<p>Thanks…</p>
<p>Yes you do… :)</p>
<p>I think you should move to Vancouver…</p>
<p>I like Vancouver…</p>
<p>My oldest daughter is in SF.</p>
<p>Happy ending, dstark. 
Kind of sad that 18% is considered a good outcome, though. And yes, I’ll happy if mine is only 18%.</p>
<p>SteveMA, regarding your suggestion that we “just shop around” – like others, I do that every year. Last year, I talked to 3 brokers. At the end of the third conversation, I said, “There really are no good options for us, are there?” She hesitated and then said, “No, I’m sorry, there really aren’t.”</p>
<p>LasMa…I made up the number 18%. I was just using it as as an example. Could be more or less. 18 % is not a good outcome.</p>
<p>Sounds like you had an honest broker there…</p>
<p>I hope your increase is less than 18%.</p>
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<p>Of course it matters. Lower-cost plans don’t cover much. My DH and DD already have a low-cost plan, so there’s not much of anywhere they can go to get lower premiums. And there’s a $12K deductible and no preventive care. So in addition to a ridiculously high “low” premium, we also have huge out-of-pocket.</p>
<p>Your oldest daughter should move to Vancouver…</p>
<p>She’s talked casually about it, mini, and I would not stand in her way.</p>
<p>mini</p>
<p>
Really? The other insurers are hardly spending anything on lend of life care? Perhaps relatively speaking compared to medicare, but surely they are spending plenty on very low birthweight preemies who don’t survive ,accident victims, terminal illnesses, surgeries with bad outcomes, etc, for those under 65. I read somewhere that the average age of people in rehab facilities was 45.</p>
<p>Again, it’s all relative. The overwhelming majority of end of life care goes to people who are coming to the end of their lives. Relative to the rest of care provided, end of life care for people with private insurance prior to age 65 is a small fraction. Relative to all of the Medicare population, it is huge. (Medicare spends nothing on births - low-birthweight or otherwise.)</p>
<p>The entire Medicare hospice system (of which my wife is part) is predicated on attempting to keep end-of-life care costs under control. As far as I am aware, nothing similar exists for the under 65 set.</p>
<p>Private insurers are NOT spending Most of their (Our) money on end of life care. It isn’t even close.</p>
<p>
Well, um… yes, that would be true :)</p>
<p>Do you have stats on the amount that other insurers are spending on end of life care for those under 65 or not on SSDI? Of course one also has to consider the fact that those under 65 are covered by a variety of carriers, whereas the over 65’s are (almost always) medicare or a medicare alternative plans. So the numbers fo the other carriers would have to be looked at in totality.</p>
<p>In my state there is no way to “shop around” for individual health insurance. There is only one insurer in the state, Anthem. We are at its mercy until 2014, when consumers must be permitted by law to shop in online health insurance exchanges for coverage. Bring on the obamacare, I can’t wait.</p>
<p>Snowdog…wow…</p>
<p>Just say no</p>
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<p>I feel like there are whole departments whose jobs are to simply say “no.” And they must do a good enough job each year to where they save the company enough money to at least pay those salaries (and then some probably!). I’m glad I don’t have to deal with insurance companies very often, but I sit in the office and hear our ladies who do have to call them regularly.</p>
<p>Be informed and you’ll usually be able to “beat” the naysayers at the insurers</p>
<p>^ joking? I have the worst insurance imaginable. The patient protection and affordable care act is a godsend, for me. Bring it.</p>
<p>It is not uncommon for organizations with thousands of employees to “self insure”. ie., the insurance company such as Blue Cross handles all the administration for a fee, but the actual cost of providing healthcare is assumed by the organization. I haven’t seen an analysis in recent times, but when I did, the costs weren’t an order of magnitude lower than having the insurer assume the risks.</p>
<p>There are different types of subsidies - the employer picking up a portion of the overall costs, and the insurance company itself negotiating a rate with the providers to pay less than what other insurers are paying for the same service, and writeoffs by the providers of the cost of providing care to the indigent, under and un-insured. The first subsidy is quite common in most medium and large organizations; the second is typically a payer such as Medicaid who has fee schedules that are low and sometimes don’t cover the cost of treatment leading to many for-profits not to accept them.</p>
<p>I am trying to catch up on this thread. Did I miss the part where we learned Steve or someone in Steve’s family works in the insurance industry?</p>
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<p>Steve, you’re right about this. The cause for the high premiums isn’t ginormous CEO bonuses, as vile as they are. The problem is the structure of the American insurance system. </p>
<p>As I’m sure you know, the whole concept of insurance is based on a large risk pool. The more people in the pool, the more spread-out the risk and the lower the premium. This is why auto insurance doesn’t jump 20-30% per year like health insurance does; everyone is required to have it. </p>
<p>What our private health insurance industry does is exactly the opposite of sound insurance practice: There are multiple risk pools, and many people are in no pool at all. This problem is exacerbated every time they raise premiums by double digits. People drop out, unable to afford it any more. So the pool gets smaller. </p>
<p>But here’s what makes it even worse: It’s not just a random sampling of people who drop out. The people who tend to drop out are younger, healthier people – who believe they can take the chance of getting by without it. The people who tend to stay in are those who have a concrete reason for believing they’ll need the coverage – in other words, the older and sicker subscribers. So, with each rate hike, the pool gets older and sicker. A higher risk is spread over fewer subscribers. THAT is why premiums continually skyrocket.</p>
<p>The answer is obvious: One big pool. Everybody in, old and young, sick and healthy. Many people, most of them healthy, supporting the costs of the sick until such time that they need it themselves when others will support them. Instead, what we increasingly have is fewer and fewer sick people trying to support each other. It just doesn’t work.</p>
<p>Until we have universal insurance, we are all at the mercy of the Anthem vultures and their ilk.</p>