| Author | Message | ||
     Crusty |
I got this E-mail the other day, and I rather enjoyed it: If fire insurance was like health insurance People from the rest of the world may have noticed that we're having arguments about health care in this country. Some people say the current system is broken. Others are afraid to lose what health care they have. Some say that providing health care for the uninsured will be too expensive. Others say that we already are providing health care for the uninsured, but doing it in the most expensive way possible. People outside of the U.S. probably don't understand what the difficulty is. So I'll provide a little analogy. Here's what fire insurance would be like if it ran like the U.S. health care system. I am basing this on my experiences with my own health insurance, which is considered to be a very good insurance plan. Under this system fire insurance is provided by your employer, who gets a group discount from the insurance companies. Neither your employer nor the insurance company is allowed to disclose how much the insurance costs, because they both consider it a trade secret. Once a year, in November, you get the chance to change your fire insurance company if you are unhappy with them. But since you probably haven't had a fire, what is there to be unhappy about? If you lose your job, you lose your fire insurance but the insurance company is required by law to allow you to pay an exorbitant sum to continue your insurance for 6 months. They will also allow you to buy a cheaper plan, which will replace your house with a tent if it burns down. By the way, the most common way to lose your job is to have a house fire. If you are self employed or unemployed, you might be able to buy insurance. It will be much more expensive than the group plans that employers get. You will also be disqualified if you have had a fire in the past, smoke, or have been seen with matches or a cigarette lighter. The way the fire insurance system works is that your insurance company will provide you a list of twenty fire inspectors. You are required to have a fire inspector in order to get access to a fire station. You will call all twenty and their secretaries will tell you that they aren't taking any new clients. You will eventually get taken on by one of them because your mother is one of his clients. The inspector is paid a flat fee per year per client by the insurance company. He gets paid this amount whether he inspects your home or not. Each time he does inspect your home he might get a small payment from the insurance company, but you need to give him a $20 additional payment. This is to encourage you not to get your home inspected. If your home has apparent problems that need further investigation, the inspector does not get additional payments from the insurance company. If your home needs repairs to prevent a fire, the insurance company will pay for them, but the inspector might get charged a fee for referring you to a contractor. This is to encourage your fire inspector not to refer you to a contractor to perform repairs. The fire inspector contracts with a fire station to handle emergencies. It might not be the closest fire station to your home. None of the firefighters working at the fire station are employees of the fire station. They are all independent contractors who are paid by the person who has a fire, or by the insurance company. The only employees at the fire station are the 35 people they have on staff to handle billing the 65 insurance companies that they contract with. If you have a fire, the first thing you do is call your fire inspector. If he agrees that there is a fire, he will call the insurance company to get authorization to call the fire station. Some fraction of the time these authorizations will be denied. When the fire station gets the call they will also call the insurance company for authorization. When each fireman gets to the house, they will ask for a copy of your insurance card before putting out the fire. If any of the people involved forgets to get authorization, they won't be paid by the insurance company. They will either bill you, or eat the expenses. Fortunately it was just a minor fire entirely contained in a frying pan. After the fire has been put out, and a contractor has started repairs, you will receive a bunch of bills that have "THIS IS NOT A BILL" written on them. You will get one from each fireman, one from the fire station, one from your fire inspector, one from the contractor who is repairing your house and one from each of the construction workers the contractor has hired. They will come with a reply envelope for sending in a payment. This is to encourage you to accidentally pay them. The bills will be for outrageous amounts that represent several years of your salary. Even the construction workers will be billing you several hundred dollars per hour. The fire station will be billing you ten thousand dollars for the water that came out of the fire hose from the public fire hydrant and a thousand dollars for the initial phone call. If you belong to one of the group fire insurance plans offered by your employer, you are lucky. After about 6 months you will get notice that they have paid all of the bills for about 30% of the billed amount. Some items they will disallow, like the bill for fire hydrant water. You aren't responsible for paying those, either. Some of the time, the insurance company will decide to de-authorize the fire fighting. Usually it involves the insurance company not having evidence that the fire wasn't caused by an alien death ray. Alien death rays are not a covered benefit. If you are unlucky enough to have an individual plan and it's not a bad fire, that will probably happen as well. If it's a bad fire, the insurance company will claim you were never insured, that the fire call wasn't pre-authorized, or that on your "fire history" form you forgot to mention that your grandfather smoked. If you are uninsured, or if your insurance company refuses to pay, you'll have to pay those exorbitant bills, skip town and use an alias, or go bankrupt. Why were the bills so high to begin with? There are a few reasons for that. There's a lot of overhead to running a fire station. You need to pay those 35 people who handle billing. Since there are 65 contracts each with different rates of payment, you need 35 people to handle billing. Every firefighter is also paying two or more people to handle billing. It's important to have these people since the insurance companies are trying to underpay you and you are trying to get them to overpay. Every dollar they save is a dollar in profit for them. Every extra dollar they pay is a profit for the fire station. In addition the fire fighters salary comes out of charge, so if they handle 50 fires a year and want a $200k income, that's $4000 per fire in salary alone. Add another $3000 for a secretary and two billing clerks, and that's $7000 per fire before overhead. By law, a fire station needs to respond to fires of the uninsured. Most of those bills don't get paid, so the unpaid charges are worked into the billing rates. That boost the bills further. The amounts billed might even be different depending upon your insurance company. How much it really costs to provide these services is considered a trade secret by the fire station. The amounts the insurance company pays is considered to be a trade secret by both the insurance company and by the fire station. So now there is talk of reforming the fire insurance system because it's gotten more expensive to buy the insurance than it is to buy the house it protects. Of course huge profits are made in fire insurance, so the insurance companies don't want that. The opponents are raising the usual talk about not being able to choose your fire inspector, and how we wouldn't want fire departments run by the government because government can't do anything right. That would be socialism, and we all know socialism leads to totalitarianism. We wouldn't want the government telling us how to fight fires and what construction materials were safe to use. Of course, the U.S. fire fighting system is the best in the world and there's no need for improvement. And it would be too expensive to provide fire fighting services to everyone. It's not like a government mandate to have fire insurance before you could buy a house would ever be practical. And people wouldn't be able to contract with fire stations that put out fires with xenon gas to avoid water damage because the government will think it's too expensive. But somehow the rest of the world is able to provide low cost fire fighting at reasonable cost without slipping into totalitarianism. The major problem the opponents of government sponsored fire fighting have is that it might work. And if it works, it will necessarily cut the profits of the insurance companies, the fire stations, and firefighters might have to become salaried employees rather than contractors. | ||
| Hootowl |
The largest health insurance provider in the US is a non profit. Sort of blows up your theory about greedy insurance companies, doesn't it? | ||
| Aesquire |
A most dishonest e-mail you got sent. Thanks for sharing it with us. It's important to know what lies evil men are telling. You need to know the truth to make a valid judgment. http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2014/07/16/former-wh-law yer-obama-can-change-obamacare-because-he-agrees-w ith-it/ Simply it's ok for Obama to change the law (Obamacare) if he agrees with it. This fails to explain him deciding not to enforce the Defense Of Marriage Act. Obama disagrees with it. One of the rare cases where Obama and I disagree together. I have no clue if we agree on any reason we disagree with that law. | ||
| Sifo |
Well this is quite a blow to ObamaDontCare... Fed appeals court panel says most Obamacare subsidies illegal | ||
| Reepicheep |
So the death spiral begins.
I have had two major beefs with the ACA since it was proposed. 1) It contained too many lies, and the media failed to vet any of them. So while I might be inclined to roll over and accept the will of the people voted fair and square, we won't ever know if that was the case. What we know is that a "too good to be true" fairytale, which was incorrectly vetted as fact by most media outlets, passed. That tells us nothing and helps nothing, the vote was on something that mathematically can never exist. 2) The government, even if the math worked in theory, is likely very poorly positioned to deliver. Look no further than social security, which is run in a way that would get private companies arrested for fraud and theft. So now a screwed up situation (what insurance and health care was) gets replaced with an even more screwed up situation (a screwed up healthcare and insurance system, but with incredible overhead and drag from an all powerful government that thinks it knows everything but in actually can't execute effectively in that space). | ||
| Hootowl |
From the link... "Earnest said "it was obvious" that Congress intended subsidies, or tax credits, to be issued to Obamacare enrollees regardless of what kind of exchange they used to buy insurance." This is precisely incorrect. I watched the debates. The intent of Congress was to specifically exclude the federal exchange in order to incentivize states to open their own. I can't believe that if this goes to SCOTUS, a bright lawyer won't bring footage from CSPAN that irrefutably proves this point. | ||
| Ducbsa |
Because "you have to pass the law so we can see what's in it!" and that they didn't read it, the intent of the congresscritters who voted for it can't be determined, so the law has to mean that the subsidies are only for the State exchanges, as the law actually reads. | ||
| Kenm123t |
ACA Obamacare Proof Libtard Demoncrats are evil and Stupid | ||
| Aesquire |
By giving them labels "evil and stupid" you make a grave mistake. You think of them as less capable than they are. Thus you respect them less and thus they can screw you. I assure you in their field of competence they are top notch. You don't get to be a Congressman without being wealthy, ( a common scale of performance ) and have outstanding people skills. Bad news is they exploit those skills in a corrupt and exploitive way. That's not new, ask Brutus. Senator of Rome. I'm not saying they aren't evil or stupid by your lights........ just that labels save you the bother of thinking and in this case that bites you on the butt. | ||
| Reindog |
Take one guess as to who is paying for this fraud. Liberals, you are morally bankrupt. Investigators obtain ObamaCare coverage, subsidies using fake identities Published July 23, 2014 FoxNews.com Undercover government investigators were able to obtain thousands of dollars in taxpayer subsidies under ObamaCare using fake identities, according to findings being presented to Congress on Wednesday. The probe by the Government Accountability Office has raised fresh concerns about the ability of the sprawling health care program to prevent or intercept costly fraud schemes. In the case of the GAO investigation, 11 out of 12 applications submitted using "fictitious identities" were accepted, resulting in subsidized health coverage. "For each of our 11 approved applications, we paid the required premiums to put policies into force, and are continuing to pay the premiums. For the 11 applications that were approved for coverage, we obtained the advance premium tax credit in all cases," the report said. According to the GAO, the total amount for these credits was $2,500 monthly, adding up to $30,000 a year. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/07/23/fake-ap plicants-finding-it-easy-to-sign-up-for-obamacare- investigators-say/ | ||
| Reepicheep |
Worse than that. I have a friend that is self employed, and he simply can't justify the ACA mandated insurance plans now. So the ACA act *removed* his insurance. Before he kept catastrophic care coverage to keep from being a burden on others, but paid for the rest of his care as he needed it. So now he has no insurance, due to mandates from healthcare.gov, while healthcare.gov doesn't work and bleeds money hand over fist. This was a transfer of health insurance away from hard working people into cash in the pockets of bureaucrats and thieves. | ||
| Reepicheep |
From: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2014/07/22/obamacar e-in-death-spiral-after-federal-appeals-court-stri kes-down-some/?intcmp=obinsite Fantastic summary. If this legislation had been pushed out, vetted, and voted forward as what it really is, and the proponents of it carried the vote, then so be it. But it wasn't. It was lie after lie. I've bought cell phone plans that were more accurately represented. :0 | ||
| Fb1 |
How To Opt Out Of Obamacare Know your options and become savvy self-pay patients By Sean Parnell, December 4, 2013 http://thefederalist.com/2013/12/04/opt-obamacare/ | ||
| Reepicheep |
Good info, I passed it on. Now this: http://washingtonexaminer.com/survey-fewer-than-1- in-5-better-off-because-of-obamacare-many-more-wor se-off/article/2551199 You ***KNOW*** it's bad when even CNN can't run a survey getting the answer they want. Americans believe the ACA is hurting many more people than it helps. Which is what the math showed from the beginning, had the media chosen to vet the claims of the opposing parties. | ||
| Kenm123t |
Patrick Labels do not define how much evil they wield. Sun Tzu has many good points on knowing your enemy. Evil defines his motives stupid the outcome of his policies. In the end they will destroy the system they hate so deeply but actually allows them a place in Life. In the end we will survive and they will not. Resulting in the end of their existence that defines Stupid. The Challenge "may your knife chip and shatter " Causing your enemy to doubt himself is sometimes very productive! | ||
| Reindog |
It is time to bury this turd.  | ||
| Ducbsa |
It was working well for this impartial "Navigator": http://www.nationalreview.com/article/383555/ex-na vigators-story-jillian-kay-melchior | ||
| Ducbsa |
Regarding the recent ruling on subsidies to the O'care policy holders in states without exchanges, the partisans seem to change their stories: http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2014/07/expl icating-exchanges.php Seems like consistent behavior from that bunch from Obama on down. | ||
| Ducbsa |
Barney Frank speaks: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/01/barney-fr ank-obama-lie_n_5642132.html?ncid=txtlnkusaolp0000 0592 | ||
| Aesquire |
Kenm...... I don't dispute the evil. Stupid? They have achieved a the desired result. They deliberately with malice aforethought hurt millions and have written into law the hurting of hundreds of millions more. Obama just delayed the direct harm to nearly 200,000,000 until after the election. ( after he delayed harm until after the previous election for tens of millions) Those numbers are from the White House. The indirect harm in inflation has already happened. My point is by labeling them stupid you blind yourself to how clever and ruthless they are. "They're dumb and incompetent" and you miss the willingness to let children die to steal money and power. Look at the "immigration crisis". Power is the goal. How many little boys and girls are raped murdered or enslaved? Price of doing business...... and The Pols are not paying. The children are. | ||
| Pwnzor |
My health care costs just went up. Again. That's three times now. But hey, I got to keep my plan. Well... a reasonable facsimile of it. | ||
| Kenm123t |
Well when will you be ready to deal with the Issue? Voting is rigged by the demonrats. So the mid terms are in question Here in Fl Holder is messing with voting districts at the last minute and threatening a sitting Governor. We are on the same page on the left most are useful or useless idiots that are in love with a psychopathic personality types. The google group that runs the lefties are exactly what your referring to EVIL power craving monsters. The Rank and File are stupid followers Notice the Unions finally figured it out IBEW UMW in the past week or so. Never miss a chance to spurn a libtard with a label they love to use them on every one and every issue. Turn about is fair play! | ||
| Reepicheep |
That's a bit rich to hear Barney Frank lecturing Obama about lying. How about we get a hard hitting review of Barney Franks role in the real estate bubble, and how when the Bush administration was trying to crack down on reckless loans Barney was attacking the auditors raising concerns about over valued properties and loans that people should never have gotten. If Americans had been told the truth about the ACA, it would have been dead in it's tracks. Which is what should have happened, because the thing that followed that kind of open and honest scrutiny it could have been much better and wasted much less money. | ||
| Hootowl |
Find out the truth? Nah. They'd rather picket the homes of bank executives and pass laws and write regulations that mandate the minimum percentage of subprime (bad) loans that banks must issue, and then point their fingers when it all came crashing down. It's almost like they were trying to crash the economy aka Cloward-Piven. Good thing the architect of the crash was available to create the "solution". | ||
| Sifo |
Foreigners hacked Obamacare website in July - but HHS only discovered it 10 days ago Hacked back in July, and had malicious code inserted, and we didn't even know about it until last week!  | ||
| Reepicheep |
It's easy to say data wasn't exfiltrated if your bosses boss (who happens to be the POTUS) doesn't want you to find any data exfiltrated. Oh look! Data wasn't exfiltrated! It was inevitable from the start, even if they did things right. And they most certainly didn't do things right. | ||
| Court |
So . . . .all the hooligans broke the window out of the Western Auto store . . . . climbed in through the broken window . . . looked around and took nothing? Ok. . . what they lack in honesty, integrity, competence and transparency . . .they more than make up for in humor and consistency. This REALLY is the gang who couldn't shoot straight . . . . If your kid was going in for an operation . . . would you want someone from the current administration doing the procedure. VOTE. | ||
| Thumper74 |
Hoot, you may want to check out Predator Nation... | ||
| Hootowl |
They didn't change the default password. That speaks volumes. | ||
| Reepicheep |
It's easy to make a mistake given the complexity of a modern large scale IT enterprise. In fact I'd argue that mistakes are statically inevitable unless you aren't really doing anything interesting in the first place. But not changing the default password is not one of the ones you should make. Geesh. |
