Dr.Who
Well-Known Member
Insurance costs are very high. As are doctors bills and the cost of medicine.
And who do I blame? Well there are several causes. I know some of you will say that years ago there were hardly any treatments available compared to today it cost less. Comparing costs of yesteryear with costs of today would be like going into a Wal-mart in which there were mostly empty shelves. Why of course your cart would be mostly empty when you left and your resulting bill would be smaller compared to going into a fully stocked Wal-mart with a one-day sale on everything. Today we do have fully stocked health care shelves but we don't have a one-day sale.
What we have today, to continue the Wal-mart analogy, is a situation in which we can put whatever we want into our carts and never need to ask how much it even costs. Then our employer's chosen buying club pays the bill. All we have to do is pay the fee to join the buyers club. We don't get to decide who the buyers club is and we don't get to know how much the items in our cart cost until after we go home.
Now tell me what do you think would happen to the cost of goods at Wal-mart if they knew that you the consumer were never going to look at the price when you put stuff in your cart? What would happen to the size of your overall bill if you could put whatever you wanted into your cart when you wanted to and all you had to do was let you boss pay the bill? Obviously the price of the stuff would go up. Obviously the bill your boss pays would be high. And obviously he would just consider that to be a part of your wages and pay you less.
If you want to be a part of a collective of buyers clubs that your boss chooses for you it would be really easy to make that happen. Just ask congress to make sure that any money you take home in your paycheck is taxed and any money that your boss pays to the buyers club is untaxed. Voila!
So how do we get back to lower prices on health insurance and health services? First let everyone choose their own health insurance company. It is virtually criminal to create a system in which your boss makes those choices for you. Second let you work out for yourself how you want to deal with your health insurance company. Do you want a deductible and lower premiums or do you want no deductible and higher premiums? That is no one's business but your own. Do you want a co-pay and lower premiums? Again that is up to you. But people who have even small, $10, co-pays and small deductibles ask their doctor how much it costs for an exam or for a procedure. And people who get to shop around for their doctors choose good doctors who cost less than good doctors who cost more. This is just competition and it is a simple idea that has proven itself to work very well for a long time.
We got into this mess when congress made it so that health premiums, when paid by employers, were not taxed (pre-tax money).
The correct solution is the one that is being talked about now. If the employer buys your insurance for you (and takes away your choice) then call it what it is - compensation. And tax it like your other compensation is taxed. But at the same time don't tax you when you buy health insurance yourself and make the choice yourself.
When you consider every kind of health insurance that people buy today - including insurance that pays for every imaginable contingency, every cosmetic surgery, and gives one every perk, then the average costs of health insurance is about $12,000. But that is not realistic. The average cost of health insurance when it just pays for, well, normal health expenses, is $5800. And the current proposal would give everyone a credit of $5000. So the costs of expenses only needs to go down by $800 per year for the savings to be larger than what we are spending now.
And who do I blame? Well there are several causes. I know some of you will say that years ago there were hardly any treatments available compared to today it cost less. Comparing costs of yesteryear with costs of today would be like going into a Wal-mart in which there were mostly empty shelves. Why of course your cart would be mostly empty when you left and your resulting bill would be smaller compared to going into a fully stocked Wal-mart with a one-day sale on everything. Today we do have fully stocked health care shelves but we don't have a one-day sale.
What we have today, to continue the Wal-mart analogy, is a situation in which we can put whatever we want into our carts and never need to ask how much it even costs. Then our employer's chosen buying club pays the bill. All we have to do is pay the fee to join the buyers club. We don't get to decide who the buyers club is and we don't get to know how much the items in our cart cost until after we go home.
Now tell me what do you think would happen to the cost of goods at Wal-mart if they knew that you the consumer were never going to look at the price when you put stuff in your cart? What would happen to the size of your overall bill if you could put whatever you wanted into your cart when you wanted to and all you had to do was let you boss pay the bill? Obviously the price of the stuff would go up. Obviously the bill your boss pays would be high. And obviously he would just consider that to be a part of your wages and pay you less.
If you want to be a part of a collective of buyers clubs that your boss chooses for you it would be really easy to make that happen. Just ask congress to make sure that any money you take home in your paycheck is taxed and any money that your boss pays to the buyers club is untaxed. Voila!
So how do we get back to lower prices on health insurance and health services? First let everyone choose their own health insurance company. It is virtually criminal to create a system in which your boss makes those choices for you. Second let you work out for yourself how you want to deal with your health insurance company. Do you want a deductible and lower premiums or do you want no deductible and higher premiums? That is no one's business but your own. Do you want a co-pay and lower premiums? Again that is up to you. But people who have even small, $10, co-pays and small deductibles ask their doctor how much it costs for an exam or for a procedure. And people who get to shop around for their doctors choose good doctors who cost less than good doctors who cost more. This is just competition and it is a simple idea that has proven itself to work very well for a long time.
We got into this mess when congress made it so that health premiums, when paid by employers, were not taxed (pre-tax money).
The correct solution is the one that is being talked about now. If the employer buys your insurance for you (and takes away your choice) then call it what it is - compensation. And tax it like your other compensation is taxed. But at the same time don't tax you when you buy health insurance yourself and make the choice yourself.
When you consider every kind of health insurance that people buy today - including insurance that pays for every imaginable contingency, every cosmetic surgery, and gives one every perk, then the average costs of health insurance is about $12,000. But that is not realistic. The average cost of health insurance when it just pays for, well, normal health expenses, is $5800. And the current proposal would give everyone a credit of $5000. So the costs of expenses only needs to go down by $800 per year for the savings to be larger than what we are spending now.