Recent comments

  • the current system. See my blog today on Germany. If you choose a private plan in Germany, if you have a pre-existing condition and can't get a Private plan, you can get one with an extra tarrif (their word). In other words you can't be turned down and there is always a plan for you. They have to have such a thing because in Germany it is illegal to not have health insurance.

    In my State BSBC (or is that BCBS) does have a guaranteed type of policy and it isn't really that expensive. Now I don't live in that insane State of California so if you do....it would be expensive. I've always wondered why California mandates insurance companies to pay for sex change operations and the counseling before and after the change.

    "San Francisco is about to embark on another first in the nation: providing health care benefits for city workers undergoing sex-change procedures. Changing sex doesn't come cheap. For males changing to females, surgery costs about $37,000. The surgical costs for females becoming males runs considerably more, about $77,000. The proposed city health benefit for sex-change procedures caps at $50,000 per person for life."

    But I guess it is only money the problem is it is other people's money.

    As someone that was once diagnosed by a stupid Dr, with an illness and later after a second opinion it was found he was wrong.  I am guessing you've had second opinions on the CP?  My nephews son has CP.

    Reply to: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about National Health Plans ….and maybe more - France   15 years 6 months ago
    EPer:
  • My 15 year old kid needed a physical for tennis this year. Not a CBC lab type physical, just the cough, cough type. We were in there for 10 minutes and it was $179.

    To top it off, he made the team last year but this year didn't make the cut. So it was all for nothing. Next year he tries out first and then if he makes it I'll get the physical.

    Reply to: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about National Health Plans ….and maybe more - France   15 years 6 months ago
    EPer:
  • The only real diagnosis available is an MRI.

    We got lucky- Shriner's refered him for it, and it didn't need to go on our insurance.

    But now that he has the diagnosis- EVEN THOUGH THE DOCTORS CAN DO NOTHING FOR HIM- it's being treated as a pre-existing condition. Drives me crazy. There's no cure. Only workarounds for his symptoms, and the public school system is handling that (as they should, it's education, not medicine).
    -------------------------------------
    Executive compensation is inversely proportional to morality and ethics.

    Reply to: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about National Health Plans ….and maybe more - France   15 years 6 months ago
    EPer:
  • I almost did a blog posting on this (I'll be deleting the private one today) using TaxIDs as a proxy for the self-employed, but I was unable to get the "drop off" rates even from the SBA. NOBODY is tracking this on either end.
    -------------------------------------
    Executive compensation is inversely proportional to morality and ethics.

    Reply to: Jobless claims "less bad" at 601,000   15 years 6 months ago
    EPer:
  • and 1099 contract workers that are now unemployed. When things were cooking, many people tried their hand at working as their own boss. When construction was booming there were a lot of guys that became self employed subs contracting with the GC.

    Now that things have turned sour those subs are out of business and without jobs available....where are they? Since they were 1099 people, they wouldn't be getting unemployment and don't show up on the radar. As with a lot of government shadow stats, just because the 1099 people don't show on their list doesn't mean they don't exist.

    I personally know about 10 guys that during the construction boom they went subcontractor status. So if little old me know ten people, in my little patch of the Nation, if one would extrapolate the numbers across the entire Nation I would guess it is a big number.

    Then there is that little nit picky stat of people that have run past their total unemployment benefit period but still have no job. I also know some of them.

    Reply to: Jobless claims "less bad" at 601,000   15 years 6 months ago
    EPer:
  • I think diagnostic tests are one of the things insurance tries to not cover and to me, that's critical. Without testing there is misdiagnosis, no diagnosis.

    I think costs are absurd though. Like to even get a blood sugar meter, the paper is beyond spendy. No way should it cost as much as it does and there are so many things like that.

    Reply to: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about National Health Plans ….and maybe more - France   15 years 6 months ago
    EPer:
  • 50%

    I read 50%, chance of recovery starting in June.

    Do you think we should include econbrowser in place of Winter in the middle column?

    I see CR is reporting that we have continued record claims so to me if this is yet another "jobless recovery" (I read this as even more labor arbitrage, i.e. offshore outsourced jobs, bringing in more cheap labor, forcing people to work even more hours, etc.)

    Reply to: Jobless claims "less bad" at 601,000   15 years 6 months ago
    EPer:
  • I have been uninsured before, and currently have minimal (catastrophic) insurance for myself and my family - some would call in under-insured. I would love to have more coverage, but the insurance system is set up to punish small businesses and individuals the most. What this has taught me is that shopping around for services and prescriptions can save a good amount of money, as can telling health care providers that the costs are coming out-of-pocket.

    Those that have a small co-pay never know what the costs are. There is no price competition because there is no incentive to shop around. This allows the costs to spiral out of control, causing insurance prices to spiral at the same time.

    I understand that bad things can happen, and diseases can be catastrophic mentally, physically, and financially. To me, the ideal national insurance policy would keep these possibilities in mind when being developed, while minimizing the possibility of abuse. In some ways, the 'health accounts' set up by a previous administration were good because of this.

    One of the reasons health insurance costs so much is because of frequent, unnecessary visits and testing. There is a place for reasonable preventive care but there is also a point where it is no longer preventative and is perhaps more psychiatric. And no, I don't think health insurance causes people to be hypochondriacs. It certainly enables those who are though.

    This is an economic argument, however, not an emotional one. When people abuse the system, it costs the rest of us money. Why should I pay over $12K/yr when my family only uses $500 of services (we actually use less)? I understand that's the nature of insurance, and that's the reason I pay more than I use now. There are logical upper limits, however. At some point, I'm better off putting money into the bank instead of throwing it to an insurance company.

    Reply to: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about National Health Plans ….and maybe more - France   15 years 6 months ago
    EPer:
  • break up the ones that didn't pass the stress tests. The results are known, not all the banks will require more cash. I say for those, let them pay back the TARP. But the rest, time to break 'em up. The two worst on the list also happen to be the two biggest on the list.

    Reply to: Its time to kill off the zombies before they engulf us all.   15 years 6 months ago
    EPer:
  • Did he promise to get this all cleared up? What was his record at the NY Fed?

    As head of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, Geithner gave an interview to Jenny Anderson of the New York Times in Feb. 2007. When asked about the high risk credit derivatives market, a risk he claimed that he'd addressed, Geithner said: "The fact that the banks are stronger and risk is spread more broadly should make the system more stable. We can’t know that with certainty though. We’ll have a test of that when things next threaten to fall apart."

    What is this?  A science fair project.  Testing when 'things threaten to fall apart."  How about testing to fix problems before things get bad enough to threaten to fall apart. 


    Will anybody in corporate media mention that we've had Mr. Geithner's anticipated "test" and things did "fall apart" because the banks were weaker not "stronger."

    Reply to: Geithner Declares the Universe is Safe   15 years 6 months ago
  • they understate inflation.

    Reply to: Almost a quarter of all homeowners are now underwater   15 years 7 months ago
  • because you are going to find out the infant mortality argument is not a barometer. It will be part of the Japan plan. "infant mortality rate and life expectancy at birth are no longer proper indicators for evaluating a health care
    system. " It will have a link to the Japanese report that was Funded by:

    The Policy and Human Resources
    Development Trust Fund
    of the Government of Japan

    Also (you can do the homework) there are countries that don't even count a baby unless it was alive for a certain amount of time. I believe in the USA if the baby is out of the womb, it is counted.

    Reply to: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about National Health Plans ….and maybe more - France   15 years 7 months ago
    EPer:
  • I meant that someone with a healthy child. A non healthy child can be on SCHIP.

    I was only pointing out the arrogance of someone that can afford to pay for their own and putting their child on SCHIP.

    Those childhood diseases. I still remember getting my son the sweat testing for CF.

    Reply to: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about National Health Plans ….and maybe more - France   15 years 7 months ago
    EPer:
  • in terms of saving your baby: U.S. has one of the worst infant mortality rates of any industrialized nation.

    Reply to: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about National Health Plans ….and maybe more - France   15 years 7 months ago
  • then we can start to talk about which ones are efficient and what we can head toward.

    When it comes to health care, efficiency is an oxymoron. Trying to save your arm, your life, your baby and nobody is going to worry about being efficient.

    Reply to: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about National Health Plans ….and maybe more - France   15 years 7 months ago
    EPer:
  • What is tomorrows plate of BS?

    Reply to: Geithner Declares the Universe is Safe   15 years 7 months ago
    EPer:
  • Economics tells me that our system is highly inefficient and costly.

    I am looking for and want something better than what we have.

    Reply to: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about National Health Plans ….and maybe more - France   15 years 7 months ago
  • It is pure economics. After I get through all the countries you really will see that most all countries are moving away from full coverage. They are adding massive cost controls, utilization reviews and health plans that are deep in debt.

    Plus there are socialized plans that people don't provide what everyone is clamoring for in the USA. Japan has very little preventive care, they don't cover pregnancy as a complication, etc.

    Ya all got some learn'in a-comin of what the world is really like. It isn't necessarily what you have been told it is like. It is why I am doing this ...kind of a teaching program.

    Why do people get upset when they find out there is no Santa Claus?

    Reply to: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about National Health Plans ….and maybe more - France   15 years 7 months ago
    EPer:
  • 20.4 million homes are worth less than the mortgage owed! Let's say the average occupancy is 3.2 per house. That's over 65 million people at risk and unemployment is still climbing. Plus, I've seen reports that wages and salaries are down significantly as well. But we should start seeing growth in GDP later this year, right?

    Reply to: Almost a quarter of all homeowners are now underwater   15 years 7 months ago
    EPer:
  • I was aware of this hearing and the absolutely amazing lack of audit and awareness on trillions but couldn't get to it.

    Reply to: Surprise! Fed IG knows nothing about the Fed!   15 years 7 months ago
    EPer:

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