re: Holy shite, just went to enroll in health benefits - UPDATED

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it should be called pre-paid healthcare, because thats what it is.

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If you make a claim on your car insurance, the body shop doesn't send a bill for $17,000 which is "contracted" down to $3,000. There is no "network" of body shops that you are required to use. You don't have to go to a general body shop to get "referred" to a specialist body shop that specializes in window replacements.

What we call "health insurance" is basically a pre-paid plan like you said, or what I refer to it is, a discount savings card.

The goal should have been, all along, access to affordable health care. Insurance is simply a complexity to that.

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The goal should have been, all along, access to affordable health care. Insurance is simply a complexity to that.

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The issue is not insurance right now, the issue is hospitals allowing free care and being able to write it off. Emergency rooms are the major culprit. I don't know the right answer, but hospitals have absolutely no set rates. They allow a large portion of our country to receive care without having to pay for it basically at all.

There are tons of people who wait to go to the emergency rooms on the weekends and at night because they receive free care instead of having to pay to see a doctor during normal hours. Its absurd.

Many of the best doctors are leaving public care. Its already started for the best to no longer except Medicaid/ Medicare and start charging yearly fees of $1000 or more to private pay/ private insurance patients. They cut their patients by 1/3 to 2/3s but only see patients that actually pay, work fewer hours, and often times make just as much money. This is how its been in Canada and much of Europe for years, the model has been around for ages. Obama and Co just don't care because it doesn't support their agenda. Those who can afford it, will always find ways to get the care they want to pay for.

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You haven't clarified exactly "WHAT" rates are going up that level. Is it the total premium, or the employee share.

You found out about this because you are in open enrollment. To get to that point, the agent had to get the renewal quote, possibly shop it, present it to the company. Company officials had to sign off on the quote, decide how much they want to contribute to the plan. Then, the renewal paperwork had to be drawn up, and communicated.

To say it's a surprise at this level is BS. Given what other companies are doing and the economy in general, I'll still sticking to my prediction that the massive cost-share increase is due to the fact that the company isn't contributing additional money this year (or maybe even cut back from what they gave last year).

The only "surprise" here is that the company wasn't upfront about how this was going to work, and now they are getting blowback.

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I started to type a post saying all of this....no way HR didn't know what the rates were before OE. It just doesn't happen that way. Now are they doing it to save face because they decided not to take on any burden from price increases....probably.

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It had to be that way if you force "insurance" to cover preexisting conditions. That requirement right there eliminated the existence of health insurance.

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First, as mentioned earlier, health insurance is sold as group policies to pool risk. The sharing of risk still exists ergo still insurance


More to the point, the future medical expenses for someone with cancer/diabetes/etc are unknown, you can hypothetically insure the volatility in expense amounts.

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One principle of insurance is there must be 100% risk with no possibility of gain.

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Technically speaking, any proper insurance contract provides an expected economic utility "gain" for insured/insurer

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The only aspect of health insurance that is similar to other lines is insuring against a catastrophic event.

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Considering end of life care (last 6 months of life) accounts for over 50% of all health care expenses according to recent studies, this is where almost all of your premiums are going.



Just to be 100% clear, you can insure anything that has an unknown future financial outcome/risk. You can technically insure future cancer claim costs for someone who already has cancer

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Just to be 100% clear, you can insure anything that has an unknown future financial outcome/risk.

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False. You can't insure money invested in the stock market, gambling, etc. if you are in a position to gain from an event, you can't insure against a loss.

If you got in a car accident Tuesday while driving around uninsured, would geico allow you to buy a policy on Wednesday and backdate coverage?

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would geico allow you to buy a policy on Wednesday and backdate coverage?

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You are trying to argue adverse selection which is just moronic as I already explained why you are wrong in the case of health insurance. This isn't an individual policy but a group policy.

Your other points on what can and can't be insured are just wrong.

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The topic is why premiums have gone up.

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You said that preexisting conditions made it prepaid healthcare, I pointed out you were wrong.

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Premiums have increased because through Obamacare guidelines insurers are facing higher losses.

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Along with increased medical care costs and reduced employer contributions

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Because carriers have to insure people that will cause a guaranteed loss everyone is paying for it.

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Which isn't where most of the bulk increase in premiums are coming from

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The only "surprise" here is that the company wasn't upfront about how this was going to work, and now they are getting blowback.

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While true, the point still remains that these increases are insane. So much so that companies can't absorb the previously nominal 2-3% jumps annually.