Comments on: Medical Insurance as a Job Benefit

By: KP, MD

KP, MD — Wed, 16 May 2007 23:23:01 +0000

For the record…I think health insurance is crap. I recently learned that you can’t ever get hold of exactly what your policy covers (ie a book of what IS and is NOT covered) because it’s considered “proprietary” and doing so would violate “trade secrets.” How’s THAT for fair?

By: Parcho

Parcho — Wed, 16 May 2007 12:18:45 +0000

Heh, very very temporary comment fix until I have time to do something better.

By: Parcho

Parcho — Wed, 16 May 2007 11:46:23 +0000

Hmmm…you’re right Grunt. I have never not been logged in–so I rarely see the icons. Dangit…now I gotta go code some more.

You’re basically right about the fixed wages thing. I believe the depression had a say in that as well. But once wages were no longer fixed, seems like the system could have gone away. But it didn’t–and now the insurance companies have 50 years of bargaining power.

Strange system.

By: GruntDoc

GruntDoc — Tue, 15 May 2007 23:14:33 +0000

First, this form needs much better labels. nobody wants to guess what very tiny little icons mean for required fields.

As for why health insurance is tied to employment, I offer you tes story as it was told to me: during WWII, wages were essentially fixed, and companies needed a way to keep their best and brightest but couldn’t give raises, so ‘benefits’ like healthcare began to be given by employers.

I’m not terribly sanguine that individuals / families could drive a better insurance bargain from BCBS than GE could. I think there will still be a need for either a pool or a very strictly regulated market with defined benefits, very limited pre-existing exclusions (or coverage, depending on the price).

By: nobrainer

nobrainer — Tue, 15 May 2007 15:04:07 +0000

I think you’re right on.

Now the government just has to pass legislation that gives all healthcare the same tax treatment. How hard could that be?