Go to the mobile version of this Web site.

Login | Contact Us | Site Map | Paid archives | Electronic edition | Subscription Questions | Extras

Insurance headed in wrong direction

Brian T. Schwartz, Boulder

Published May 6, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

Text size  

More Letters to the Editor

More stories »

Darla Stuart ("Break for the insured," Speakout, April 22) writes that since "Colorado's citizens and businesses deserve to know the real cost of the health-care insurance products they are buying," politicians should force insurance companies to provide "transparency." But we really deserve to know how politicians have inflated insurance costs in the first place.

Tax policy encourages employer-based insurance, which essentially chains us to one insurer. Shielded from competition, insurers need not compete on price very much.

State-level bureaucrats succumb to special interests by burdening small-group policies with many benefits we do not need. The Congressional Budget Office reports that such mandated benefits increase premiums by at least 6 percent, and possibly more than 10 percent. It also reports that community rating laws increase premiums by 9 percent.

What's becoming increasingly transparent is where allegedly well-intentioned controls like House Bill 1389 will lead: politician-controlled health care and insurance where bureaucrats make decisions that rightfully belong to us and our physicians.

Comments

  • May 6, 2008

    6:52 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    jacka writes:

    Brian from Boulder uncovers some of the truth.

    Universal healthcare, the taxing of american into socialism.

  • May 6, 2008

    8:57 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    farmboy writes:

    Froward69,
    "price caps on procedures, and services", just like price caps on anything else, will do nothing but create shortages of them.

    "forgive all that debt the doctors racked up in medical school."
    What about others, such as engineers or MBAs who also have student loans? How about all those people who took out mortgages on their homes? Should they have their loans forgiven too?
    Even if you don't include these others, what you're asking for would mean that the people who loaned the medical students that money in the first place will be SOL. And that means that they will be unwilling to loan money to future medical students ever again.

    "Then focus upon prevention."
    Studies have shown that, other than things like childhood vaccinations, preventive care is not cost effective. http://www.ncpa.org/ba/ba188.html

    "I once asked my (now former Doctor) why he decided to become a doc. was it to help people or to get wealthy? sadly, He answered the latter."
    That's an odd thing to ask a doctor. The questions I ask my doctor are things like how to fix the pain in my shoulder. I don't care what his motives are.

  • May 6, 2008

    10:27 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    HolierThanThou writes:

    <<"forgive all that debt the doctors racked up in medical school."
    What about others, such as engineers or MBAs who also have student loans? How about all those people who took out mortgages on their homes? Should they have their loans forgiven too?
    >>

    I do believe you're on to something here.

    Mass debt forgiveness is a very good idea, so long as we begin with the least economically advantaged first and work our way up the ladder.

    This kind of economic adjustment would have the same effect as hitting the reset button on your computer when things get ugly. It clears out garbage and restarts the system fresh.

    One of the benefits would be an opportunity to replace a debt-driven economy with one that is more in tune with the American values of earning by work and performance of service to others.

    But I'm sure that our national royalty will have a problem with it.

  • May 6, 2008

    10:29 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    dilligaf writes:

    farmboy:
    What is your former Doctor doing now working for an insurance company making millions in bonuses denying claims?

  • May 6, 2008

    10:45 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    farmboy writes:

    dilligaf,
    Huh? I never said he's a former doctor.

  • May 6, 2008

    10:54 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    farmboy writes:

    HolierThanThou,
    That's economically boneheaded, and morally bankrupt.

    It would tell people who loaned out all that money that others will enjoy the benefits of it and they will never get that money back. It also tells those who worked hard to paid off their loans that they are chumps.

  • May 6, 2008

    12:15 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    HolierThanThou writes:

    farmboy,

    What you suggest is much worse in terms of moral bankruptcy.

    What about hard working Americans whose jobs have been taken away from them? When mass layoffs come down, whose fault is that? It isn't the fault of the people just doing their jobs. You need to look up the chain.

    These folks are enticed into debt. They take out mortgages for homes and bank on their future. Then they are cheated out of that future. I see ads on TV for credit cards. I don't see any that tell people that they should be careful because they're about to be financially sucker punched.

    I say the loan sharks of America are basically the same lot who put people out of work. Screw them. They're all liars.

    Let's use democracy to have a Jubilee and put America back to work and back into decent housing amongst other things that are easy when everyone is paid a fair share of the big pie.

    Universal debt forgiveness does no harm to honest people because plenty of new business will come from a public that isn't chained to debt. If they want to feel like chumps that's their problem. They can visit a happy debt-free psychiatrist about it if it's such a bugaboo for them.

  • May 6, 2008

    1:56 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    farmboy writes:

    HolierThanThou,
    "What about hard working Americans whose jobs have been taken away from them?"
    They need to find another job. Loan payments are no different an expense than food, transportation, utilities... You have no more right to refuse to make your mortgage payment than you do to refuse to pay for a gallon of milk at the grocery store.

    "When mass layoffs come down, whose fault is that?"
    Sometimes, it's nobody's fault.

    "It isn't the fault of the people just doing their jobs."
    It's also not the fault of those who loaned them the money.

    "These folks are enticed into debt."
    Enticed? Without some kind of a loan program, the vast number of people, especially the poor, could never improve their lot in life. After all, it's not as if they have the money just lying around to pay for a $20,000 car or a $200,000 house cash. As long as they have he ability to pay it back over time, there is no problem. If they lose their jobs, the fix for that is for them to find another one. But in any case, the fix is not to stiff those who loaned them the money.

    "Universal debt forgiveness does no harm to honest people"
    Of course it does. It steals money from the loan brokers, and it turns those who could have paid that money back into parasites and thieves.

  • May 6, 2008

    5:07 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    mytwosense writes:

    farmboy: "Without some kind of a loan program, the vast number of people, especially the poor, could never improve their lot in life. After all, it's not as if they have the money just lying around to pay for a $20,000 car or a $200,000 house cash. As long as they have he ability to pay it back over time, there is no problem. If they lose their jobs, the fix for that is for them to find another one. But in any case, the fix is not to stiff those who loaned them the money."

    That's right, we have become a nation that heavily relies on debt, including debt to other countries. What would you say if one of those countries jacked up our interest rates just because we are behind on our payments to the UN?

    Because that is one of the tactics used by credit lenders today to ordinary Americans - jacking up their interest rate if they fall behind on a payment with a completely different creditor.

  • May 6, 2008

    6:03 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    infidel91 writes:

    mytwosense:

    What would you say if you were one of those creditor countries and the U.S. declared its debt to you to be "forgiven?" What would the U.S. then do when nobody will loan it any more money?