Thoughts on the passage of the health care bill?

[Veritas]

[Anonymous]

The “I insure myself by saving my premiums” story is the most laughable financial plan I’ve heard in a long time.

I know exactly how much premiums cost. I’m paying for COBRA on a “Cadiallac” health plan right now. The policy is for an entire familiy. It’s about $1500/month – about as high as any employer-provided medical premium gets.

Paying in $1500/month and getting a 6% rate of return would take more than 20 years to accumulate over $700K in savings. And that’s only if I never have a single medical expense the whole time.

And we can’t just treat this money as general savings. One would have to set all that money aside for no other purpose than medical expenses to get the equivalent beneift of a health insurance policy. And we have to keep it in liquid assets for it to work as well an insurance policy (which means 6% is generous.)

So it’s an almost successful plan — if I save all my premiums, get an unusually high rate of return and no one in my family has a single medical bill for 20 years. And then I get in a car accident.

The plan is basically this: don’t get sick or hurt until you’ve saved enough to pay for it.

Someone is missing the whole meaning of the word “insurance.”

[Anonymous]

The “I insure myself by saving my premiums” story is the most laughable financial plan I’ve heard in a long time.

I know exactly how much premiums cost. I’m paying for COBRA on a “Cadiallac” health plan right now. The policy is for an entire familiy. It’s about $1500/month – about as high as any employer-provided medical premium gets.

Paying in $1500/month and getting a 6% rate of return would take more than 20 years to accumulate over $700K in savings. And that’s only if I never have a single medical expense the whole time.

And we can’t just treat this money as general savings. One would have to set all that money aside for no other purpose than medical expenses to get the equivalent beneift of a health insurance policy. And we have to keep it in liquid assets for it to work as well an insurance policy (which means 6% is generous.)

So it’s an almost successful plan — if I save all my premiums, get an unusually high rate of return and no one in my family has a single medical bill for 20 years. And then I get in a car accident.

The plan is basically this: don’t get sick or hurt until you’ve saved enough to pay for it.

Someone is missing the whole meaning of the word “insurance.”

[Anonymous]

The “I insure myself by saving my premiums” story is the most laughable financial plan I’ve heard in a long time.

I know exactly how much premiums cost. I’m paying for COBRA on a “Cadiallac” health plan right now. The policy is for an entire familiy. It’s about $1500/month – about as high as any employer-provided medical premium gets.

Paying in $1500/month and getting a 6% rate of return would take more than 20 years to accumulate over $700K in savings. And that’s only if I never have a single medical expense the whole time.

And we can’t just treat this money as general savings. One would have to set all that money aside for no other purpose than medical expenses to get the equivalent beneift of a health insurance policy. And we have to keep it in liquid assets for it to work as well an insurance policy (which means 6% is generous.)

So it’s an almost successful plan — if I save all my premiums, get an unusually high rate of return and no one in my family has a single medical bill for 20 years. And then I get in a car accident.

The plan is basically this: don’t get sick or hurt until you’ve saved enough to pay for it.

Someone is missing the whole meaning of the word “insurance.”

[Anonymous]

The “I insure myself by saving my premiums” story is the most laughable financial plan I’ve heard in a long time.

I know exactly how much premiums cost. I’m paying for COBRA on a “Cadiallac” health plan right now. The policy is for an entire familiy. It’s about $1500/month – about as high as any employer-provided medical premium gets.

Paying in $1500/month and getting a 6% rate of return would take more than 20 years to accumulate over $700K in savings. And that’s only if I never have a single medical expense the whole time.

And we can’t just treat this money as general savings. One would have to set all that money aside for no other purpose than medical expenses to get the equivalent beneift of a health insurance policy. And we have to keep it in liquid assets for it to work as well an insurance policy (which means 6% is generous.)

So it’s an almost successful plan — if I save all my premiums, get an unusually high rate of return and no one in my family has a single medical bill for 20 years. And then I get in a car accident.

The plan is basically this: don’t get sick or hurt until you’ve saved enough to pay for it.

Someone is missing the whole meaning of the word “insurance.”

[Anonymous]

The “I insure myself by saving my premiums” story is the most laughable financial plan I’ve heard in a long time.

I know exactly how much premiums cost. I’m paying for COBRA on a “Cadiallac” health plan right now. The policy is for an entire familiy. It’s about $1500/month – about as high as any employer-provided medical premium gets.

Paying in $1500/month and getting a 6% rate of return would take more than 20 years to accumulate over $700K in savings. And that’s only if I never have a single medical expense the whole time.

And we can’t just treat this money as general savings. One would have to set all that money aside for no other purpose than medical expenses to get the equivalent beneift of a health insurance policy. And we have to keep it in liquid assets for it to work as well an insurance policy (which means 6% is generous.)

So it’s an almost successful plan — if I save all my premiums, get an unusually high rate of return and no one in my family has a single medical bill for 20 years. And then I get in a car accident.

The plan is basically this: don’t get sick or hurt until you’ve saved enough to pay for it.

Someone is missing the whole meaning of the word “insurance.”

[patb]

[quote=Casca]
Having experienced the best of socialized medicine in the military,

[/quote]

Funny, The VA is listed as the Best Standard of Care in this country.

[patb]

[quote=Casca]
Having experienced the best of socialized medicine in the military,

[/quote]

Funny, The VA is listed as the Best Standard of Care in this country.

[patb]

[quote=Casca]
Having experienced the best of socialized medicine in the military,

[/quote]

Funny, The VA is listed as the Best Standard of Care in this country.

[patb]

[quote=Casca]
Having experienced the best of socialized medicine in the military,

[/quote]

Funny, The VA is listed as the Best Standard of Care in this country.

[patb]

[quote=Casca]
Having experienced the best of socialized medicine in the military,

[/quote]

Funny, The VA is listed as the Best Standard of Care in this country.

[ucodegen]

I’m fortunate that, until this year, my employer was pretty generous in how much they covered. I did not count the employer contribution since that was NOT out of my pocket.

I found that including employer contrib really did change the numbers, as well as the rate you applied for internal rate of return (I ran it both ways)

This isn’t the first time I’ve done your exercise… When high deductable HSA plans were rolled out a few years ago I started doing this every year. So far, it doesn’t make sense… but being an anal engineer – I’ll keep doing the math every year.

As do I.. for me, it didn’t pencil out. I do have to start watching for colon polyps soon because one side of the family had colon cancer, though it could also have been their nutritional behavior too.

Good for you for saving >$700k, but it’s not useful for public policy. Maybe 1% of the country could practically save $250k to self-insure a family, and it would take them a decade to get there. And once they got there, would they even notice the cost of a high-deductible policy?

Why deny the ability to pay direct to those that can and/or have the discipline to save up enough to do this? You also have to realize that for most people, they will never have anything near this cost. Insurance reduces the risk of the big one.. but it also increases the cost if you try to use it for regular visits.

I only know what I heard from the widow at the time. I do know the liver was (at the least one of the) thing they couldn’t fix.

Had to be from something different then the accident.. but worsened by the accident. If you have cirrhosis, the liver will not repair itself well from impact injury.

[ucodegen]

I’m fortunate that, until this year, my employer was pretty generous in how much they covered. I did not count the employer contribution since that was NOT out of my pocket.

I found that including employer contrib really did change the numbers, as well as the rate you applied for internal rate of return (I ran it both ways)

This isn’t the first time I’ve done your exercise… When high deductable HSA plans were rolled out a few years ago I started doing this every year. So far, it doesn’t make sense… but being an anal engineer – I’ll keep doing the math every year.

As do I.. for me, it didn’t pencil out. I do have to start watching for colon polyps soon because one side of the family had colon cancer, though it could also have been their nutritional behavior too.

Good for you for saving >$700k, but it’s not useful for public policy. Maybe 1% of the country could practically save $250k to self-insure a family, and it would take them a decade to get there. And once they got there, would they even notice the cost of a high-deductible policy?

Why deny the ability to pay direct to those that can and/or have the discipline to save up enough to do this? You also have to realize that for most people, they will never have anything near this cost. Insurance reduces the risk of the big one.. but it also increases the cost if you try to use it for regular visits.

I only know what I heard from the widow at the time. I do know the liver was (at the least one of the) thing they couldn’t fix.

Had to be from something different then the accident.. but worsened by the accident. If you have cirrhosis, the liver will not repair itself well from impact injury.

[ucodegen]

I’m fortunate that, until this year, my employer was pretty generous in how much they covered. I did not count the employer contribution since that was NOT out of my pocket.

I found that including employer contrib really did change the numbers, as well as the rate you applied for internal rate of return (I ran it both ways)

This isn’t the first time I’ve done your exercise… When high deductable HSA plans were rolled out a few years ago I started doing this every year. So far, it doesn’t make sense… but being an anal engineer – I’ll keep doing the math every year.

As do I.. for me, it didn’t pencil out. I do have to start watching for colon polyps soon because one side of the family had colon cancer, though it could also have been their nutritional behavior too.

Good for you for saving >$700k, but it’s not useful for public policy. Maybe 1% of the country could practically save $250k to self-insure a family, and it would take them a decade to get there. And once they got there, would they even notice the cost of a high-deductible policy?

Why deny the ability to pay direct to those that can and/or have the discipline to save up enough to do this? You also have to realize that for most people, they will never have anything near this cost. Insurance reduces the risk of the big one.. but it also increases the cost if you try to use it for regular visits.

I only know what I heard from the widow at the time. I do know the liver was (at the least one of the) thing they couldn’t fix.

Had to be from something different then the accident.. but worsened by the accident. If you have cirrhosis, the liver will not repair itself well from impact injury.

[ucodegen]

I’m fortunate that, until this year, my employer was pretty generous in how much they covered. I did not count the employer contribution since that was NOT out of my pocket.

I found that including employer contrib really did change the numbers, as well as the rate you applied for internal rate of return (I ran it both ways)

This isn’t the first time I’ve done your exercise… When high deductable HSA plans were rolled out a few years ago I started doing this every year. So far, it doesn’t make sense… but being an anal engineer – I’ll keep doing the math every year.

As do I.. for me, it didn’t pencil out. I do have to start watching for colon polyps soon because one side of the family had colon cancer, though it could also have been their nutritional behavior too.

Good for you for saving >$700k, but it’s not useful for public policy. Maybe 1% of the country could practically save $250k to self-insure a family, and it would take them a decade to get there. And once they got there, would they even notice the cost of a high-deductible policy?

Why deny the ability to pay direct to those that can and/or have the discipline to save up enough to do this? You also have to realize that for most people, they will never have anything near this cost. Insurance reduces the risk of the big one.. but it also increases the cost if you try to use it for regular visits.

I only know what I heard from the widow at the time. I do know the liver was (at the least one of the) thing they couldn’t fix.

Had to be from something different then the accident.. but worsened by the accident. If you have cirrhosis, the liver will not repair itself well from impact injury.

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