since 1998 as of 2005)
This does not begin to address the issue of insurance lobbyists and the AMA which happens to be the third most well funded lobby group in the country. Hundreds of medical groups have a lobbying presence in Washington. The AMA spent about $17 million in 2000, the latest year for which figures are available.
Bottom line is that until there is universal health insurance, our standard of care (or lack of) will be dictated by the above mentioned groups.
It is well documented that the uninsured typically end up costing the tax payers more than they should because they eventually do end up in emergency rooms with critical illnesses that might have been addressed in the chronic or acute phase if the patients had better access to health care.
We pay either way. In this case, it’s a very simple matter of when and how much we pay…
But we all know that the government is not very efficient a spending money. There is no financial accountability, they can just go use more tax money.
Also, it is not like the lobbyists are going to go away if the government takes control of the system. IMHO, the number of lobbyists is a direct function of how much money (tax money) the government has to spend. The more money the government has to spend the more people there will be there trying to get them to spend in in their interest.
If you want to get rid of the lobbyists get rid of the Income Tax.
It can be done. The convincing is the issue. Workers Comp can provide some exellent coverage for the shaper or industry craftsman that is making a living. In Florida…it covers 80% of work related injuries, 66 1/4 % of loss of income and a 100,000 death benefit. Guess…I suspect a premium on a single shaper would be about $1500 to $2500 a year. Any group of shapers can form a corporation and get group rates from insurance companies. The larger the group the better the rates.
http://www.craftsreport.com/resources/insurance.html#ga
Insurance Resources for Craftspeople
These listings have been compiled to provide practical information to craftspeople seeking to explore their options for insurance coverage. These listings do not include every insurance resource
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“What should be done is insurance companies should not be able to discriminate and refuse coverage based on pre-existing conditions.”
Hey OB,
But insurance is based on probabilities and forcing coverage defies their business model–it’s no longer insurance but subsidy. I suppose one could argue that if they want to stay in business then they deal with that but I’m not sure that’s the best solution. Insurance companies actually have very thin margins. The main problem as I see it is that insured people have no idea how much their health care costs and so there is no price competition for services.
It is still insurance if they are forced to not discriminate. It is so because there will still be healthy people like you and me who are paying the premium every month (just in case) and who barely use the service.
I don’t think that people should be forced to have health insurance (although I think they all should), but if people want it they should not be disqualified, or priced out of the market of they have some sort of problem.
Why are insurance companies allowed to discriminate against disabled (or sick) people while other businesses are not?
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Rather, wouldn’t a private (Kaiser, Blue Cross, etc.) group insurance policy covering 200 million people end up being way less than a $1,000/year per person? Jeeze, everyone could afford that!
This is close to the way I think on the subject “if I could have my way”. Picking numbers out of the blue, I thought maybe $3000 per adult and $1500 per kid per year AS NEEDED would be a reasonable target. By totally eliminating the ability of an insurer to refuse to write coverage, people would be free to drop in or out as job and life changes occur. If a person is covered during college, drop out. Buy back in for a quarter to cover summer vacation if felt necessary, or plan on covering out of pocket.
I picked my semi-random numbers thinking about how much somebody could earn working a part time second job. Say you (working family guy) have a typical corporate stinker of a job and want to, I don’t know, go back to building boards. Right now in the U.S. that’s a potential death sentence for your family. Nobody can afford to pay cash for health care forever and maintain the same level of services the company insured get. But if you knew you would have to come up with say $8,000-$9,000 a year but were certain to be able to buy insurance, then you can effectively plan and budget. You would need the main job to make the money for everything else, but you would know you wouldn’t be in danger of losing it all if somebody got sick or in an accident.
I don’t know about the rest of you, but my dream three months overseas trip means interuption of health insurance unless I pre-plan on the money to cover interim coverage…and that’s more than the trip used to be. Let your insurance lapse now, go to Indo for 3 months, and come back with malaria or some exotic fungus and you will never get an individual health insurance policy in the U.S.
Look to the vagabond work histories of most people in board building and you see kind of a road map for the future work habits of everybody. Jobs don’t last; employers don’t last. And sometimes you just want a change of diet.
Several people have written about the effects of some heavy users of a program costing the majority who don’t make many claims. Remember this is the way it works now with employer provided care. I don’t believe the profit margins are thin for the corporations, not from the best of my knowledge. I do believe the solid companies invest the money they get to grow it and cover annual expenses. It isn’t like a giant “health care savings account”, a horrid idea.
The trick is to get enough people in the pool to keep it liquid and profitable. And remember, just because you may not be using it much now, things have a way of changing as time goes by.