<p>without profit, who would want to provide health insurance? without profit, how will they survive and stay afloat? without profit, there would be no apple and microsoft. without profit, there would be no CC. lets face it, people dont just work for free. </p>
<p>what happening now is so atlas shrugged</p>
<p>Without profit, what would happen to those insurance company employees, their families, and their healthcare?</p>
<p>Health insurance is different from auto insurance. For the most part, an automobile owner can control risk and do what they can to prevent accidents. Our health is often a crapshoot due to genetics and environmental issues. So health insurance is often purchased for a group of people - like employer provided health plans - to combine risks and keep rates down. Many years, for example, our health insurance company spends more on us than my husband’s employer pays for our premiums… there are other families that provide profit for the insurance company because they are healthy. Next year we could be the healthy ones and the other family could have a member diagnosed with cancer; it may all even out in the end. Purchasing ones own health insurance, as Dougbetsy suggests, puts the price up And is impossible to purchase if someone has pre-existing conditions. That’s why employers have traditionally provided it, as part of the salary package (for example, my husband does not get cash salary increases anymore because it is assumed by all that the increase in insurance premiums is his salary increase).<br>
Plus, if you are hungry, have only two changes of clothes and live in a homeless shelter you may still be able to get a bus to go to work (I volunteer at a shelter and see this every day); if you are sick, you aren’t any good to the boss. There is a payoff to the employer to pay health coverage.
Especially for teachers, who are exposed to anything and everything from their students!</p>
<p>Well we can only hope that the Republicans retain their Senate majority in these BS recall elections. Scott Walker is an American hero.</p>
<p>Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using CC App</p>
<p>Mspearl, you suggest private sector workers unionize. It is not so easy --private sector jobs can be shipped offshore. Maybe public sector unions could demand repeal of Nafta, etc, to stop that. Because without private sector jobs, there will be more belt tightening.</p>
<p>Yeah for Hartland Wisconsin!</p>
<p>mspearl - hate much???</p>
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<p>Actually, I am not certain where our “sides” start and end? I AM on the side of the people … all the people, and not a few chosen ones. The issues that plague Wisconsin are not rich corporations versus oppressed workers. The issues are about a small number of people extracting benefits from all. Marxist or socialist, or whatever you call it, should be about looking at the entire scope of the society. The people who are responsible for paying for those plans and wages are … the taxpayers. </p>
<p>I posted the stories that related how school districts (who spend “our” money) were able to save substantial sums on their health plans, by NOT having to deal with a sole provider that was favored (or owned) by the unions. Since you seem very displeased with the insurance providers, you should have been satisfied to see their income drop. </p>
<p>It seems that you made the immediate assumption that the level of coverage must have changed, or that the successor companies are much worse. Well, the beauty of competition is that in three cases I read about, one went with the company you described as horrible, one went with Humana, and one remained with WEATrust but at a lower cost. The latter will probably be the most logical outcome as WEATrust is currently pursuing a policy of not sharing critical information to allow competitive bids and is keeping federal money that should “discount” the plan as hostage. </p>
<p>I wish you’d go beyond the sensational headlines and see what the rest of the story is. The savings on this health allows to reduce the class sizes and offer … merit pay to teachers or staff. Do you really prefer to continue to grease the paws of an insurance company with questionable practices over having the school districts being able to spend the public money more judiciously? </p>
<p>Fwiw, please do not think that I am to naive to see that this is also a plan to crimp the lifestyles of the unions and reduce their ability to grab considerable share of the educational dollars. This is. however, a most noble and just cause, as “we” have allowed those organizations to become the monsters they are by inaction or lack of interest. </p>
<p>The reality is that we no longer can afford such practices as we need to learn within our means. It is also important to ensure that most of the educational goes to the teachers in a fair and equitable manner.</p>
<p>KKmama,I have too many rebuttles. I don’t know where to begin. So I won’t. </p>
<p>This thread is more interesting when it’s hypothetical and anecdotal anyway. :)</p>
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<p>No gun is needed when the CBA specifically permits only a single supplier, namely the WEATrust. The WEAC made it impossible for school districts to break free.</p>
<p>mspearl,</p>
<p>Exactly! I wish more people would read a few of the books out there comparing the US health care system to that of other industrialized nations. The US system is not only inferior, it is inferior by several orders of magnitude. Americans believe in this insane free market religion, peddled by con artists and every type of amoral and immoral cretin known to exist, that allows the most predatory, dishonest, and manipulative to maximize profit and serve their narrow self-interest, often by buying those who make the laws or the regulations as well as using resources to spread mountains of disinformation to fool the gullible public into cutting their own throats and those of their children.</p>
<p>Good luck to you.</p>
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<p>I’m sorry but it amazes me that anyone would still be recycling this nonsense. Countries with so-called better healthcare have far less heterogeneous populations, far less immigration and - most importantly - contribute very little compared to us to medical innovation. This is just such a tired and very shallow argument.</p>
<p>Health insurance companies employ a lot of people, provide a valuable service and have relatively low profit margins compared to, say, Apple or Google.</p>
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But you’re happy to do the slanderous dirty work of the left, huh? You should do some real research about the Koch brothers. You will be very surprised by what you find. Because your talking points (do you get those emailed to you regularly?) are wrong.</p>
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Exactly! Let’s toss sick illegal immigrants out of the country and see what can happen with that money. Oh wait. That’s not what we do or who we are as a people. What I don’t get is the presumption that people aren’t primarily responsible for paying for their own healthcare. Changing that presumption, alone, would save a great deal of money because people are much more discerning consumers when they’re actually paying for something.</p>
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<p>Do those books provide any insight into the costs of such plans and the contributions that are expected from the … employees? How would the people who are part of those “amazing” plans react if they were able to pay ONLY 12 percent of its cost? They’d be celebrating for days on the street. </p>
<p>We want low taxes and a lot of individual choices, but hardly have the stomach to face that comprehensive systems of health care and retirement come with huge sacrifices. Hopefully, the books that heralded the benefits of “great” plans will be revised to add analyses of collapsing systems such as Greece, Portugal, and Spain. </p>
<p>We know that there is no free lunch, but we still dream of a 24 hours a day free cafeteria.</p>
<p>I didn’t know the insurance industry had diversified into the Kool Aid business - good for them. Profits will soar even higher.</p>
<p>We all want profits, don’t we Cartera? I can’t get over the perception of being entitled to something for nothing or something of somebody else’s. A sane healthcare system will contain contributions from consumers, too.</p>
<p>A sane system does include contributions from consumers. They’re just pre-paid as taxes.</p>
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<p>So, basically, health care is only for the rich, right? Because those are the only people who can afford the out-of-pocket costs.</p>
<p>I had a pulmonary embolism a little more than a year ago. Cost me tens of thousands of dollars in hospital bills, after a three-day ICU stay. Under the insane notion of “personal responsibility,” well, gee, that’s my problem because, well, I guess I’m a bad person for getting sick. It’s all my fault, just like kids who get cancer and moms who get injured by drunk drivers.</p>
<p>If it wasn’t for Obamacare, there probably wouldn’t be an insurance company on Earth willing to insure me. “Pre-existing condition,” you know.</p>
<p>We are at such an interesting moment. The demand for the entitlements is so huge. And the expectation that some abstract “rich guy” pay for them so tempting. Will this all finally tip us once and for all into the land of make believe? Unlimited entitlements paid for by warehouses of pretend money.</p>
<p>Oh, that’s right. I keep forgetting. We’re already there. Yeah!</p>
<p>Polarscribe – did you have health insurance? What kind?</p>
<p>Our health insurance – fairly standard policy – would cover that sort of medical event pretty much entirely. </p>
<p>We pay about 350 dollars a month to cover our family and that is in addition to what DH’s employer pays. It’s somewhere close to $1,000 per month to cover three of us (older kid is off the policy, keep forgetting that).</p>
<p>When we change jobs we consider our health coverage. It also informs our timing and planning for retirement. I really don’t understand people who are outraged, OUTRAGED that they have to pay anything whatsoever for health insurance – then go ahead and retire early to follow their bliss and end up in a huge mess, that the taxpayers generally have to handle.</p>
<p>I have worked out just what it would cost me if my DH were hit by a thunderbolt and I had to figure out a new health insurance strategy. I could handle it. We have reserves, know how to live beneath our means, etc. It’s called being an adult.</p>
<p>But whatever. It’s all those big bad corporations.</p>
<p>sewhappy, how is a college student supposed to have tens of thousands of dollars in reserves?</p>
<p>You know that a huge number of families can’t afford to save that much money, right? They’re living paycheck to paycheck, making the rent each month but not much more. Are they bad people, not “adults,” for being too poor to sock away thousands of dollars?</p>
<p>“Personal responsibility” for health care makes zero sense when you realize that a huge number of health issues are nobody’s fault.</p>
<p>But hey, I guess every mom whose child has cancer is a bad parent for letting their kid get sick. Screw 'em if they didn’t save up $500,000 for chemotherapy and palliative care.</p>
<p>“It’s called being an adult,” right?</p>
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That’s not quite the whole story.
And that’s a little overly dramatic, no? </p>
<p>And I didn’t state or imply that anyone should be responsible for all of their medical care out of pocket. As I said upthread, I think it is more than fair for union members (and everyone) to pay toward their premiums and I also think people should be responsible for co-payments. I agree with you about removing pre-existing conditions exclusions, without question, but that could be done (and has been done in some places) without crippling the economy. I don’t think you should pay tens of thousands of dollars (unless you choose to be uninsured, then tough luck), but I don’t think you should be entitled to pay nothing, either.</p>