Posted in Healthcare on Aug 27th, 2010
I was looking at HeathCare.gov today. It is a pretty site. I was researching information about how the recent legislation impacted HRA and HSA accounts so I decided to give this site a try. It did not have anything. Their insurance finder looked intriguing so I decided to give it a test run. Since I [...]
Posted in Healthcare, Humor on Apr 3rd, 2010
My boss and I came to same realization on Friday. We would be more in favor of the individual mandate if the Federal government required everyone to buy one of our products, too. We are hurting just like the hospitals. Hospitals have un-insured patients and we have dead beat customers. Why can’t we get a [...]
Posted in Economy, Healthcare on Mar 28th, 2010
Back in 2000 when I moved from Texas to Ohio I was given the opportunity to buy health insurance at what I thought was an exorbitant price of $350 per month. I declined. On Friday I commented on a post that about the insurance mandate that the insurance mandate is very expensive option for me for what I consider to be a hospital billing problem. Today I calculated about how much I saved by not having health insurance or having a low cost high deductable plan. Just for the health insurance premiums alone I would have spent $52,970. I used this slide from the Kaiser Family Foundation and its 131% increase to estimate my health insurance premium increases. This looks like a pretty conservative number since it assumes I can get a comparable policy today for $457 per month. From Quicken I can say that my medical and dental costs over this time period was about $37,900. Based on my ten year experience you can save a lot of money by being a savvy health care buyer.
Posted in Economy, Healthcare on Mar 22nd, 2010
Despite the drama about the health care debate the country continues down its path to austerity. The only way we can get off the path is if the economy shows a robust, vigorous recovery of permanent employment and consumer spending. The states, counties, and cities desperately need more tax revenue. It is not surprising that [...]
Posted in Healthcare on Nov 6th, 2009
Republicans are offering common-sense reforms that would lower costs. Naturally I like the plan as explained in this Wall Street Journal article, The No-Cost Path to Cheaper Health Care, by Mr. Shadegg, a Congressman from Arizona. As a person who buys his own health insurance with money from a HRA I have at work, [...]
Posted in Healthcare on Nov 3rd, 2009
Eighteen years ago when my son was born I came to the conclusion that health care was a very strange animal that appeared to be immune to the common sense practices used by businesses. Sadly the situation has gotten worse over the years and the present forms of “health care reform” look like they will [...]
Posted in Healthcare on Nov 1st, 2009
Like most people I thought the Democrats would pass a health care reform bill even if it was universally disliked. I assumed that health care bill had about 99% chance of passing. Recently I lowered the odds to 50%. I have two major reasons to lower the odds. The primary reason I am lowering the [...]
Posted in Healthcare on Oct 14th, 2009
One of the things not being discussed is the fact that there is overwhelming skepticism that any of the current legislation will slow down future health care cost increases. The political tactic is to expand health care coverage and leave the responsibility for “bending the health care cost curve” to a future group of legislators. [...]
Posted in Healthcare on Sep 16th, 2009
Last week my boss and I were talking about health care insurance. He said the reason our company offers a Health Reimbursement Account is because the the price offered to corporations for health insurance is so much higher than the price offered to individuals. Although I did not have specific knowledge on corporate rates, I [...]
Posted in Healthcare, Politics on Sep 13th, 2009
Here’s what I think one of our “dis-respectful” elderly might say to Stevie about his post, An open letter to America, in which he says,
Dear Everyone,
Stop debating health care reform. You have no idea what you are talking about. …
Stephen, you need to calm down a bit. The sound you hear from these town hall meetings is just our legislators going through a California legislative moment. Our elderly are taking their Congressman and Congresswoman back to the wood shed for a little Bible study. Stephen, we are old but we are not senile. The TARP bill was supposed to stem the tide of foreclosures. It didn’t. The stimulus bill was supposed to stimulate the economy and stem the rate of unemployment. It didn’t. Now you are trying to ram a Health Care Reform bill through Congress and the bulk of the “savings” is going to come out of Medicare benefits for the elderly and you want us to believe that we won’t notice it! Which part of “Thou shall not lie” do you not understand?
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