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How satisfied are you with your health insurance provider?

How satisfied are you with your current health insurance provider?

  • Total voters
    54
jallman said:
I would argue that the litigious nature of our society with malpractice claims drives up cost more than anything else.
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While I don't dispute that medical malpractice issues/costs are a part of our overall healthcare woes, I don't know that I'd go so far as to say med-mal is the main culprit.

Here's a very interesting report that supports this:

MEDICAL LIABILITY, MALPRACTICE INSURANCE AND HEALTH CARE

SUMMARY/KEY FINDINGS
In discussions about how to solve our vast national health care crisis, questions are often raised about why the system is so expensive and how costs can be reduced to make health care affordable for everyone. Some of the discussions have focused on medical malpractice insurance and liability issues, raising questions about the cost of insurance for doctors and whether there is a need to further limit patients’ ability to bring claims against incompetent doctors or unsafe hospitals.

To answer these questions, Americans for Insurance Reform, (AIR), a coalition of nearly 100 consumer and public interest groups around the country, has produced the most comprehensive review of medical malpractice premiums, claims, profits and the impact of medical malpractice
tort law limits to date. Based on its analysis, AIR finds:

• Medical malpractice premiums, inflation-adjusted, are nearly the lowest they have been in over 30 years.

• Medical malpractice claims, inflation-adjusted, are dropping significantly, down 45 percent since 2000.

• Medical malpractice premiums are less than one-half of one percent of the country’s overall health care costs; medical malpractice claims are a mere one-fifth of one percent of health care costs. In over 30 years, premiums and claims have never been greater than 1% of our nation’s health care costs.

• Medical malpractice insurer profits are higher than the rest of the property casualty industry, which has been remarkably profitable over the last five years.

• The periodic premium spikes that doctors experience, as they did from 2002 until 2005, are not related to claims but to the economic cycle of insurers and to drops in investment income.

• Many states that have resisted enacting severe restrictions on injured patients’ legal rights experienced rate changes (i.e., premium increases or decreases for doctors) similar to those states that enacted severe restrictions on patients’ rights, i.e., there is no correlation between “tort reform” and insurance rates for doctors.
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Of course, this is not to say that med-mal insurers aren't making nice profits in this rotten economy (from the same report)...

Before examining premium and cost data in detail, it is worth analyzing medical malpractice insurers’ current bottom line, and determine how well they did in recent years as they raised rates on doctors and pushed states and Congress to enact laws to limit the liability of their clients - health care providers.

To say medical malpractice insurers did well during this period would be an understatement. Despite their lobbying position that medical malpractice claims and lawsuits were making it difficult for them to survive, these companies thrived. In fact, they did so well last year that while every other sector in the economy began suffering through a global economic crisis, medical malpractice insurers had “a very good” 2008. This came “after posting record profits in 2007.” And the good news for the medical malpractice insurance industry is not over yet. A.M. Best predicts that their “operating profits will continue through 2009.”

Profit/Return on net worth
• According to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC), in 2007 the medical malpractice insurance industry had an overall return on net worth of 15.6%, well over the 12.5% overall profit for the entire property/casualty industry.

• Over the last five years, the return on net worth for medical malpractice insurers was 11.1%, again outpacing the entire property/casualty insurance industry at 10.3%.
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Essentially, our entire medical care system needs an overhaul.
 
People are responsible for themselves is a common feeling but not a solution. The solution you propose with this opinion is "let 'em all die in the street". Nice.

You have a right to be paid for the services you provide. My doctors all seemed very anxious to get paid by Medicare for the fine treatment they gave me. The doctor may have to downsize from a ten million dollar mansion to a puny five million dollar mansion. Life is tough even for the rich.

Provided by others? If there was ever a right you might expect your government to provide without question there is no higher morally right issue than decent affordable health care.

I'm still waiting to hear why medicare for all is so ominously dangerous and unfair.
 
rondosocal said:
People are responsible for themselves is a common feeling but not a solution. The solution you propose with this opinion is "let 'em all die in the street". Nice.
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I'm sorry, your answer is unclear -- do you or do you not agree with the tenet?

You have a right to be paid for the services you provide.
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So, you agree with the tenet. Thank you.

Provided by others? If there was ever a right you might expect your government to provide without question there is no higher morally right issue than decent affordable health care.
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I'm sorry, your answer is unclear -- do you or do you not agree with the tenet?
 
rondosocal said:
I'm still waiting to hear why medicare for all is so ominously dangerous and unfair.
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Spoken like one who will have medicare up until the day he dies but has no interest in how to pass along the same benefit to the next generation.

Medicare and social security are defunct and broke. Let's start there.
 
rondosocal said:
You have a right to be paid for the services you provide. My doctors all seemed very anxious to get paid by Medicare for the fine treatment they gave me. The doctor may have to downsize from a ten million dollar mansion to a puny five million dollar mansion. Life is tough even for the rich.
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:rofl

You have no clue, sir.
 
jallman I do expect to have medicare till the day I die.

People have cried that medicare and social security will fail since before their inception. Well I have yet to receive my first SS check but would bet my life that I will and apparently I luckily got in on the very last month medicare has left.
 
rondosocal said:
jallman I do expect to have medicare till the day I die.
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Of course you do. Liberals tend to do a lot of expecting but very little in the way of concerning themselves with the pesky details of how to pay for it.

People have cried that medicare and social security will fail since before their inception. Well I have yet to receive my first SS check but would bet my life that I will and apparently I luckily got in on the very last month medicare has left.
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Apparently, hyperbole trumps substance with you, too.
 
Coronado said:
:rofl

You have no clue, sir.
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Yeah, I didn't even touch that part because it was so ridiculous as to illustrate the point I would have made, in and of itself. It was a garrishly cartoonish hyperbole if we ever saw one.
 
really Cornonado, I will complain to Stanford and CIT. All those years and I still don't have a clue.
 
But I will continue to support the cost of any national health care system with my fair share of income tax and any other necessary fees without complaint. Somehow I have developed compassion for even the lowliest homeless, indigent, incarcerated, retarded, handicapped or just downright dumb and lazy American out there. If my govt wants to use some of my taxes in an attempt to keep those folks upright how evil and self-centered must I become to object?
 
rondosocal said:
really Cornonado, I will complain to Stanford and CIT. All those years and I still don't have a clue.
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Your CV is irrelevant. Prove yourself via your posts.
 
rondosocal said:
But I will continue to support the cost of any national health care system with my fair share of income tax and any other necessary fees without complaint. Somehow I have developed compassion for even the lowliest homeless, indigent, incarcerated, retarded, handicapped or just downright dumb and lazy American out there. If my govt wants to use some of my taxes in an attempt to keep those folks upright how evil and self-centered must I become to object?
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I knew it wouldn't belong before the "evil, greedy conservatives want poor homelss people to die" schtick started up.
 
CV? Don't make guess with abbreviations. Now I don't have a clue what you are talking about.
 
rondosocal said:
CV? Don't make guess with abbreviations. Now I don't have a clue what you are talking about.
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Probably ought to talk to Stanford and CIT about that, champ.
 
I am still waiting to hear why "medicare for everyone" is such a dastardly concept, particularly considering it's 92-98% approval rating by it's beneficiaries.
 
rondosocal said:
But I will continue to support the cost of any national health care system with my fair share of income tax and any other necessary fees without complaint.
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Still looking for clarification to your asnwers.

Somehow I have developed compassion for even the lowliest homeless, indigent, incarcerated, retarded, handicapped or just downright dumb and lazy American out there.
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Why do you think it is OK to force your version of "compassion" and "morality" onto others?
 
rondosocal said:
I am still waiting to hear why "medicare for everyone" is such a dastardly concept, particularly considering it's 92-98% approval rating by it's beneficiaries.
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Cost/benefit analysis.

Try it on sometime.
 
rondosocal said:
I am still waiting to hear why "medicare for everyone" is such a dastardly concept, particularly considering it's 92-98% approval rating by it's beneficiaries.
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As soon as you clarify your asnwers to my post, you'll get it.
 
I did not say jallman that you want them to die, I just don't think you care.
 
jallman said:
Cost/benefit analysis.

Try it on sometime.
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Go easy on him, jall. They must not cover such things at Stanford and CIT.
 
Clarification? Must have missed something. I spend no time dwelling on morality but compassion seems to be a trait that separates us from the other species.
 
Oh we covered it pretty thorough. Other than our military might, most of the world feels Medicare is the most successful program the US government has ever created. Look it up.
 
Cost benefit/analysis for the issue of good health and life vs death??? Ah, it's the above all else importance of the pocketbook which is the why most people vote the way they do.
 
Did you know that the same coalition now footing the bills for all the anti-health reform ideas (doctors, hospitals, drug companies and health insurance folks) also paid for nearly verbatim negative ads and scare tactics in 1961 through 1964 trying to block Medicare. And it is still running strong and has delivered everything it was supposed to and more since LBJ signed the bill with Harry Truman (who started the idea in 1948) watching.
 
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