

Health insurance rate hikes. Why so surprised?  - kategleason
http://katgleason.tumblr.com/post/40181379382/health-insurance-rate-hikes-why-so-surprised

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mpyne
Perhaps I'm the stupid one here but I was never expecting higher levels and
availability of health care to be less expensive (or even _as_ expensive), at
least in the short-term. I supported it anyways because it's the right thing
to do.

A cheaper health-care option would be to take the sick out behind a barn and
put them out of their misery, which is why we don't turn health care into a
linear optimization problem.

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kategleason
It is my understanding that one of the most cited justifications for passing
healthcare reform was to lower costs. Specifically, the monthly cost for
individuals who need to purchase their own health insurance plans.

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mpyne
As the bill was being debated it was my understanding that the lowering costs
would come from improvements in health as a direct result of increased
preventative care and earlier detection of disease (in the stage where it is
cheaper to treat).

It is impossible to have the increased preventative care come before patients'
access to that care, just as it's impossible to detect illness when a patient
cannot even be seen due to lack of insurance.

That was the reason I said I didn't expect a reduction in price in the short-
term, because it simply doesn't make sense. That doesn't mean costs won't
eventually go down compared to what they would have been if PPACA didn't go
into effect, but that's getting beyond my ability to predict based just on
simple principles.

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advisedwang
Health insurance covering male maternity care is a complete no-op. It adds no
benefit, but it never costs health care companies either. So it shouldn't
cause a premium rate rise so is a bit irrelevant.

I get the feeling it was cited as an example to make the reforms look stupid,
even though it doesn't actually have any negatives.

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kategleason
It was cited because health care plans are not sold by gender. Therefore the
plan's actuarial risk assessment needs to account for maternity whether or not
the person signing up for the plan is a male or female.

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MichaelSalib
The ignorance on display here is a bit astonishing.

Health insurance in MA is not equivalent to health insurance in Idaho; in MA
insurance is much more tightly regulated so that you can rely on it. What good
is a largely unregulated insurance policy that refuses to pay out when you're
really sick?

Now, if Idaho had strong regulators that were enforcing the same sort of
standards as MA, you might be able to compare but then you'd run smack into
the fact that...the cost structures are completely different. Everything is
more expensive in MA, including housing and doctors.

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kategleason
That is a good point in comparing Idaho to MA housing and pricing costs. But
then how can you justify California's low insurance monthly rates (before the
new hikes that just happened this month) California: $157

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MichaelSalib
I don't know much about the state of CA insurance regulation. I live in MA.

Off the top of my head, it seems like mean premium prices is going to depend
on a lot of different factors, ranging from demographics (younger folks make
up a larger fraction of the population in TX than in MA) to cost of living.

I think your whole analysis fails because you're missing half of the Cost
Benefit Analysis. You're looking only at costs, without assessing benefits.
One might as well look at Somalia and proclaim how awesome it is to not have
to pay taxes.

