Current Events

Re: What's the point of even having insurance?

E. R. Olovetto — Thu, 20 May 2010 18:17:59 GMT

What they are now striving for is to drive out profit. That is their goal. To drive out profit.

Yep. One mandate limits administrative costs (what the insurance company pays itself and the producers who sell the stuff) to 20%. The recent legislation is awful but it isn't really anything new. My company stopped marketing health insurance years ago because it just isn't worth it. We'll sell it if an existing client needs it or as part of new business, but otherwise it is a huge waste of time to involve ourselves with it. Once the talons of the last bill strike and things become more like Medicare we'll reevaluate.

Before the bill even passed an Office of National Insurance was already in the works. link

If you want to torture yourself with the details of the even more devastating legislation in the pipeline, which you probably won't hear nearly as much about in the media, read this.

Re: What's the point of even having insurance?

Daniel Hewitt — Thu, 20 May 2010 18:07:45 GMT

Read this blog post by David Henderson at EconLog.

http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2010/03/obama_and_kucin.html

It's a fictional conversation between Obama and Kucinich, illustrating why those who want socialization should be pleased with ObamaCare. And bloomj31's rationale is exactly what is going to fuel the rising insurance costs (healthy people will drop out and pay the fines, premiums will rise when the healthiest are removed from the insurance pool, the next healthiest people will drop out, premiums rise again, and so on).

Re: What's the point of even having insurance?

DD5 — Thu, 20 May 2010 17:18:26 GMT

"Good luck trying to buy a ticket for the winning horse after the race is over.

Insurance and risk management doesn't quite work that way."

It does when the government is running it.

Re: What's the point of even having insurance?

fourthand1 — Thu, 20 May 2010 17:11:32 GMT

That's not an insurance company. It is a welfare company that redistributes wealth from one group of people to another group of people in a manner that is predictable ahead of time.

Could you point me to some more information on this?

Thanks.

Re: What's the point of even having insurance?

pjose — Thu, 20 May 2010 17:04:10 GMT

"but in terms of catastrophic coverage, I have no reason to hold any kind of coverage unless I get sick."

Good luck trying to buy a ticket for the winning horse after the race is over.

Insurance and risk management doesn't quite work that way.

Re: What's the point of even having insurance?

Jesse — Thu, 20 May 2010 10:15:36 GMT

No the penalty is 750 and Stossel is reporting that it won't even be enforced at all.

Did Stossel do a special on this? Recently?

Re: What's the point of even having insurance?

cret — Thu, 20 May 2010 08:45:30 GMT

go without insurance if you dont already. if you find that you like being without insurance then there is your point.

you just dont like havign insurance. are you really so confused about why many would choose insurance???

ask some policy holders...maybe those inyour familiy or some friends maybe you can get your questionas answered that way.

Re: What's the point of even having insurance?

Joseph F — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 06:47:41 GMT

Ah, yes. As Hazlitt said, they are missing the forest for the trees.

I think that it is important to state that the CBO estimates did not include the bureaucracy that must be put in place in order to administrate this plan. Obviously, we already know that it will require at least 16,500 new IRS agents to administrate the tax provisions of the plan. One can only imagine how many other bureaucrats will be hired to administrate the actual plan itself. I shiver at the very thought.

Re: What's the point of even having insurance?

filc — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 06:38:34 GMT

If the plan is cheaper than private insurance all that means is:

Taxes will go up and/or
Monetization will continue to rise at a greater rate

These two points don't take into consideration the stifling of entrepeneurial activity, new capital investment, and the determent of new innovation that will result as an unseen cost to the bill.

In addition to ALL of this, I doubt the bill addresses any of the original existing problems we had in healthcare. In fact most people who were upset at high cost of healthcare never even stopped to ask why the prices were high in the first place.

Re: What's the point of even having insurance?

Joseph F — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 05:33:22 GMT

To Joe's question as to why to even pay the fine:

You won't have a choice. The fine and tax penalties will all be administered by the IRS. So, if you don't pay, they can just freeze your accounts or seize your property.

Re: What's the point of even having insurance?

bloomj31 — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 04:08:10 GMT

NewLiberty:

No the penalty is 750 and Stossel is reporting that it won't even be enforced at all.

But in your OP you said your premiums are like 1200. That seems WAY LOW.

100/month. maybe 110ish I'd have to check, they do auto payment. I actually read that the penalty goes up over time though. Dunno if that's correct.

Re: What's the point of even having insurance?

NewLiberty — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 03:57:51 GMT

No the penalty is 750 and Stossel is reporting that it won't even be enforced at all.

But in your OP you said your premiums are like 1200. That seems WAY LOW.

Re: What's the point of even having insurance?

Stranger — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 03:18:11 GMT

Caley McKibbin:
You are paying premiums for the highest risks. Which is why it has to be mandatory. It's essentially a privately collected tax. They've tricked masses of people who are made net payers into supporting it by using arguments portaying any alternative as being universally disadvantageous.

Tax farming is back.

Re: What's the point of even having insurance?

Caley McKibbin — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 21:16:21 GMT

You are paying premiums for the highest risks. Which is why it has to be mandatory. It's essentially a privately collected tax. They've tricked masses of people who are made net payers into supporting it by using arguments portaying any alternative as being universally disadvantageous.

There are two reasons to buy insurance. Gambling. Flattening out payments over time. You can just save up money instead of buying insurance, except that you won't be covered up to a point.

Re: What's the point of even having insurance?

Scrooge McDuck — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 20:16:56 GMT

LvMIenthusiast:

Giant_Joe:

Here's one I found on a google search:

http://www.empireblue.com/

Are you suggesting that people can't buy health insurance?

I think DD5 is trying to say that because of all the regulation, there's pretty much no true or real insurance companies out there doing what they were actually intended for.

In terms of regulation see the 1945 McCarrian-Ferguson Act and Republican legislation during the 1970s. I'm sure there is much more, but those are big ones.

Can you go more into the impact of the McCarran–Ferguson Act? From what I read on wiki, it exempted insurance companies from federal regulation.