Been sick for months, seeing lots of different doctors…new one this morning from our largest health care outfit. Told me something completely medically erroneous…checked with a friend at the Mayo Clinic and he said it sounds “quack”.
If a cab picks me up shouldn’t they know how get me to where I want to go?
If I go into a restaurant shouldn’t someone bring me food?
If a truck driver makes delivery’s all day why do they always call me for directions?
If I check into a hotel shouldn’t they have my room ready?
If I call the landscaper to pick-up my leaves, why does he say for me to call and remind him next week?
Just baffles me how people only do one thing all day, every day and when you ask them to do it and they can’t. Like an architect that can’t draw.
That doctor wants to do surgery on me December 18th, think I’m not going to show up and tell him I forgot I was sick. I’m 0 for 6 this week and its only Wednesday.
Having recently gone through a huge medical adventure myself, I'm completely astounded at how much medical misinformation persists in the general public, and SOMETIMES even in medical professionals. Sorry Carrera.
I'm actually hoping that oBOMBa care gets repealed or voided by the supremes. At worst it would stop the perpetuation of the massive fraud levied on citizens, at best it would create overwhelming support for HR676.
Why aren't antitrust laws applied to health insurers?
I still don't understand why we have health insurance in the first place. Why can't we just go to the dr and pay the man. Why was health insurance ever considered a good thing BEFORE it became a have to have it cause medical bills are so expensive thing. I mean, medical bills are expensive BECAUSE of health insurance. It's overwhelmingly complicated.
Catastrophic health insurance is a good thing. The high yearly deductible downside is offset by the low monthly premiums. With Obamacare the gig is both a very high deductible and a very high monthly payment. The idea is to insure those with a preexisting conditions. If you have an illness that costs $80,000 a year to treat a $6,000 deductible and $500 a month premium is a really good deal. Of course one of the real scams is the inflation beyond all reason of medical costs in the first place. in an aside, college tuition has outpaced medical care cost increases over the last several years.
Hospitals always overcharge and insurance companies or Medicare always bargain down the hospital bills. It is a stupid game. If you are self-insured you have no way of knowing what is an overcharge and what isn't.
After war (where they use up a huge amounts of outrageously expensive shit really fast), health care is the best profit center - leveraging your health against your assets. And if you can't afford it you can just die. Which is prefect because you don't have anything to steal and are just sucking up resources. Ain't capitalism great? U$A!
Yes, self-employed (self-insured) and in the hospital is a terrible position to be in, I felt they knew they could rip me off, must be part of the game. What happened too, is that the bills come in one by one over the next several months. You get one bill and you think, that's not so bad. But then another comes, then another, and another. And you don't even want to check the mail anymore.
And when the doc orders a $3,000 test and you bring them the report from the lab, they are like, "You want ME to read it???" And I'm like, "Yes, this report full of medical jargon that you ordered and I paid for, yes, you have to read it and understand it for us." And the doc is like, "um, I guess, um, let's see here..."
Which brings me to this point... Do you ever feel like everywhere you go, you are on payroll? The cashier can't figure out how to ring something up so you have to help them problem solve it? Or the sales person drops something and they are like, "Can you pick that up?" Or they won't do a return in a store because you bought something online and the codes are different so you have to go online and find some product numbers for them. This stuff happens to me all the time.
Tint, if you get a really big bill (as for several days in the hospital) go down and ask to see a line by line accounting. Offer them 75 percent of the total (which is about what they would get from the insurance companies or Medicare) and way more than they would net if they had to pursue legal means. Just be polite but firm. Same thing with any large doctor bills.
Volunteer, yeah, I learned that one the hard way. Seems they also know that after being in the hospital, people can be kinda helpless and not able to advocate for themselves too. What better time to rip someone off than when they are weak and vulnerable.
That was really my point and question. Before health insurance was invented, it didn't cost 20k to repair a broken ankle. It cost something like a pie and a bottle of whiskey. Which happened first? Did medical costs skyrocket, and then we got health insurance to help, or did health insurance show up, and medical bills skyrocket because of them?
Sarah, rich guys saw how much money the mob was making on extortion rackets so they got together with their political cronies and legalized "insurance".
Tint, who else do I call? My point is that they are all the same....they all want the money but not the work. Been at this for over 40 years. Get this - The condo guy that does the lawn mowing and spring and fall clean-up hasn't charged us for 5 years! We sent him letters, called him multiple times, called his bookkeeping wife, sent him a certified letter and still no bill. We have met every year and wondered what to do. The consensus is to let the idiot continue. All these guys operate in a daze. Holy Cow, how stupid. Beginning to love “stupid”.
I've read a few convincing arguments that healthcare cost inflation got started in 1943 (see timeline), when the government's board of War Labor declared that health insurance premiums were not taxable, and not subject to the wage controls in effect during WWII. These wage controls were intended to prevent companies from competing for employees by paying them more money (!!!) - but the exemption meant companies could shovel money into health insurance premiums, effectively giving employees a tax-free raise. After WWII ended, these temporary exemptions were allowed to become permanent because everyone loves free things.
But with both premiums and hospital fees invisible to employees, consumers didn't pay much attention to rising costs. And being tax-exempt made it easy for insurers to charge more than people would pay if they paid with normal taxable income. This strange system of insurance tied to an employer and shielded from income tax is often blamed for a large part of the cost because it makes it very difficult for consumers to choose effective, affordable healthcare. When someone else pays, no one looks at the bill. Which really screws the people and small companies who do have to pay.
Now we've gotten to the point where it costs far too much to ignore. Obamacare makes some attempts to correct the problem - but it's hard to say whether that will work. Either way, at some point everyone will run out of money and costs will level out.
Carrera, I don't know. Hire a 16 year old kid who has more energy and need for the money.
My employee's helicopter mom bought her plane ticket home for T-giving and didn't bother to check her daughter's schedule at work. The office is closed for a week, but helicopter mom wants her daughter home for 10 days and doesn't care if her daughter has a job with commitments. What would you do?
I've been an Ike Reilly fan since the first album, in 2001, Salesmen and Racists. Seriously, my life hasn't been the same since the first time I heard that album, and I recall explicitly the first time I heard it, sitting in my old office CADing and rocking out. I've seen him live twice, got to chat with him after both shows. The second time he gave me a hug and told me I'm pretty - I was a swooning fangirl at age 40, very embarrassing! But the music is so good!
I love Ike because he's a blue collar Midwesterner who has continued to make his art at great personal expense and relying only on his own drive to create, without major label support. He's an example of great talent that just never gets a break, which many of us can identify with, I'm certain.
^Nam, yes. That precisely is the problem: if an individual wanted to buy more economical insurance outside of his company options, he/she would lose the tax benefit, plus lose the discounts afforded by group purchasing. It discourages shopping based on price, because what the company negotiates will always be cheaper. The self employed have no good option at all.
Insurance for self-employed – interesting subject. Here’s a confounder – union construction workers are self-employed, they don’t work for the union yet they get there health insurance from the union as a “Group”. Pastors and priests get insurance from the synod not the church they work at, as a “Group”. The AIA, and others fought this for years saying “we’re a Group” yet Congress blocked legislation for organizations to be “Groups” 19 straight times. If you go to work for a company you’re in a “Group”. If you choose to be self-employed and join up with a group of others (AIA) you’re not in a “Group”.
My insurance provided by the school (the state of Texas, really) is so expensive and crappy we gave it up for private insurance. Of course now, that means we're affected by the insurance policy dropping/changing at the end of the year.
I've actually tried to negotiate some hospital bills before. What they told me was that they had already discounted the bill down as far as they were willing to, and those discounts went to the insurance company. I guess it would work for cash customers, but I haven't had any luck now that the insurance companies have pre-negotiated their end.
Curt, got insurance THROUGH AARP when I was younger but they only serve as a conduit to insurances company's, with a little discount - its not a "Group" - Same as what AIA Trust is offering. Obama brought changes and I'm not familiar - the best one was doing away with preexisting conditions.
i guess i don't understand the difference between a group, whether it's an employer 'group,' a union 'group,' or an organizational 'group' like the aia or aarp. i'm pretty sure employer groups and union groups are through the same insurance companies as obamacare and aarp would go through.
do you happen to have a link over what it was the aia was fighting over, or something that would kind of explain that?
Curt - The primary difference with a “Group” is you get in without any medical inquiry, you never get turned down, everyone in the Group is charged the same cost, they can’t jack up your cost individually, you can’t get canceled and there are no preexisting conditions….just to name a few. Nongroup policies all have these risks. The AIA Trust offering is not a “Group” even though we are a group.
The 14th Amendment (Equal Protection Clause) prohibits the creation of protected groups: people who receive different treatment. Yet every public employee has health insurance and a pension that is paid for by taxpayers, many of whom do not have either.
The "network" health insurance system is simply a way to eliminate competition. Even in areas with lots of medical services and facilities available you are only eligible to use a tiny fraction of them. Unless of course you pay cash.
Hey look, the (almost winter) low angle sun is hitting the edge of the old brick building outside my office window juuuuuuust right. For the next 10 minutes, a soft glowing knife edge of sunlight highlights the masonry return at the corner.
maybe once my generation is in power we'll finally get single-payer healthcare - although I get the feeling among my peers that the current number one goal is legalizing pot.
Thread Central
Been sick for months, seeing lots of different doctors…new one this morning from our largest health care outfit. Told me something completely medically erroneous…checked with a friend at the Mayo Clinic and he said it sounds “quack”.
If a cab picks me up shouldn’t they know how get me to where I want to go?
If I go into a restaurant shouldn’t someone bring me food?
If a truck driver makes delivery’s all day why do they always call me for directions?
If I check into a hotel shouldn’t they have my room ready?
If I call the landscaper to pick-up my leaves, why does he say for me to call and remind him next week?
Just baffles me how people only do one thing all day, every day and when you ask them to do it and they can’t. Like an architect that can’t draw.
That doctor wants to do surgery on me December 18th, think I’m not going to show up and tell him I forgot I was sick. I’m 0 for 6 this week and its only Wednesday.
Having recently gone through a huge medical adventure myself, I'm completely astounded at how much medical misinformation persists in the general public, and SOMETIMES even in medical professionals. Sorry Carrera.
i heard donna is suing the city of chicago.....
I'm actually hoping that oBOMBa care gets repealed or voided by the supremes. At worst it would stop the perpetuation of the massive fraud levied on citizens, at best it would create overwhelming support for HR676.
Why aren't antitrust laws applied to health insurers?
Catastrophic health insurance is a good thing. The high yearly deductible downside is offset by the low monthly premiums. With Obamacare the gig is both a very high deductible and a very high monthly payment. The idea is to insure those with a preexisting conditions. If you have an illness that costs $80,000 a year to treat a $6,000 deductible and $500 a month premium is a really good deal. Of course one of the real scams is the inflation beyond all reason of medical costs in the first place. in an aside, college tuition has outpaced medical care cost increases over the last several years.
Predatory health care... you will be "treated" and charged whether you want to or not. That was my recent hospital experience.
Hospitals always overcharge and insurance companies or Medicare always bargain down the hospital bills. It is a stupid game. If you are self-insured you have no way of knowing what is an overcharge and what isn't.
After war (where they use up a huge amounts of outrageously expensive shit really fast), health care is the best profit center - leveraging your health against your assets. And if you can't afford it you can just die. Which is prefect because you don't have anything to steal and are just sucking up resources. Ain't capitalism great? U$A!
Yes, self-employed (self-insured) and in the hospital is a terrible position to be in, I felt they knew they could rip me off, must be part of the game. What happened too, is that the bills come in one by one over the next several months. You get one bill and you think, that's not so bad. But then another comes, then another, and another. And you don't even want to check the mail anymore.
obamacare is awesome for insurance companies - sorry carrera....
what bothers me most is the certainty in a dr's voice when you later find out they haven't a clue
And when the doc orders a $3,000 test and you bring them the report from the lab, they are like, "You want ME to read it???" And I'm like, "Yes, this report full of medical jargon that you ordered and I paid for, yes, you have to read it and understand it for us." And the doc is like, "um, I guess, um, let's see here..."
Which brings me to this point... Do you ever feel like everywhere you go, you are on payroll? The cashier can't figure out how to ring something up so you have to help them problem solve it? Or the sales person drops something and they are like, "Can you pick that up?" Or they won't do a return in a store because you bought something online and the codes are different so you have to go online and find some product numbers for them. This stuff happens to me all the time.
Tint, if you get a really big bill (as for several days in the hospital) go down and ask to see a line by line accounting. Offer them 75 percent of the total (which is about what they would get from the insurance companies or Medicare) and way more than they would net if they had to pursue legal means. Just be polite but firm. Same thing with any large doctor bills.
How many of you know a few produce codes because you use self-check out...?
Volunteer, yeah, I learned that one the hard way. Seems they also know that after being in the hospital, people can be kinda helpless and not able to advocate for themselves too. What better time to rip someone off than when they are weak and vulnerable.
I don't envy the US system at all. How much is it to get my chi aligned?
I know some who complain about $2 ceremonial dispensing fees when refilling prescriptions.
Tint...its a DIY world with no DIY'selfers. Now the leaf guy won't call me back. They all want the money but don't want the work.
Carrera, don't give him the work if he can't call you back.
Sarah, rich guys saw how much money the mob was making on extortion rackets so they got together with their political cronies and legalized "insurance".
Then they forced everyone to buy it.
One of today's headlines. Canadian woman gets bill for almost $1 million for giving birth in the U.S. My bill wasn't that bad at least.
Tint, who else do I call? My point is that they are all the same....they all want the money but not the work. Been at this for over 40 years. Get this - The condo guy that does the lawn mowing and spring and fall clean-up hasn't charged us for 5 years! We sent him letters, called him multiple times, called his bookkeeping wife, sent him a certified letter and still no bill. We have met every year and wondered what to do. The consensus is to let the idiot continue. All these guys operate in a daze. Holy Cow, how stupid. Beginning to love “stupid”.
^Sarah, and others -
I've read a few convincing arguments that healthcare cost inflation got started in 1943 (see timeline), when the government's board of War Labor declared that health insurance premiums were not taxable, and not subject to the wage controls in effect during WWII. These wage controls were intended to prevent companies from competing for employees by paying them more money (!!!) - but the exemption meant companies could shovel money into health insurance premiums, effectively giving employees a tax-free raise. After WWII ended, these temporary exemptions were allowed to become permanent because everyone loves free things.
But with both premiums and hospital fees invisible to employees, consumers didn't pay much attention to rising costs. And being tax-exempt made it easy for insurers to charge more than people would pay if they paid with normal taxable income. This strange system of insurance tied to an employer and shielded from income tax is often blamed for a large part of the cost because it makes it very difficult for consumers to choose effective, affordable healthcare. When someone else pays, no one looks at the bill. Which really screws the people and small companies who do have to pay.
Now we've gotten to the point where it costs far too much to ignore. Obamacare makes some attempts to correct the problem - but it's hard to say whether that will work. Either way, at some point everyone will run out of money and costs will level out.
Carrera, I don't know. Hire a 16 year old kid who has more energy and need for the money.
My employee's helicopter mom bought her plane ticket home for T-giving and didn't bother to check her daughter's schedule at work. The office is closed for a week, but helicopter mom wants her daughter home for 10 days and doesn't care if her daughter has a job with commitments. What would you do?
Ike Reilly has new music out, ya'll!
If you want to hear a really severely catchy rock and roll tune, listen to this.
Tint, shoot the helicopter down :)
I know some 16 year old kids but they never go outside, I'd be afraid the sun would sting their eyes :)
i will solve some problems this morning for you guys.
carrera, get a rake
tint, give the employee a couple days off.
no charge. have a good holiday.
5 days isn't enough days off for Thanksgiving????
Already gave her the extra days off anyways... :)
Your office is closed for a week for thanksgiving? Is this common?
Give the kid unpaid leave with a promise to make-up the missed days upon his/her return.
I work in education now, so yes, common.
@Donna never heard of Ike Reilly until now, but digging that song.
Re: midlanders point about health insurance premiums as not taxable. To clarify that only applies to employer provided insurance as far as i know.
I can confirm, insurance premiums for the self-employed are taxable.
I've been an Ike Reilly fan since the first album, in 2001, Salesmen and Racists. Seriously, my life hasn't been the same since the first time I heard that album, and I recall explicitly the first time I heard it, sitting in my old office CADing and rocking out. I've seen him live twice, got to chat with him after both shows. The second time he gave me a hug and told me I'm pretty - I was a swooning fangirl at age 40, very embarrassing! But the music is so good!
I love Ike because he's a blue collar Midwesterner who has continued to make his art at great personal expense and relying only on his own drive to create, without major label support. He's an example of great talent that just never gets a break, which many of us can identify with, I'm certain.
^Nam, yes. That precisely is the problem: if an individual wanted to buy more economical insurance outside of his company options, he/she would lose the tax benefit, plus lose the discounts afforded by group purchasing. It discourages shopping based on price, because what the company negotiates will always be cheaper. The self employed have no good option at all.
Insurance for self-employed – interesting subject. Here’s a confounder – union construction workers are self-employed, they don’t work for the union yet they get there health insurance from the union as a “Group”. Pastors and priests get insurance from the synod not the church they work at, as a “Group”. The AIA, and others fought this for years saying “we’re a Group” yet Congress blocked legislation for organizations to be “Groups” 19 straight times. If you go to work for a company you’re in a “Group”. If you choose to be self-employed and join up with a group of others (AIA) you’re not in a “Group”.
I've actually tried to negotiate some hospital bills before. What they told me was that they had already discounted the bill down as far as they were willing to, and those discounts went to the insurance company. I guess it would work for cash customers, but I haven't had any luck now that the insurance companies have pre-negotiated their end.
doesn't the aia provide health insurance through the aia trust?
i thought the obama care exchanges were supposed to help with that too, so people can sign up for a group policy through the exchange?
Curt, got insurance THROUGH AARP when I was younger but they only serve as a conduit to insurances company's, with a little discount - its not a "Group" - Same as what AIA Trust is offering. Obama brought changes and I'm not familiar - the best one was doing away with preexisting conditions.
i guess i don't understand the difference between a group, whether it's an employer 'group,' a union 'group,' or an organizational 'group' like the aia or aarp. i'm pretty sure employer groups and union groups are through the same insurance companies as obamacare and aarp would go through.
do you happen to have a link over what it was the aia was fighting over, or something that would kind of explain that?
Curt - The primary difference with a “Group” is you get in without any medical inquiry, you never get turned down, everyone in the Group is charged the same cost, they can’t jack up your cost individually, you can’t get canceled and there are no preexisting conditions….just to name a few. Nongroup policies all have these risks. The AIA Trust offering is not a “Group” even though we are a group.
Will see if I can find anything…may take a while.
The 14th Amendment (Equal Protection Clause) prohibits the creation of protected groups: people who receive different treatment. Yet every public employee has health insurance and a pension that is paid for by taxpayers, many of whom do not have either.
The "network" health insurance system is simply a way to eliminate competition. Even in areas with lots of medical services and facilities available you are only eligible to use a tiny fraction of them. Unless of course you pay cash.
got insurance THROUGH AARP when I was younger
you know - I've been feeling old lately - but now I don't feel so old anymore. Thanks, Carrera.
Toast.....okay to have fun with that but just remember I'm sitting here laughing because - now that I'm older, my healthcare is FREE:)
AARP is age 50 - so I'm there in 2.5 years.
I understand none of this health-care business...
Hey look, the (almost winter) low angle sun is hitting the edge of the old brick building outside my office window juuuuuuust right. For the next 10 minutes, a soft glowing knife edge of sunlight highlights the masonry return at the corner.
Been battling the 25 year old radiant heat in my wife's studio. The PEX loop buried in a slab isn't flowing very well. Arrrgh.
maybe once my generation is in power we'll finally get single-payer healthcare - although I get the feeling among my peers that the current number one goal is legalizing pot.
anywho... NASA has installed a 3D printer on the international space station. the future is here, folks.
non sequitur, you should post pics
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