[ucodegen]

Even when I added in the cost of servicing aging machines, it was still far cheaper and by an order of magnitude. The warranty programs were obviously a form of insurance, but, up until that point, I had never sat down and considered the true “cost” of maintaining that insurance. I would wager that health insurance, philosophically speaking, is exactly the same.

It is. The financing for a ‘warranty’ program is done by the company taking out an insurance policy. It is much like those lifetime warranty auto parts (lifetime guarantee). These days, it doesn’t mean the part is better.. just that there is an insurance policy against it. When you get an auto part, next time get them to pull the part with the lifetime warranty as well as the mid priced part without the warranty.. and set them side by side on the stores counter and inspect them. They tend to be identical. The biggest cost to me, if I do any auto repairs, is the time and effort to do the repair (dismantling a good portion of the engine to get at the part and remove it). These days, I look for the parts that have the best ‘structure’ and am willing to pay a bit more. ‘structure’ is hard to define. My background is in engineering, so I look for one that is engineered well, with good materials, good quality machining etc.

Now that I went OT on auto parts, it is also the same for health insurance. With insurance, you put a business between you and your doctor. The business wants a profit. The bill to the doctor has to be paid either way…

All that insurance is really set up to do, is reduce risk. This would be the risk that one BIG health issue would wipe you out. This is because insurance works by distributing the risk over many people.

[ucodegen]

Even when I added in the cost of servicing aging machines, it was still far cheaper and by an order of magnitude. The warranty programs were obviously a form of insurance, but, up until that point, I had never sat down and considered the true “cost” of maintaining that insurance. I would wager that health insurance, philosophically speaking, is exactly the same.

It is. The financing for a ‘warranty’ program is done by the company taking out an insurance policy. It is much like those lifetime warranty auto parts (lifetime guarantee). These days, it doesn’t mean the part is better.. just that there is an insurance policy against it. When you get an auto part, next time get them to pull the part with the lifetime warranty as well as the mid priced part without the warranty.. and set them side by side on the stores counter and inspect them. They tend to be identical. The biggest cost to me, if I do any auto repairs, is the time and effort to do the repair (dismantling a good portion of the engine to get at the part and remove it). These days, I look for the parts that have the best ‘structure’ and am willing to pay a bit more. ‘structure’ is hard to define. My background is in engineering, so I look for one that is engineered well, with good materials, good quality machining etc.

Now that I went OT on auto parts, it is also the same for health insurance. With insurance, you put a business between you and your doctor. The business wants a profit. The bill to the doctor has to be paid either way…

All that insurance is really set up to do, is reduce risk. This would be the risk that one BIG health issue would wipe you out. This is because insurance works by distributing the risk over many people.

[ucodegen]

Even when I added in the cost of servicing aging machines, it was still far cheaper and by an order of magnitude. The warranty programs were obviously a form of insurance, but, up until that point, I had never sat down and considered the true “cost” of maintaining that insurance. I would wager that health insurance, philosophically speaking, is exactly the same.

It is. The financing for a ‘warranty’ program is done by the company taking out an insurance policy. It is much like those lifetime warranty auto parts (lifetime guarantee). These days, it doesn’t mean the part is better.. just that there is an insurance policy against it. When you get an auto part, next time get them to pull the part with the lifetime warranty as well as the mid priced part without the warranty.. and set them side by side on the stores counter and inspect them. They tend to be identical. The biggest cost to me, if I do any auto repairs, is the time and effort to do the repair (dismantling a good portion of the engine to get at the part and remove it). These days, I look for the parts that have the best ‘structure’ and am willing to pay a bit more. ‘structure’ is hard to define. My background is in engineering, so I look for one that is engineered well, with good materials, good quality machining etc.

Now that I went OT on auto parts, it is also the same for health insurance. With insurance, you put a business between you and your doctor. The business wants a profit. The bill to the doctor has to be paid either way…

All that insurance is really set up to do, is reduce risk. This would be the risk that one BIG health issue would wipe you out. This is because insurance works by distributing the risk over many people.

[ucodegen]

On board member mentioned many posts ago, to the effect that, why was health care less expensive 10 years ago..

It is quite simple. Insurance. Same has happened to auto repair costs. I would even add that 30 years ago, the costs of health care considerably less than now. 30 years ago, most people paid directly and insured only for catastrophic injuries. The exception was in the government sector (gov employees including teachers)

Any time you separate the beneficiary of a program from the payer of a program.. costs will spiral out of control. The beneficiary will want the best available irregardless of cost – because they don’t have to pay.. and the payer will have to pay up. If you add in an intermediary like insurance company or government and you have disaster. The intermediary will see it as a way to make a profit (skim) off of the huge amounts of money crossing hands.. or in the case of a government, a way to hide the costs of pork, ‘special’ compensation.

As I have mentioned before, I am one of the laid-off, looking for a job people. I am also one of the ‘uninsured’. Interesting part is, I was also one of the ‘uninsured’ when I was working. It is by choice. Instead of paying the money to an insurance company, I invested it. Now that I am laid off, I still am effectively covered because of all of that money I saved up over the years. I don’t have to pay COBRA to be able to pay for doctor or hospital visits. Shortly before I was laid off, I became extremely ill and jaundiced. The cost wasn’t that bad. It turns out that I can get close to 30% discount for being a cash payer. My MRI cost less by about 36% than if it had been covered by insurance. Total cost to me for all the doctor visits and tests etc came to about $2100. Compare this to even a years worth of insurance and this one time that I was sicker than I have ever been, comes out relatively cheap compared to paying for insurance for one year. In the process, one of the doctors I was going to was ‘steering’ me to surgery, ignoring the sepsis/bacterial infection possibility and family history. It was easy for me to walk away from this doctor and pick another. I have been fine for over 1 year now.. which seems to confirm the first doctor as being wrong.

One thing I did learn from this was the surprising number of doctors that prefer dealing with insurance. It came out that with self-pays, the doctors had to justify the tests to the patient and the patient had the final say. With the insured, the doctors could rack up the tests (which in some cases have ‘paybacks’ for business) without any final say in many cases. I am not putting down all GPs here, just saying that the decisions made by some are questionable. There seems to be too much ‘overtesting’ and the surgery option comes up too quickly.

Interesting exercises:
1) Take the sum of all the health care payments with or without company co-pay over your life.. and look at the total cost vs est outlay. If you are feeling like needing a challenge, include estimated growth based upon S&P historical growth.
2) Do the same for Social Security..

In all, I found that paying directly and insuring for only catastrophic is actually the best way, even now. General insurance makes people feel ‘safe’.. but at a considerable cost. Those outstretched hands of the ‘Good Hands People’ are not there to help you, they are asking for more money…

[ucodegen]

On board member mentioned many posts ago, to the effect that, why was health care less expensive 10 years ago..

It is quite simple. Insurance. Same has happened to auto repair costs. I would even add that 30 years ago, the costs of health care considerably less than now. 30 years ago, most people paid directly and insured only for catastrophic injuries. The exception was in the government sector (gov employees including teachers)

Any time you separate the beneficiary of a program from the payer of a program.. costs will spiral out of control. The beneficiary will want the best available irregardless of cost – because they don’t have to pay.. and the payer will have to pay up. If you add in an intermediary like insurance company or government and you have disaster. The intermediary will see it as a way to make a profit (skim) off of the huge amounts of money crossing hands.. or in the case of a government, a way to hide the costs of pork, ‘special’ compensation.

As I have mentioned before, I am one of the laid-off, looking for a job people. I am also one of the ‘uninsured’. Interesting part is, I was also one of the ‘uninsured’ when I was working. It is by choice. Instead of paying the money to an insurance company, I invested it. Now that I am laid off, I still am effectively covered because of all of that money I saved up over the years. I don’t have to pay COBRA to be able to pay for doctor or hospital visits. Shortly before I was laid off, I became extremely ill and jaundiced. The cost wasn’t that bad. It turns out that I can get close to 30% discount for being a cash payer. My MRI cost less by about 36% than if it had been covered by insurance. Total cost to me for all the doctor visits and tests etc came to about $2100. Compare this to even a years worth of insurance and this one time that I was sicker than I have ever been, comes out relatively cheap compared to paying for insurance for one year. In the process, one of the doctors I was going to was ‘steering’ me to surgery, ignoring the sepsis/bacterial infection possibility and family history. It was easy for me to walk away from this doctor and pick another. I have been fine for over 1 year now.. which seems to confirm the first doctor as being wrong.

One thing I did learn from this was the surprising number of doctors that prefer dealing with insurance. It came out that with self-pays, the doctors had to justify the tests to the patient and the patient had the final say. With the insured, the doctors could rack up the tests (which in some cases have ‘paybacks’ for business) without any final say in many cases. I am not putting down all GPs here, just saying that the decisions made by some are questionable. There seems to be too much ‘overtesting’ and the surgery option comes up too quickly.

Interesting exercises:
1) Take the sum of all the health care payments with or without company co-pay over your life.. and look at the total cost vs est outlay. If you are feeling like needing a challenge, include estimated growth based upon S&P historical growth.
2) Do the same for Social Security..

In all, I found that paying directly and insuring for only catastrophic is actually the best way, even now. General insurance makes people feel ‘safe’.. but at a considerable cost. Those outstretched hands of the ‘Good Hands People’ are not there to help you, they are asking for more money…

[ucodegen]

On board member mentioned many posts ago, to the effect that, why was health care less expensive 10 years ago..

It is quite simple. Insurance. Same has happened to auto repair costs. I would even add that 30 years ago, the costs of health care considerably less than now. 30 years ago, most people paid directly and insured only for catastrophic injuries. The exception was in the government sector (gov employees including teachers)

Any time you separate the beneficiary of a program from the payer of a program.. costs will spiral out of control. The beneficiary will want the best available irregardless of cost – because they don’t have to pay.. and the payer will have to pay up. If you add in an intermediary like insurance company or government and you have disaster. The intermediary will see it as a way to make a profit (skim) off of the huge amounts of money crossing hands.. or in the case of a government, a way to hide the costs of pork, ‘special’ compensation.

As I have mentioned before, I am one of the laid-off, looking for a job people. I am also one of the ‘uninsured’. Interesting part is, I was also one of the ‘uninsured’ when I was working. It is by choice. Instead of paying the money to an insurance company, I invested it. Now that I am laid off, I still am effectively covered because of all of that money I saved up over the years. I don’t have to pay COBRA to be able to pay for doctor or hospital visits. Shortly before I was laid off, I became extremely ill and jaundiced. The cost wasn’t that bad. It turns out that I can get close to 30% discount for being a cash payer. My MRI cost less by about 36% than if it had been covered by insurance. Total cost to me for all the doctor visits and tests etc came to about $2100. Compare this to even a years worth of insurance and this one time that I was sicker than I have ever been, comes out relatively cheap compared to paying for insurance for one year. In the process, one of the doctors I was going to was ‘steering’ me to surgery, ignoring the sepsis/bacterial infection possibility and family history. It was easy for me to walk away from this doctor and pick another. I have been fine for over 1 year now.. which seems to confirm the first doctor as being wrong.

One thing I did learn from this was the surprising number of doctors that prefer dealing with insurance. It came out that with self-pays, the doctors had to justify the tests to the patient and the patient had the final say. With the insured, the doctors could rack up the tests (which in some cases have ‘paybacks’ for business) without any final say in many cases. I am not putting down all GPs here, just saying that the decisions made by some are questionable. There seems to be too much ‘overtesting’ and the surgery option comes up too quickly.

Interesting exercises:
1) Take the sum of all the health care payments with or without company co-pay over your life.. and look at the total cost vs est outlay. If you are feeling like needing a challenge, include estimated growth based upon S&P historical growth.
2) Do the same for Social Security..

In all, I found that paying directly and insuring for only catastrophic is actually the best way, even now. General insurance makes people feel ‘safe’.. but at a considerable cost. Those outstretched hands of the ‘Good Hands People’ are not there to help you, they are asking for more money…

[ucodegen]

On board member mentioned many posts ago, to the effect that, why was health care less expensive 10 years ago..

It is quite simple. Insurance. Same has happened to auto repair costs. I would even add that 30 years ago, the costs of health care considerably less than now. 30 years ago, most people paid directly and insured only for catastrophic injuries. The exception was in the government sector (gov employees including teachers)

Any time you separate the beneficiary of a program from the payer of a program.. costs will spiral out of control. The beneficiary will want the best available irregardless of cost – because they don’t have to pay.. and the payer will have to pay up. If you add in an intermediary like insurance company or government and you have disaster. The intermediary will see it as a way to make a profit (skim) off of the huge amounts of money crossing hands.. or in the case of a government, a way to hide the costs of pork, ‘special’ compensation.

As I have mentioned before, I am one of the laid-off, looking for a job people. I am also one of the ‘uninsured’. Interesting part is, I was also one of the ‘uninsured’ when I was working. It is by choice. Instead of paying the money to an insurance company, I invested it. Now that I am laid off, I still am effectively covered because of all of that money I saved up over the years. I don’t have to pay COBRA to be able to pay for doctor or hospital visits. Shortly before I was laid off, I became extremely ill and jaundiced. The cost wasn’t that bad. It turns out that I can get close to 30% discount for being a cash payer. My MRI cost less by about 36% than if it had been covered by insurance. Total cost to me for all the doctor visits and tests etc came to about $2100. Compare this to even a years worth of insurance and this one time that I was sicker than I have ever been, comes out relatively cheap compared to paying for insurance for one year. In the process, one of the doctors I was going to was ‘steering’ me to surgery, ignoring the sepsis/bacterial infection possibility and family history. It was easy for me to walk away from this doctor and pick another. I have been fine for over 1 year now.. which seems to confirm the first doctor as being wrong.

One thing I did learn from this was the surprising number of doctors that prefer dealing with insurance. It came out that with self-pays, the doctors had to justify the tests to the patient and the patient had the final say. With the insured, the doctors could rack up the tests (which in some cases have ‘paybacks’ for business) without any final say in many cases. I am not putting down all GPs here, just saying that the decisions made by some are questionable. There seems to be too much ‘overtesting’ and the surgery option comes up too quickly.

Interesting exercises:
1) Take the sum of all the health care payments with or without company co-pay over your life.. and look at the total cost vs est outlay. If you are feeling like needing a challenge, include estimated growth based upon S&P historical growth.
2) Do the same for Social Security..

In all, I found that paying directly and insuring for only catastrophic is actually the best way, even now. General insurance makes people feel ‘safe’.. but at a considerable cost. Those outstretched hands of the ‘Good Hands People’ are not there to help you, they are asking for more money…

[ucodegen]

On board member mentioned many posts ago, to the effect that, why was health care less expensive 10 years ago..

It is quite simple. Insurance. Same has happened to auto repair costs. I would even add that 30 years ago, the costs of health care considerably less than now. 30 years ago, most people paid directly and insured only for catastrophic injuries. The exception was in the government sector (gov employees including teachers)

Any time you separate the beneficiary of a program from the payer of a program.. costs will spiral out of control. The beneficiary will want the best available irregardless of cost – because they don’t have to pay.. and the payer will have to pay up. If you add in an intermediary like insurance company or government and you have disaster. The intermediary will see it as a way to make a profit (skim) off of the huge amounts of money crossing hands.. or in the case of a government, a way to hide the costs of pork, ‘special’ compensation.

As I have mentioned before, I am one of the laid-off, looking for a job people. I am also one of the ‘uninsured’. Interesting part is, I was also one of the ‘uninsured’ when I was working. It is by choice. Instead of paying the money to an insurance company, I invested it. Now that I am laid off, I still am effectively covered because of all of that money I saved up over the years. I don’t have to pay COBRA to be able to pay for doctor or hospital visits. Shortly before I was laid off, I became extremely ill and jaundiced. The cost wasn’t that bad. It turns out that I can get close to 30% discount for being a cash payer. My MRI cost less by about 36% than if it had been covered by insurance. Total cost to me for all the doctor visits and tests etc came to about $2100. Compare this to even a years worth of insurance and this one time that I was sicker than I have ever been, comes out relatively cheap compared to paying for insurance for one year. In the process, one of the doctors I was going to was ‘steering’ me to surgery, ignoring the sepsis/bacterial infection possibility and family history. It was easy for me to walk away from this doctor and pick another. I have been fine for over 1 year now.. which seems to confirm the first doctor as being wrong.

One thing I did learn from this was the surprising number of doctors that prefer dealing with insurance. It came out that with self-pays, the doctors had to justify the tests to the patient and the patient had the final say. With the insured, the doctors could rack up the tests (which in some cases have ‘paybacks’ for business) without any final say in many cases. I am not putting down all GPs here, just saying that the decisions made by some are questionable. There seems to be too much ‘overtesting’ and the surgery option comes up too quickly.

Interesting exercises:
1) Take the sum of all the health care payments with or without company co-pay over your life.. and look at the total cost vs est outlay. If you are feeling like needing a challenge, include estimated growth based upon S&P historical growth.
2) Do the same for Social Security..

In all, I found that paying directly and insuring for only catastrophic is actually the best way, even now. General insurance makes people feel ‘safe’.. but at a considerable cost. Those outstretched hands of the ‘Good Hands People’ are not there to help you, they are asking for more money…

[ucodegen]

When you have a firestorm, it won’t matter if it’s tile or shake. It all burns down. Moot point.

No, it does matter. Not everything burns in a firestorm. A blown ember will touch off a shake roof by just landing on the roof. For a tile roof to burn, the ember has to get onto the tar-paper underneath the tile, up into the eves or in an open window/door. If the tile roof is properly built, the ember can’t get under. There are eve vents that prevent embers from getting through. As for the doors and windows, that is up to the homeowner.

From what I remember of the Cedar fires, tile wasn’t a big win as they are glued to roof with tar.

No they are not glued with tar. The tiles are nailed through pre-drilled holes in the tiles. The problem is with the ‘spanish’ style tiles. There is an open channel going up under the tile unless a blocking plate or tile is placed at the ends. Flat interlocking tiles are the safest in fire zones. The other thing to watch out for are ‘open eves’ on the roof and ‘eve vents’. Most eve vents allow embers to be blown into a house’s attic, after which “thats all she wrote”.

[ucodegen]

When you have a firestorm, it won’t matter if it’s tile or shake. It all burns down. Moot point.

No, it does matter. Not everything burns in a firestorm. A blown ember will touch off a shake roof by just landing on the roof. For a tile roof to burn, the ember has to get onto the tar-paper underneath the tile, up into the eves or in an open window/door. If the tile roof is properly built, the ember can’t get under. There are eve vents that prevent embers from getting through. As for the doors and windows, that is up to the homeowner.

From what I remember of the Cedar fires, tile wasn’t a big win as they are glued to roof with tar.

No they are not glued with tar. The tiles are nailed through pre-drilled holes in the tiles. The problem is with the ‘spanish’ style tiles. There is an open channel going up under the tile unless a blocking plate or tile is placed at the ends. Flat interlocking tiles are the safest in fire zones. The other thing to watch out for are ‘open eves’ on the roof and ‘eve vents’. Most eve vents allow embers to be blown into a house’s attic, after which “thats all she wrote”.

[ucodegen]

When you have a firestorm, it won’t matter if it’s tile or shake. It all burns down. Moot point.

No, it does matter. Not everything burns in a firestorm. A blown ember will touch off a shake roof by just landing on the roof. For a tile roof to burn, the ember has to get onto the tar-paper underneath the tile, up into the eves or in an open window/door. If the tile roof is properly built, the ember can’t get under. There are eve vents that prevent embers from getting through. As for the doors and windows, that is up to the homeowner.

From what I remember of the Cedar fires, tile wasn’t a big win as they are glued to roof with tar.

No they are not glued with tar. The tiles are nailed through pre-drilled holes in the tiles. The problem is with the ‘spanish’ style tiles. There is an open channel going up under the tile unless a blocking plate or tile is placed at the ends. Flat interlocking tiles are the safest in fire zones. The other thing to watch out for are ‘open eves’ on the roof and ‘eve vents’. Most eve vents allow embers to be blown into a house’s attic, after which “thats all she wrote”.

[ucodegen]

When you have a firestorm, it won’t matter if it’s tile or shake. It all burns down. Moot point.

No, it does matter. Not everything burns in a firestorm. A blown ember will touch off a shake roof by just landing on the roof. For a tile roof to burn, the ember has to get onto the tar-paper underneath the tile, up into the eves or in an open window/door. If the tile roof is properly built, the ember can’t get under. There are eve vents that prevent embers from getting through. As for the doors and windows, that is up to the homeowner.

From what I remember of the Cedar fires, tile wasn’t a big win as they are glued to roof with tar.

No they are not glued with tar. The tiles are nailed through pre-drilled holes in the tiles. The problem is with the ‘spanish’ style tiles. There is an open channel going up under the tile unless a blocking plate or tile is placed at the ends. Flat interlocking tiles are the safest in fire zones. The other thing to watch out for are ‘open eves’ on the roof and ‘eve vents’. Most eve vents allow embers to be blown into a house’s attic, after which “thats all she wrote”.

[ucodegen]

When you have a firestorm, it won’t matter if it’s tile or shake. It all burns down. Moot point.

No, it does matter. Not everything burns in a firestorm. A blown ember will touch off a shake roof by just landing on the roof. For a tile roof to burn, the ember has to get onto the tar-paper underneath the tile, up into the eves or in an open window/door. If the tile roof is properly built, the ember can’t get under. There are eve vents that prevent embers from getting through. As for the doors and windows, that is up to the homeowner.

From what I remember of the Cedar fires, tile wasn’t a big win as they are glued to roof with tar.

No they are not glued with tar. The tiles are nailed through pre-drilled holes in the tiles. The problem is with the ‘spanish’ style tiles. There is an open channel going up under the tile unless a blocking plate or tile is placed at the ends. Flat interlocking tiles are the safest in fire zones. The other thing to watch out for are ‘open eves’ on the roof and ‘eve vents’. Most eve vents allow embers to be blown into a house’s attic, after which “thats all she wrote”.

[ucodegen]

Ice Plant may not be the most aesthetic plant to some.. but considering what is happening in the San Gabriels… Ice Plant is fire resistant.

[ucodegen]

Ice Plant may not be the most aesthetic plant to some.. but considering what is happening in the San Gabriels… Ice Plant is fire resistant.

[Author]

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