Word from the Obama Admin is coming on mmj
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Amstel Light
sounds good to me..and there could still be "boutique" health plans for those that can afford it ...like guys that pull down 11thousand an hour...
i always wondered why they did not just present it like this: 15 million(?more or less) uniinsured X100$ a month=1500000000 ....that should cover it ya think?
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Amstel Light
Aetna, Ronald A. Williams: $24,300,112
Cigna, H. Edward Hanway: $12,236,740
Coventry, Dale Wolf: $9,047,469
Health Net, Jay Gellert: $4,425,355
Humana, Michael McCallister: $4,764,309
U. Health Group, Stephen J. Hemsley: $3,241,042
Wellpoint, Angela Braly: $9,844,212
i think that explains why there needs to be regulation
the needs of the people are supposed to be overlooked by the people we elected? right? I really dont understand your arguement?
Lightning Bug
Member
Thank you Disco! +rep
I make pretty good money but I can't afford health insurance for my family because I choose to work for myself and not the man. People working for companies with affordable (barely) health care plans just don't understand what it is like out there on your own.
I pay my bills and contribute a lot to the economy, why can't all the people not in a group simply make a group for themselves? I don't understand what is so hard about this. I'll pay my share but if you have looked at the plans without a group they are exorbitant and then you don't really get much.
Then without a group backing you they will deny you in a heartbeat and you are SOL after paying all that money. There are a million stories out there about this.
Kaotic said:
Even if you gave each of those execs a salary of 1 million a year in a non profit status you would still have $60,859,239.00 to go towards coverage for the average citizen. With the tax structure of a non profit that is all the more to go towards coverage. I don't feel like looking up the figures on what was paid in taxes by the insurance giants but I'd imagine it is higher than the previous number.
Regulations, sure you will need a minimum of them for stuff like pre existing conditions but you will also need them to curb excess abuse of insurance. THEORETICALLY without the profit motive we shouldn't have denied claims.
Pistil_Party09
Member
am i the only one who doesnt give a fuck about health care in this country?
This is very true, and just imagine how much harder -- or unimaginably expensive -- it becomes because you have a pre-existing condition.
T
Teeg420
So whats the word from the Obama admin concerning mmj?
Before demanding health insurance companies be run as non-profit orgs, one might be wise to find out just how many are actually currently organized that way. Most hospitals are registered as non-profit orgs as well.
Why do people think that the CEO's pay is dollar for dollar paid by denying legitimate claims? let's quit with that bullshit, it's garbage nonsense.
I like the list of CEO's 'salaries' of a couple of select companies. Also no source to verify the veracity of the list. I'll betcha anything those aren't salaries, but total compensation which includes profits from stock options and grants. Most of that money does not come from premiums, but from people buying stock in the stock market, unless I miss my guess.
I fully believe that we need significant healthcare reform, and that everyone should be covered, but c'mon, let's not post bullshit and call it facts.
I like the list of CEO's 'salaries' of a couple of select companies. Also no source to verify the veracity of the list. I'll betcha anything those aren't salaries, but total compensation which includes profits from stock options and grants. Most of that money does not come from premiums, but from people buying stock in the stock market, unless I miss my guess.
I fully believe that we need significant healthcare reform, and that everyone should be covered, but c'mon, let's not post bullshit and call it facts.
Read the bill. It's all in there and much, much more. Don't take my word for it. READ IT! Read the bill. Read it! The link is right there. Read it!
Read the bill.
Not my business how much they make. They are private corporations. My opinion is the whole insurance industry is a scam. Abolish all of it. Replace it with nothing. Make people be financially responsible for themselves. I bet a lot of bad habits would change for the better!
But if I supported communist practices like gov't controlled pay limits for "private" businesses and forced redistribution of wealth then I should probably move to China. They like stuff like that over there. Maybe you should look into it. Sounds more to your liking.
We already experienced tens of millions not having health insurance when the world economy collapsed in the 1930s. I hope you're not serious. There are more types of insurance than you can count and all are government regulated except health. The thing that needs to be abolished is the way things are atm.
Government intervention in monopoly or near monopoly happened with the railroads in the 19th century, Standard Oil and Wall Street in the early 20th. Railroads suffered from the interstate highway system and never returned to the boom days but WS and big oil are consolidating again.
I'm with ya on this one. IGT. Government shouldn't interfere with pay. But business should never be allowed to run amok and unfairly burden the populace. When elements of capitalism are removed like competition and regulation, profits are severe enough to deplete the wealth and power of the middle class. Businesses make money off our back anyway. They shouldn't be allowed to break it.
EDIT: When I was a kid in the 70s, the average business executive made 20x the average wage earner. Today it is 400x. Who knows? Maybe these severely greedy bastards are 20x more efficient, productive and innovative since the 70s but I doubt it.
Thing is, we can't sustain a national economy with this kind of formula. We all know that wealth is in the fewest hands since 1929. The super rich depend on the lesser rich and a strong middle class to make money. The kind of money that doesn't destroy economies like synthesized bubbles on Wall Street.
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Amstel Light
" When I was a kid in the 70s, the average business executive made 20x the average wage earner. Today it is 400x. Who knows? Maybe these severely greedy bastards are 20x more efficient, productive and innovative since the 70s but I doubt it."
so being a slave to wall street
is better than being a slave to china ? is that your argument?
The problem of vastly disproportionate pay levels on Wall St. is only superficially tied to social justice issues.
The real problem is that financial "profits" are realized on an annual basis, but do not reflect discounting for losses that only emerge in subsequent fiscal years.
What that means, in plain English, is that too much incentive based compensation encourages accounting slieght-of-hand and risk-taking that is against the national interest. It leads to risk-taking that created the financial disaster that took place a year ago. Whether you are for or against salaries dictated by market forces, unregulated market forces that serve to encourage massive risk taking with other people's money does not serve America's long-term financial interest.
The real problem is that financial "profits" are realized on an annual basis, but do not reflect discounting for losses that only emerge in subsequent fiscal years.
What that means, in plain English, is that too much incentive based compensation encourages accounting slieght-of-hand and risk-taking that is against the national interest. It leads to risk-taking that created the financial disaster that took place a year ago. Whether you are for or against salaries dictated by market forces, unregulated market forces that serve to encourage massive risk taking with other people's money does not serve America's long-term financial interest.
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Amstel Light
ItsAllOver
Devil's Advocate
Every time you support a large corporation in any way you are paying "these greedy bastards" (aka entrepreneurs providing a product that people apparently like) of all sorts. I have no problem compensating a person for doing such a massive thing as running a multi-billion dollar company. I don't see why people don't see the difference between them working at Chick-Fil-A and a health insurance exec overseeing a company that provides insurance for millions of people. (even if you don't think they are "doing a good job" of it. Lots of insured people would argue that they are happy)
Let's do a little math:
$30,000,000,000 was Aetna's revenues for 2008 (actually $31.68 B)
As quoted below, their CEO made $24,300,112
or .081% of their yearly revenues. Pretty sure that leaves a lot of money to take care of claims.
"The average employer-sponsored premium for a family of four costs close to $13,400 a year," comes from NCHC website. So let's play with that.
$24,300,112 (which isn't fair, because it includes his option awards, but oh well)
divided by
$13,400
= 1,699 families covered for one year if he gave up every penny of his income. Come on guys, that's a drop in the fucking bucket of "45 million uninsured" (don't know if I buy it, but I'll use it anyway, especially because it further proves this particular point.)
And that guy is running a health insurance company that provides coverage to 36.5 million Americans, give him a break. (and if you want to bitch about how much execs make, please look into the financial sector. [or oil revenues] You will think you're misreading the numbers.)
And did you know that over half of that income came from stock option awards? These are basically opportunities to buy stock at a set price at a later date, which gives the CEO incentive to increase the stock value so that they can profit from the buy/sale at the end of the period. Doesn't mean the guy makes that much every year. Salary is just over a million...
And who knows how much charity the guy gives? (I couldn't find the answer myself)
Also, let's not forget how much of his $24,300,112 goes to the government in taxes. A HUGE PORTION!
These people are providing a product, and they don't do it badly. If you want them to do it better, push for it. No one is forced to be their customer, and they know that. Customers have more sway than they seem to think. You can't say, "well it's not absolutely perfect so I want my government nanny to come in and take care of me." You know what, sometimes people can't get access to healthcare, and to think the world will ever be perfect in this or any respect is silly. The private market is evolving every day, and if people were incapable of paying the price the insurance companies charged, they'd either change or go out of business. Not only this, but if everyone in America died off due to lack of insurance, the companies would have nothing to stand on, would they? The incentive is obvious to the CEOs and employees of the company to increase the number of clients and decrease the cost, because you make MORE MONEY that way than providing higher cost to fewer clients. It's a no brainer, really. Every human being needs a little lesson in economics.
People just get their panties in a bunch because we are talking about things that people "need" as opposed to want. But the thing is, tell me why this industry is so different that the price mechanism does not work? (if you don't get the term, please look into it, pretty important concept to this discussion)
If we have 300,000,000 people in the US (surely more now), and there is "enough health care" (hard to define in such a complex situation, just think of these as "numbers of vaccines" or similar health-related item) for 250,000,000, there is NO WAY right now to change this. Law and legislation does nothing to increase the abilities of the health care industry. We will simply end up with a worsened shortage of the good, because the government is going to come in and fuck up the price mechanism, as they always do.
You might now say, "but IAO, of course we have enough resources to provide health care for everybody." I say, "yea, and you have enough resources to buy a Lamborghini, just sell all of your possessions, house, car, put down a downpayment, and pay off for the rest of your life and then some." Get the idea there? So where do the resources shift from? Would this have effects that we didn't think about because it's impossible to know EVERY interaction? Arguably, yes.
It is not as simple as reading little factoids and statistics (of dubious veracity). You must have a firm understanding of underlying economic principles. I'm not saying I know everything, but all historical evidence of government intervention in price ends up having adverse effects on the effective provision of goods and services, despite often positive intentions!
Oh and about "thousands of people losing their coverage every day." Um, I think it's important to consider the number of those thousands that sign up for comparable (often better?) coverage the same/next day! The exact numbers are not what matter, it is the fact that people are reading/spouting these gov't sponsored numbers and not thinking about what they mean/the bigger picture.
The government is not an insurance company, and forcing it into being one is likely not going to be a good way to get quality health care (remember we don't care about health insurance, we want health care).
We have to be able to see the disparity between intention and effect of law and legislation. Minimum wage laws are a perfect, simple example.
And of course the insurance companies are spending out the ass to lobby. They fear for their existence because they know the havoc the gov't will wreak on the industry. And if the insurance companies, providing a good service for MANY people, get destroyed by the gov't, what do you think will happen to those currently being covered? I would rather have 45MM people without health insurance than the opposite, much larger, (~300,000,000 - 45,000,000 = 255,000,000) portion of the population that is already insured losing theirs due to gov't intervention. Companies can go out of business in a flash due to malinvestment and market tampering by the government. Now I wouldn't expect them all to go out, but Aetna takes care of 36.5MM peeps, ya know? Even making smallish dents in all of the companies in the industry will have a large effect.
Also I notice that a significant foundation for your argument, Disco, is based on the fact that you are sure that government will "do it better" than private insurance. This is an unsubstantiated claim to me. Are you referencing VA and other info for this? I have seen some, but not all, of the info there. Maybe some links to sources, etc? Thx man
Don't hate on the successful people of this country (I'm talking about the execs) just because you are not one, peeps. This is too common. These people often had similar beginnings to yours. (not always, I know) Now what could have caused the difference in result?
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