California to get a 59% increase on insurance premiums

It's a business. It's primary function is to make money. It's not greed when it's successful. It's a job well done. It's capitalism.

Its greed Because medical care is a neccessity No matter how healthy you are you gonna get sick eventually.... Its like 59% increase on basic food,....
 
Its greed Because medical care is a neccessity No matter how healthy you are you gonna get sick eventually.... Its like 59% increase on basic food,....
So you regulate it. Or nationalize it. Or something close like the public option. But you don't blame businesses for not following non-existent regulations that would cut into their profits. You don't blame an entity designed to make money for trying to make as much money as possible. Insurance companies are not a charities.
 
The idea of the free market is not to trick your costumers into accepting higher costs.

No, it's not. The idea of the free market is that competition ensures efficient distribution of resources. If you can get away with high prices and don't lose customers do it.


So you regulate it. Or nationalize it. Or something close like the public option. But you don't blame businesses for not following non-existent regulations that would cut into their profits. You don't blame an entity designed to make money for trying to make as much money as possible. Insurance companies are not a charities.

Exactly. No use blaming the company if it doesn't break any laws. Instead blame the politicians and instiution for leaving healthcare to the free market.
 
The idea of the free market is not to trick your costumers into accepting higher costs. If a company argues a cost increase is absolutely necessary for reason x but reason x only accounts for say half of the cost increase, it is a way of deceiving the customer and hence goes against the fundamental mechanisms which are supposed to make the free market work (informed customer and all). So in my humble opinion it is very much legit for a convinced advocate of the free market to stigmatize such behavior.
Informed Customer as a value in the free marker refers to customer being informed about competition and the details of the service or good provided, not the reasons why supply goes down and costs go up. Furthermore businesses are expected to maximize profit, so it is not dishonest for them not to mention this obvious fact.

If anyone's being unethically lied to it's the regulatory body, but their does not appear to be a breach of protocol in this regard.
 
Didn't Blue Shield do this recently elsewhere in the country?

They are already more expensive than Kaiser, the other big health care provider in California. Being an HMO Kaiser is superior anyway. Albeit not cheap if you have dependents.

I guess things will continue to get worse until they get better. One thing in the article that surprised me was that the new health reform law does not give the feds any controls over rate hikes, I thought I remember reading that it did, perhaps that was the house bill. If not, I really wonder what benefits the new health bill will provide, tangibly, in the next decade? Will it genuinely result in cheaper health insurance for more people? If not, I question its usefulness.

Not that I was not skeptical and critical of it before mind you...
 
Surely now Americans should see the need for a public option.
No. Never. Nischt. Nyet. Not in a million years. No way, Jose. No chance, Lance. Negatory. Neh-eh. Uh-uh. And my personal favorite, man falling off of a cliff: NOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooooo

splat


I am one of those Americans who would be receiving a public option, and this is BasketCase sticking his yapper all up in your grille and telling you, purely out of his own self-interest, that BASKETCASE DOESN'T WANT THE PUBLIC OPTION. A public option is not the answer. America's problem is not with the health insurance, it is with the actual CARE. The problem is in the hospitals, and for the government to simply be paying to shove people into the same hospitals isn't gonna solve anything.
 
I am one of those Americans who would be receiving a public option, and this is BasketCase sticking his yapper all up in your grille and telling you, purely out of his own self-interest, that BASKETCASE DOESN'T WANT THE PUBLIC OPTION.
You don't have to use the public option, it is there if you want it.

America's problem is not with the health insurance, it is with the actual CARE.
No, not really. America spends around 30% more then the UK on health care (as a portion of GDP) yet recieves the exact same level of care, better in some areas. This trend is repeated across all other industrialized countries. We pay far more for what amounts to the same, if not worse care. To me, that highlights the problems in the insurance model, not the actual care. If the care is affected, in all likihood the fault occurs at the insurance end, not the care end because, as you are so fond of saying, "free lunches don't exist".
 
I am always very impressed by the people who're SO against publicly paid healthcare, because I'm pretty certain that they're arranging their lives so that they won't be using Medicare (at 65 y.o.+). This is because they're incensed at the idea that their medical care will be paid for by the generation younger than them, who never agreed to this entitlement scheme. They arrange so that they're independently paying for their own care, and aren't mugging the younger generation like they feel they were mugged.

I guess things will continue to get worse until they get better. One thing in the article that surprised me was that the new health reform law does not give the feds any controls over rate hikes, I thought I remember reading that it did, perhaps that was the house bill. If not, I really wonder what benefits the new health bill will provide, tangibly, in the next decade? Will it genuinely result in cheaper health insurance for more people? If not, I question its usefulness.

I think a good reform wouldn't really affect rate hikes. A reform is supposed to mold the market to adjust the costs TO the insurance company, to make the field more fair and less gameable. What the reform cannot do is actually give the insurance company money. So, if the firm has costs, they need premiums. Good firms will be able to provide cheaper premiums, due to good admin. The reform, ideally, should be that this 'good admin' isn't on the back of the truly sick.

Blue Cross is suffering because they're losing customers and still have obligations to their actually needy clients. There's nothing the government can do about that with a reform. Other than take on the truly needy clients (which I guess they've already done, with Medicare). Blue Cross is wildly expensive despite Medicare effectively taking on the riskiest clients. That's pretty sad.
 
You don't have to use the public option, it is there if you want it.
That's the thing. I don't want it. It's EXISTENCE is a threat to my health. I will end up paying more for poorer care, even if I never use the public option. Capiche?

No, not really. America spends around 30% more then the UK on health care (as a portion of GDP) yet recieves the exact same level of care
So, you're saying the care is more expensive in the U.S.?? And you're saying that's a bad thing? And, isn't that exactly what I said in my LAST POST???
Oh, wait....
BasketCase said:
America's problem is not with the health insurance, it is with the actual CARE.
By Jove, it is!!! Seriously, man. What the hell!?!? :mad:
 
America's problem is that it channels most of the resources that would be used for the common populace to research Miracle Cures for a few people.

The rest of the world benefits from this of course, because in 10 years or so these once "Miracle Cures" end up being common treatments once they become cheaper.
 
So, you're saying the care is more expensive in the U.S.?? And you're saying that's a bad thing? And, isn't that exactly what I said in my LAST POST???
Oh, wait....

By Jove, it is!!! Seriously, man. What the hell!?!? :mad:
If the care is of the same quality, the the care is not the problem. The problem is then the inefficiencies of how people in the US pay for care. And since most people in the us pay through their insurance, that means that there is something inefficient in that system.
 

I often wonder how you've done with your medical insurance. When you had your accident, you said you had "the best insurance possible" (or something like that). Now, awhile later, what's your feeling on the private insurance system?
 
That's the thing. I don't want it. It's EXISTENCE is a threat to my health. I will end up paying more for poorer care, even if I never use the public option. Capiche?
[Citation Needed]


So, you're saying the care is more expensive in the U.S.?? And you're saying that's a bad thing? And, isn't that exactly what I said in my LAST POST???
Oh, wait....
Thank you for ignoring the rest of my post where I address that.
Given that other Industrialized countries can provide the same level of universal care cheaper then in America, that highlights to me that unnescesary complications exist in our system. Whether they originate on the side of the insurance companies or on the actual providers I'm not sure (but I'm leaning toward the comanies), but given data on cost and care in other industrialized countries, saying it "costs too much" is frankly dishonest. All of the data shows that with an NHS style system (not the slapped-together abomination of the ACA) cost goes down and care levels remain about the same, if not better in standard treatments.
 
Doesn't Cuba have the lowest number of deaths while giving birth or something like that?
 
I don't think so, but IIRC they are one of the best in that area with regards to developing countries. I could be wrong, I don't recall the WHO information off hand.
 
No. Never. Nischt. Nyet. Not in a million years. No way, Jose. No chance, Lance. Negatory. Neh-eh. Uh-uh. And my personal favorite, man falling off of a cliff: NOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooooo

splat


I am one of those Americans who would be receiving a public option, and this is BasketCase sticking his yapper all up in your grille and telling you, purely out of his own self-interest, that BASKETCASE DOESN'T WANT THE PUBLIC OPTION. A public option is not the answer. America's problem is not with the health insurance, it is with the actual CARE. The problem is in the hospitals, and for the government to simply be paying to shove people into the same hospitals isn't gonna solve anything.
I think BasketCase is not chronically ill.
 
If the care is of the same quality, the the care is not the problem.
The problem with American health care, by and large, is the cost of the care.

Insurance has nothing to do with it; insurance is merely a means of paying for the care. High insurance costs are merely a symptom of the actual problem. Insurance is expensive because the CARE is expensive.

There is a problem with the CARE. Merely shoehorning more people into insurance programs will not solve the problem. Which brings me to:

BasketCase said:
That's the thing. I don't want it. It's EXISTENCE is a threat to my health. I will end up paying more for poorer care, even if I never use the public option. Capiche?
[Citation Needed]
Don't need one. I figured it out all by myself. The health care system is broken. The public option will merely, as I pointed out above, shoehorn more people into the same broken system. And it's not going to be free; somebody's taxes are going to have to pay for it. So I will end up paying the same premiums I would have paid anyway, plus the extra costs of the public option system.

You see, unlike most of the common peons who surround me, I take care of my own business. I shop around for my own doctor and my own health insurance without running to the government and asking them to take care of me, because they're idiots. Oh, and I get my insurance for under a hundred bucks a month. There's no reason why I should be paying for everybody else's insurance. I'm done being a nice guy. I'm now a jerk. Get the hell out of my business and don't go asking me for handouts.

I think BasketCase is not chronically ill.
You think, or you know....? How bout you refrain from speculating. Though I'll give you this: I have filed claims on my health insurance a few times; I have been in the hospital. See above--I took care of it myself instead of relying on a bevy of bureaucratic knuckleheads.
 
The problem with American health care, by and large, is the cost of the care.
What causes the cost of the care to be high? What is so prevalent in America yet not in other industrialized countries?


Don't need one. I figured it out all by myself.
So you haven't got a citation, or even some rough numbers for me to work with.

I have an honest question, why is it you constantly appear to be arguing from anger? Is your life so pathetic and worthless you feel obligated to attempt to hide your failures by appearing tough on an internet forum?
It is hell inside your mind.
 
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