Matthew Rosen

Matthew commented on the article | over 2 years ago

We're Making the Victim of a Murderous Rampage Pay for Her Hospital Stay

With that level of annual income, you qualify for Medicaid.
Matthew commented on the article | over 2 years ago

We're Making the Victim of a Murderous Rampage Pay for Her Hospital Stay

Hi Robin-

Thanks for the info.

I know what happened to Eric. And, you know I'm absolutely 100% with you in believing what happened to him is shameful. I won't even start in with the "Had he started buying insurance five years ago as an individual if his company wasn't providing it, then he wouldn't have had a break in his coverage, and the insurance company couldn't cite a pre-existing condition, etc." because I agree the pre-existing condition hang-up is bullshit. Do note that the public options available failed him, as well.

...which segues well with what I said earlier about fostering REAL competition in the market, and, sure, while not "solving" the problem, at least providing a great start.

Dennis Miller summed it up nicely last week:

"You can't go across State lines to buy your health care, and yet I can call up and say my keyboard's not clicking corrrectly and I'm talking to a kid in Delhi."

Break down the State lines. Instead of 7 options available to you in your home state, you'll have 1,500.

Most of the ills facing health care buyers today —- costs, pre-existing conditions, losing insurance when you leave jobs or when you move —- could essentially be fixed with a one-sentence law:

“Lift regulations that prevent insurance companies from competing for your business across the country.”

Fine, two sentences:

“And tort reform.” (On which the 1,000+ page House bill does not contain a single paragraph).

You say you want to see "real reforms in place that insure everyone, drive down overall costs and improve quality," but you don't flesh out how the proposals being thrown around do any of that.

Magic "efficiencies?"

Some facts:

Despite the narrative, the average operating margins across the health insurance industry are about 1-2%.

According to Kaiser Health News, “With the nation's health care spending estimated at $2.5 trillion this year, even the elimination of insurers' profits and executive compensation would lower health care spending by just 0.5 percent.”

Today's top 10 health plans' profits as a percentage of national health expenditures ranged from a low in 2000 of .18% to a high of .57% in 2007.

Now, on to the single-payer system...

One giant payer presents a few problems.

Using Medicaid as a reference, here you have a single buyer with too much buying power. People say insurance companies cut costs by denying care. Well, Medicaid cuts costs by paying doctors, hospitals, and service providers well below the market rate for care. Ask the legions of doctors that have stopped accepting Medicaid patients. And read any hospital's cost analysis and you'll see that most, at best, break even, though are more likely to see a loss on their Medicaid patients. Now, this is fine with the current system, because it's only a small portion of their patients, and they are able to sustain themselves and absorb the losses by charging true market rates to the rest of their patients who can afford it. When the President, or anyone, says "It will cost less," what he/she means is "We will pay less." The costs will stay the same. Analogy: A single-payer automobile program that pays $25,000 for a Porsche. The labor (they're hand-made), parts, R&D, and shipping for that Porsche doesn't suddenly cost $25,000. It's still three times that. The result? Porsche goes out of business. Fine, you say, then everyone can just drive a Kia. Well, there you have the argument against a Medicaid-like system. Instead of helping the few that don't have the higher level of care that 90% of people do, we'll bring everyone down to a level of mediocrity. Because that's "fair." We can do better.

Medicaid's shortcomings epitomize one of the main issues with a single-payer, socialized system AND, yes, the current third-party payment system, as well (more on the ills of third-party payment in a bit): When people think they’re getting something for free — supposedly for free — that "somebody else is paying for," you create infinite demand. Markets don't work that way. Markets work best when there is a healthy amount of buyers and a healthy amount of sellers all competing for your business. And as some of you said above, that it's offensive to treat medical care as anything other than a moral issue, and that everyone should be insured for every fakakta, freak incident, from being randomly shot to accidents while skydiving naked, then insurance --- public or private --- would cost 99.9% of GDP and you would never leave the house. The real trouble is, we already have a finite supply of doctors, hospital beds, etc. and increasing demand artificially will only make that worse. So, two things will occur: care will be "rationed," --- no, not maliciously, i.e. "death panels --- but by simple, practical, quantitative terms. Too much demand, not enough supply. The answer, or course, is "just increase the supply," i.e. more doctors, but if doctors aren't paid enough by this single, powerful buyer (it costs, what, $900,000 total to go through the decade or so of medical training required?), you get fewer people that can AFFORD TO BECOME doctors, and sure, some others that don't want to put in the effort for what is to be a smaller payoff than maybe the generation prior had when they entered the profession. And so begins a vicious cycle...

The other problem with a single-payer system:

Using Medicare as a reference, you have a single buyer who thinks it has an unlimited budget. The Federal Government can run deficits, i.e. it doesn't have to balance it's books, or pay-as-it-goes. Unlike State budgets, which must be balanced and as you pointed out is part of the problem with Medicaid. Medicaid is partially funded by States, which can lead to scenarios like the one Eric faced, where by he was unfortunate enough to live in a state that couldn't afford to cover the procedure he needed. So, you agree in principle that State lines are artificially interfearing with the market. Wasn't it the case that a doctor in California offered to do the procedure for Eric, but Nevada said no? Again, getting rid of State lines would be among the top steps to take in my solution to the health care problem. "Federalizing" Medicaid only trades one ineffective system for another.

Back to the Fed.

It's a similar problem to the one you get with Medicaid. Infinite demand because the actual consumer of the service --- the patient --- is not really the one dealing with the actual supplier of the service --- doctors, hospitals --- but instead it appears as if someone else is paying. And this single buyer has too much power to continually tax to pay for the infinite demand, and no practical check to that power. Once we agree to hand over this decision-making power to the government, there is the risk that true demand is distorted, coupled with a budget --- read: taxes --- that skyrockets to a prohibitive, eventually ruinous level. Again, if you're okay with 50% tax rates, how about 60%? 75%? If it means, yes, you have "free" medical insurance, but 25% of Americans are unemployed and businesses stop investing and growth slows to a crawl? How much will it cost to support all the unemployed? Oh, just tax more? Eventually, you'll run out of things to tax. Like Margaret Thatcher once said, "The problem with Socialism is that eventually, you run out of other people’s money.”

But wait, Michael Moore says "They can afford it in France. Why not here?"

One, reality check. They can't afford it just as much as we can't. in the modern era, Europe suffers far more relative to the U.S. from the ills I highighted earlier. Slower growth, dramatically higher unemployment, and their Social Security/Medicare programs are just as effectively insolvent as ours due to their higher social/tax burdens. Don't kid yourself. The annual GDP of the United States is nearly $14 trillion and we've had historical growth of 2-4%. Incredible. Number 2? Japan at $4 trillion. Number 3? Germany $2.8 trillion. The Euro Zone as a whole averages about 1% growth. Factor in inflation, and you see where that leads. They haven't magically figured something out that's eluded us.

Another very good reason, one often overlooked, is that we, citizens of the U.S., effectively fund the R&D of the pharma/medical industries by paying "bust-out retail" on new drugs and treatments. Yes, in France, any and every pill "only costs $5 under the government insurance plan." Well, no, like the Porsche example above, that's just what they pay, and big pharma/device companies accept these volume deals abroad because we here in the U.S. are basically subsidizing them and making up for the losses. Ask yourself, what's the last medical breakthrough that came out of Denmark? Oh, right... If the U.S. goes single-payer, there is zero way the government doesn't negotiate (read: strong-arm) the same type of low cost, but guaranteed high-volume deals for treatments like the rest of the world.

What's so bad about that? Nothing, except you can forget about Pfizer ever bringing another new drug to market again. The R&D costs would be prohibitively high vs. the potential payoff. If they kept up the same pace of R&D, they'd go bankrupt trying. Potentially, every malady that still affects us --- right this second --- would be around in perpetuity.

I'm not OK with that. Unlike Dr. David Blumenthal, one of the President's three "experts" consulting on new policy who suggests that "the best way to control health care spending is to slow the development and diffusion of new technologies." Just wow. It's not in Americans' DNA to stop seeking progress. Again, let's find a solution that brings those few left behind "up," instead of introducing ones that will bring the majority "down."

And now third-party (employer-based) payment.

You know what? Best I just refer readers to an interview with Milton Friedman, perhaps the 20th Century's most famed economist, on the subject. He's already said it so well, there's no reason for me to try to re-explain.

Read the brief interview on 'How to Cure Health Care" here:

http://www.hoover.org/publications/digest/5831051.html

And for his mea culpa on the topic, see:

http://www.hoover.org/publications/digest/3459466.html

Highly recommended.

He gives the history of third-party payment in the U.S., ways in which this distorts the market, and thoughts on some other ills and how to fix things.

An incredible read.

To summarize his and my suggestions:

In short, I'm looking for more of a "two-party" payer solution. An actual, true market.

Bullets:

- Open up State lines. Create a bigger market. No artificial, regulatory hurdles. Same goes for mandates, community rating, etc. With 1,500 plans all competing, these things will break down naturally.

- End the tying of insurance to employment. Remove the middle man. You buy the plan that's right for you. You can attempt to do that today with eHealthInsurance.com. Make more buyers, not less. That's how prices come down for insurance. When companies have to compete. See: every other free-market industry, i.e. long distance calling post-deregulation, or LASIK for a health-relayed example.

- Building on that, as I said in the earlier post, stop looking at insurance as a means to get "free" health care. That's not what it does. Pay for physicals, eye exams, dental cleanings, etc. Would end up costing about what you spend on haircuts each year. If all insurance had to cover was true catastrophes, that would help bring costs down some, as well. For routine procedures, the direct payment would preclude medical providers from generously billing insurance companies on your behalf over and above what they often shod be paid. Again, LASIK is the poster child for market-based medical procedures. Used to cost thousands per eye, now it's hundreds. What other medical procedure has come DOWN in price?

- As Friedman, points out, end the giant subsidy/tax break to employers for providing health care to their workers that essentially amounts to $100 billion per year the gvernment leaves on the table in potential tax revenue. No other expense gets this treatment. Why not give the same treatment to food shopping? Transportation? Just as essential, no?

HERE'S HOW OBAMA LOOKS LIKE A GENIUS - End the tax break for employers. Have employers simply pay their employees higher salaries that they can then use to go out and shop for their own insurance plan. For nearly everyone, this will be an infinitely better arrangement. First, who knows best how to spend your money and what type of plan fits you best? You, or the HR Department at your firm that selected a "group" plan for the entire company? Oh, but you have 3 options to choose from? And this is better than 1,500? Same argument goes for the "public option." Will "one size fits all" work there either? Again, that vs. 1,500 choices?

I digress...

Yes, choose your own insurance plan. You'll have a higher salary, so it will be affordable. Now, here's where Obama wins on both sides of the aisle: Cut tax rates, but because salaries are higher, the government will take in the same amount of tax revenues. McCain suggested something like this in the debates and was poo-pooed. Seems like a strategic grand slam for O...

Now, because you'll be shopping for your own plan and because you know your situation and needs better than your employer or your government, you may be able to spend less on insurance and pocket the difference as additional income than what you'd normally take home. Here: latest report from eHealthInsurance.com revealing the average individual health insurance premiums nationwide: $161/month in February 2009; and for family plans: $383. http://www.istockanalyst.com/article/viewiStockNews/articleid/3439729

Just know your options. You can do this today.

Side note: spoke to a friend last week who lives outside of New Orleans. Self-employed. Married, he and his wife in their 40’s, with two young kids. Told me he pays about $1300/month for the family’s insurance. While on the phone, did a search for him on eHealthInsurance.com and came up with about 20 options, starting at around $250 and maxing out at $600/month. A far cry from $1300. He nearly threw up.

Say what, narrative?

Now, imagine the case of a small business. Let's say an office with 4 people. 1) The proprietor, a middle-aged man, married, two kids. 2) A 40-something woman, single. 3) A 28 year old. 4) A 22 year-old with asthma.

Clearly the needs of each are starkly different, though an employer-provided plan would be one-size-fits-all. Were these folks to go out and choose the plans best suited for them --- rather than a third party, the company --- I'd bet money the overall spend on insurance would be less.

Anecdote: My last job provided a plan with a sticker price of @$750/month. Knowing what my options are from searching on eHealthInsurance.com, I would have never chosen that plan if I was shopping for myself. Not because I couldn't afford it or wouldn't want it, but rather I don't need it. Like the majority of the population, I'm generally heathy. While I would never go without insurance of some kind, I can think of better things to spend that extra cash on than such a silver-plated health plan when I go to the doctor electively maybe once per year, if that.

Do you buy three times the amount of groceries you could practically consume in 30 days each month?

And, if you lose that job, COBRA's not cheap. Not a good option. You're unemployed now and the privilege of paying $750/month to keep your coverage is an ideal solution? Hardly.

- Some people are suggesting we expand COBRA for young adults so they can remain on their parents' plans? While piggybacking on to a parent's policy sounds like a simple solution, it will be tremendously more costly. For one, many parents' plans are higher tier (they're older) and, consequently, very, very expensive. My mother, for example, is a public school teacher in NJ. Her plan, if purchased in the market as an individual would be upwards of $1500-1600 per month. So, even if I were to be able to latch on to her plan, what would my COBRA cost be? Even half? 40%? That's still hundreds of dollars per month. Hardly accommodating. Bad solution. Like I said in the first post, let's just encourage young people to shop around and buy into the system directly, even a basic plan. There are affordable options around.

- If you love to hate on the insurance companies, look on the bright side: this means less money for them. A plan for all political leanings...

- Lastly, tort reform. Medical malpractice insurance is killing doctors.

So, how is this not better than a single-payer system that either creates infinite demand and consequently rationed care, or alternatively potential runaway spending from consumers infinite demand "becaus it's free" paired with a buyer that can tax or run deficits indefinitely at the expense of the fical health of the nation?

Phew.

And I was going to try to make this short...

If you made it to the end, thanks for reading!

/rant
Matthew commented on the article | over 2 years ago

We're Making the Victim of a Murderous Rampage Pay for Her Hospital Stay

Thanks, Tim, for the prompt reply. Good, spirited discussion, folks.

Some follow up.

Tim, fair enough on the $50 plan analysis.

A couple things:

Fine, then, the $70 plan is capped at $4500.

Good economic lesson. Being that the potential burden in the event of a catastrophe is significantly less, I'd wager many people would wisely elect the $70 plan over the $50 one for this reason. Thinking back, I actually did that exact thing a few years ago. I had a choice between two plans, one about $150/month, the other about $200. I chose the $200 one. If I had a serious emergency, the peace of mind of knowing I'd be less on the hook for a sky high bill with the latter plan was a rational choice. The odds were low that I wouldn't, and I did go the whole year without an incident, but that doesn't make it a bad decision. In the case of these various plans, the market will likely dictate to the insurance companies that the entry level plan is not attractive enough. They can then choose to a) leave it as is, or drop it and sacrifice the potential income from those that can't afford $75 or $100, but would be buyers at $50, or b) make the plan more enticing to cover the entire pool of potential buyers, i.e. lower the deductible, the co-insurancem, etc. Mr. Bring, incredibly enough, my plan actually went DOWN in price after a year to $175, the other one dropped to $135. Youth on my side, I guess, but I'll propose some help further down in the post.

Now, $4500, $7500, which ever --- anyone know what the "sticker price" is on her treatment? The article didn't say. A friend of mine broke her leg badly while uninsured a few years back and her bill was about $50,000. Multiple gunshot wounds must be what, twice that? 50% higher? So, say $4500 for a $100,000 life-saving procedure? That's what insurance is meant to do. And, long term payment plans could be arranged here. The physical and emotional trauma on this innocent young woman and her family must be suffocating. They definitely didn't need financial ruin thrown in the mix. That said, I have all the faith in the world that she will not go through this alone. I'd be devastatingly surprised if her family, friends, and her community did not rally around an effort to alleviate her from the unfortunate financial burden. Honestly, if L.A. Fitness doesn't step up and pay the bills of every single victim, well then that's a terrible look for them. Anyone know what the word has been from them?

Again, awful, BUT, we'll all agree, this was a tragic and freak occurrence. I said earlier, one can never plan for or base their life around such outrageous odds. If we all calculated that every last catastrophic event might occur on any given day, we'd never leave our homes. Any insurance policy --- private or public --- that weighed equally the odds of every major catastrophe along with that of the common cold would be unreasonable and prohibitively out of reach for every single one of us. In regards to this case, about 0.03% of the U.S. population suffers a gunshot wound each year...which means 99.9% do not.

Food for thought: change the headline.

"22 year-old PA girl instigates, injured in gang-related gunfight."

"22 year-old PA girl injured in freak hunting accident when her rifle backfires."

How sympathetic are you now? How much "injustice" is there if the hunter or the gangmember was uninsured?

Freak, sometimes tragically unfortunate accidents occur. Shit happens, as the saying goes. No matter the circumstances that lead to either of these scenario's victims being admitted to a hospital, once inside, they all require and will receive the same treatment. The treatment will cost the same. The paramedics still need the same first responder training and equipment to stabilize the victim en route. The trauma nurses still need the same training, vital monitoring instruments and drugs. The ER doctor still needs the same training to repair the wounds. The hospital still needs to have a full administration staff on duty. These are fixed costs, and ones EXPECTED to be provided by and to us, the "consumers" of these services, but, they are costs, nonetheless. Single payer, two-party, third-party payer, which ever --- doesn't change this fact.

Now, forgetting these freak occurrences, what about the 22 year-old who has shingles, or dislocates their arm snowboarding. Tragic? Offensive? Unfair? Shouldn't be responsible to take care of their own medical needs? Shouldn't need to guess if and when they're going to need medical care? No, they shouldn't. That's what insurance is for. Insurance, contrary to popular belief, is not meant to be a "get out of medical bills free" card. I love when people say "I think health care should be free." Nothing's free. And most people can afford to pay $100 every couple of years for, say, a routine, non-emergency physical. And a dental cleaning is a hundred bucks. That's $8/month over the course of a year. Hardly prohibitive. Save insurance for catastrophic incidents. Yes, you may pay for it your whole life and never once have a medical emergency. You buy it, though, in the incidence that you MIGHT. It does not ELIMINATE risk. It isn't meant to. It's meant to be a HEDGE AGAINST risk. Again, if we were all so consumed by risk, we'd never leave the house, never drive a car, never buy a house on a coastline in California or on the Gulf... Should a 22 year-old get a pass because they typically require less care than a 52 year-old? Well, not a pass, no, but facts and reality suggests they should be entitled to pay less in for insurance.

So, some solutions:

Some select searches on eHealthInsurace.com show that, basically, for your average 25 year-old, non-student, non-smoker, in most states (except NY...more on that soon), a proper insurance plan can be had for $50-150/month, often with prescription coverage if you require it. Not gold plated, no, but most of these 13+ million are generally healthy and may not step foot in a doctor's office for years, and just like this story illustrates, can we agree that a basic plan is better than no plan?

More:

From what I see, perhaps the biggest barrier to affordable insurance plans across the country are the artificial state-by-state lines drawn that prevent true competition in the market and essentially grant a few players regional monopolies. Think: cable monopolies. Again, to highlight NY, you mean to tell me Blue Cross Blue Shield wouldn’t be happy to provide the same $150/month plan to someone in the West Village that they do to someone in Hoboken right across the river? Well, they can’t --- the equivalent plan in NYC is over $400 --- and not because they’re evil. It’s because the regulations in this case are not allowing the market to actually work. Insurance companies don't make legislation. Call your representatives. Open the doors to true competition. There are like 1,500 insurance plans in the market. Fairly competitive now. Start by opening up state lines, it becomes more so. You don't need a public option to do that. (Tangental hypothetical: What if the public option for young people is $150/month? Will any of the 13+ million buy it then? What if no one buys it vs. the other options available? Will they still collect the taxes to run the program?)

Thinking out loud:

How about an experiment? My object: make insurance more affordable (or let a lot of people know that it may already be a lot more affordable than they think now, in many cases). On the lower end, how about in the next month or so, most of the 13+ million uninsured young adults went to eHealthInsurace.com, explored their options, and signed up for a health plan? If they have jobs and are paid well enough, they can pay themselves. If they're unemployed, living at home, let's say some of their parents contribute. If they have a low-paying job and other expenses, then maybe they sacrifice some things, like cable, an iPhone or BlackBerry, they buy or lease a Toyota Tercel instead of a Camry, and they put that money toward insurance.

Take an average of, say, $100 per person. We decided above that even if lower priced plans are available, overlooking these bare-bones offerings is probably worth it. Also, I'm estimating higher populations of uninsured young people in more densely populated and higher cost of living areas, like New York or New Jersey, both of which have several of these true market-distorting and price skewing mandates and community rating laws discussed above. Digressing for a moment: These community rating laws, which, in the interest of "fairness," prevent insurance companies from offering less expensive plans to younger people vs. older, you know, how the market actually works based on reality, number of claims, general health, etc. is a failed experiment. Again, this flies in the face of reality. An analogy would be if younger drivers were charged the same insurance premiums as older, more experienced ones, even though they are, on the whole, more reckless, have higher a likelihood of accidents, etc. If community rating was applied to the auto insurance market, a 45 year-old with a perfectly clean driving record might pay twice what they do now. What was meant to moderate prices has just pushed many of these 13+ million completely out of the market, or the community pool, for insurance, negating its intention to keep costs down for older and/or more sick people. Think: iPhone at $499 when launched vs. $199 for the second generation. How'd that work out? Again, wouldn't having these 13+ million paying *something* be better than them paying nothing, going uninsured, risking severe catastrophe, and then if and when it does occur, costing other insured people, hospitals, service providers, etc. far more than they should in the form of writing down losses in the case of hospitals. and higher premiums in the case of other insurance customers to make up for these losses? You go snowboarding without insurance, break your arm, and everyone else has to pay for you? That's fair?

So, some back of the envelope calculation:

13.7 million (last I saw) x $100/month x 12 months = @ $16.5 billion per year

into the system that wasn't there before. The overall insurance pool would increase accordingly and the resulting increase could help offset costs, even if slightly, to customers at the higher tiers. Remember, younger folks tend to be healthier and thus make far fewer, if any, claims than older customers. The income from younger individuals' premiums would be quite near all profit. A $100/month break in the cost of a premium to an adult is nothing to sneeze at.

Also, the 47 million uninsured number is not entirely accurate. We've all seen the stats FROM THE CENSUS BUREAU.

"Thirty-seven percent of that group live in households making more than $50,000 a year, says the U.S. Census Bureau. Nineteen percent are in households making more than $75,000 a year; 20 percent are not citizens, and 33 percent are eligible for existing government programs but are not enrolled."

That actually whittles it down to just a few million, but for argument's sake, let's include some of the under-insured. Call it 15 million.

Take that $16,500,000,000 annually from the kids / 15 million / 12 months = $92 month

$92 bucks is a good amount per month to start with to provide basic insurance coverage to the remaining uninsured. Maybe the government could kick in a bit here. And hell, how about the other 135 million or so privately insured people pay an extra $1/month on top of their premiums into a pool? That's an extra $9/month on top of the $92 for these people. How about $2? 3$? $10 to ensure that those people that truly slipped through the cracks were insured? $10/month would be an extra $90. $90 + $92 = $182. Not bad. Wouldn't you pay?

This sort of thing already occurs/has occurred in other industries. I don't know if you ever had/still have a separate "long distance" plan on a land telephone line, but if you ever look at an old bill, there was always a charge for something called, like, "the access fund," or something. Essentially, it was a surcharge on everyone to help pay for and provide phone service to rural, poor areas. It was usually like a dollar. Nothing you'd notice. Helped those in need.

Did I just solve the health insurance conundrum in this country?

;-)

Tort reform and third-party payment will have to come in another post...

To finish, instead of jibber-jabbing in a comments string, I'd wager the few of us in this thread could put together a campaign for her and get it spread around the internet in no time. Recall the recent story of Eric de la Cruz. Eric's sister, CNN Internet Correspondent Veronica De La Cruz, turned to Twitter in an effort to help raise money for her brother's heart transplant. Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails blasted the word out and raised $850,000 in a matter of days and many other large names got behind the effort, as well.

It's already happening: Pa. restaurant raises funds for slay victim's son

http://www.philly.com/philly/wires/ap/news/state/pennsylvania/20090831_ap_parestaurantraisesfundsforslayvictimsson.html

If it hasn't already been done, we could start a campaign to raise money for the "Bridgeville 19." Does anyone know if the families have set up efforts or appeals already? Comment back if you hear of anything.

Thanks.
Matthew commented on the article | over 2 years ago

We're Making the Victim of a Murderous Rampage Pay for Her Hospital Stay

EDITED TO REMOVE HARD URL'S - PLEASE DO NOT DELETE.

Sad, indeed.

Perhaps even more sad is that she really didn’t have to end up in this situation (with her hospital bills, not the terrible incident, which was out of her control).

And it required zero “change.”

She did not have to be “left behind.”

Turns out the solution is already available, the market has solved much of the problem, just seems no one knows about it.

Go to ehealthinsurance.com, a searchable online “exchange” of health plans.

A quick search for a 22 year-old, female, non-student in Bridgeville, PA comes up with 81 results.

For $50-85/month, she could have had a very respectable PPO plan, with deductibles varying from $1,500-5,000. $150 gets you zero deductible. All fine options for most catastrophe-minded-only young folks. (No one factors in the freak incident she went through when choosing their health plans, though any one of these plans would have covered her in this case).

$50 is hardly prohibitive. It’s about a single day’s shift at minimum wage in most states. You’re not trying hard enough if you can’t set aside $50 a month. Her parents could have kicked in until she found a job. They could have run a carwash once a month to make that. A grandparent could have paid for 6 months of insurance as a graduation present.

Health care needs work, for sure, but there are some simple, practical solutions that require little disruption or debate and could at least start to make a dent in the problem.

Getting the 13+ million young uninsured to start exploring their options and paying into the system is a start.

Too often I see it’s the narrative alone that private, individual insurance plans are prohibitively expensive that keeps many young people from buying insurance. For many (myself included), if and when they explore the facts, they learn this is not at all the case.

Please, young people, or anyone who is un- or under-insured: go to ehealthinsurance.com and explore your options today. You may be surprised at what you find.

DISCLAIMER: I AM NOT AFFILIATED WITH eHealth. I am simply tremendously fortunate to have discovered the site and explored my options. It has been my privilege to tell countless others about the site, as well, in the hopes that we never see another story like the one this post refers to.

0 Recruits

Recent Activity

Impact