The On-The-Job Coverage Rip-Off
Creators,
by
Betsy McCaughey
Original Article
Posted By: Judy W.,
10/3/2019 8:10:52 AM
Employer-provided health plans now cost a gigantic $20,576 a year for family coverage, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. Technically, the employer pays most of it, but labor costs are labor costs. The more that's spent on benefits the less can go to wages.
In reality, it's $20,000 out of every worker's pocket -- money that could have bought a subcompact car or upgraded a kitchen. (Snip)
The No. 1 reason health costs are soaring: obesity and obesity-linked diseases. An obese adult uses 42% more health care than a healthy-weight adult. A morbidly obese adult uses 81% more.
No, is the insurance rip off called Obamacare! What used to be cheap plans, that proceeded provided excellent care are now too expensive with no care.
7 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
tsquare 10/3/2019 8:27:13 AM (No. 196401)
This writer wants to transfer the high med costs of the obese from coworkers to taxpayers. Essentially, when fully implemented, it is the same end game...the healthy subsidize the cost of obesity. If I am high risk for car insurance (history of claims);my insurance rates go up. If i take steps to reduce risk (lower miles driven) my rates go down. Why not in health care insurance?If my house is in a high risk area, my rates go up...why not health insurance? If I take steps to remove risk (fire protection), my rates go down. Why should health insurance be different?
3 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
LadyHen 10/3/2019 8:44:22 AM (No. 196416)
And this is why health insurance is a scam. The actual COST of care is not apparent. It is deducted from wages, it is mitigated by negotiated rates, it is hidden by percentages paid. We should know how much our care costs. We are the consumers after all. We should pay out of pocket and be able to shop around and see the actual cost of our health decisions.
Get rid of health insurance and replace it with a cash pay system that is supplemented as a benefit from employers into tax free health spending accounts with high limits and regulated to.make sure they are not abused. This cuts out the health insurance industry, the lobbiests, and the pols who have beat this issue into the ground all while doing nothing to improve the average American's health care.
Will there need to be special cases and allowances made for some elderly, young, disabled, and indigent? Sure. But the vast majority of us need a better system.
4 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
bad-hair 10/3/2019 8:47:24 AM (No. 196420)
The author seems to think (like millennials) that the wonderful government can simply spend their way out of any problem. After all 22 trillion dollars of debt is no big deal. Ask any congressman Democrat or Republican.
1 person likes this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
paral04 10/3/2019 8:53:49 AM (No. 196425)
Don' forget the enormous costs of gender identification and the fact that both men and women are paying for the same maternity care.
3 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
Jethro bo 10/3/2019 9:02:37 AM (No. 196432)
Is it obesity or improvements in healthcare that provide better treatments? An example, in the 60s if one had a heart attack, they laid in bed with morphine and maybe oxygen. It was cheap but not effective. Now, medicines and interventions can stop and reverse heart attacks allowing for longer life (and more time to use healthcare). This also is much more expensive. Death is far cheaper than life in healthcare cost. So is it obesity or a better heathcare system that provides more effective care and increase in life expectancy?
6 people like this.
They came for your liquor (once), they've effectively taken away your cigarettes, they're now after your vape (while promoting cannibis inhalation). They've forced you to wear a seatbelt...all for your own good. They're after your guns to save lives, some states refusing its residents the right to carry by permit rules. Social media is censored. Hate speech prosecuted selectively. Now let's go after "obesity"... What tyranny does that possibly bring?
5 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
stablemoney 10/3/2019 9:26:09 AM (No. 196462)
Article is very informative, as always by McCaughey. Obesity is causing a healthcare crisis. I know it from members of my own family that refuse and deny their weight issues, instead relying on medicines, doctor and hospital visits. There are many things that could be done to lower healthcare costs, but none are being done by our Congress. Costs reductions in drugs and individual insurance have been done by Trump by executive authority. Congress only cares about impeachment. The Republicans have sat on their hands after power was given to them, and have not used it, again.
1 person likes this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
LadyHen 10/3/2019 9:45:49 AM (No. 196483)
Sorry second post but dh brought up a good point.
Ask most folks about the cost of a car, given all the specifics of age, mileage, amenities, etc, most folks can do a touch of research and know how much they should expect to pay. The real cost is not mysterious or clouded in mumbo jumbo words or paperwork. Even when taking out a loan, the loan company is required to reveal how much financing could potentially cost you in the end. It is a transparent process.
Ask most folks how much a CT scan or an MRI will cost them in reality given insurance payroll deductions, deductibles, and out of pocket costs and I bet most folks would come up blank. Even when you go in to have the test, you generally have no idea how much you will be billed in the end as all the machinations of insurance make transparency laughable.
Shouldn't the true cost of something as important as our healthcare be as transparent as buying a car?
5 people like this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
Rather Read 10/3/2019 9:51:49 AM (No. 196489)
I know a woman who has been in rehab since June for issues related to her extreme obesity. She is in total denial and will NOT stop eating. She has cost our plan more than almost all the employees combined. I don't have the answers, and I know I am supposed to be compassionate, but I find it very hard in her case.
3 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
Strike3 10/3/2019 9:54:33 AM (No. 196493)
Health care is overpriced because doctors, hospitals and big pharma can get away with it through intense lobbying and politicians are too lazy to research the problem because their healthcare is "free" thanks to the working taxpayer. As with everything that is overpriced, widespread competition is the only way to make it reasonable. Those 24/7 commercials pushing drugs cost a fortune and besides annoying TV viewers, each and every minute of that advertising appears in one of your future hospital bills. Obamacare has driven many doctors into early retirement by over-regulation and mountains of useless paperwork.
The people really getting ripped off are the healthy who rarely see a doctor. They might as well take that twenty grand out into the back yard and light it with a match. Obesity, drug addiction, alcoholism and smoking are huge contributors to this cost, all "diseases" over which people have control. On a recent hospital visit to see a relative I viewed three gay men grieving for a fourth who was dying of one of their special diseases. You are paying for their bad choices.
To get a picture of the huge profits in the field simply view the multi-million dollar salaries and bonuses of hospital CEOs, insurance company CEOs and big pharma CEOs. It's a Health Care Business, not a system and it is out of control.
4 people like this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
starboard 10/3/2019 10:08:43 AM (No. 196511)
I cringe when I hear Sanders or Warren scream out "Health care is a right." If someone who abuses their body by drinking massive quantities of alcohol gets Cirrhosis, is it our responsibility to pay for their medical bills? One of the reasons why our country is a beacon of light in the world is because we believe in individual freedom and personal responsibility.
My early education was in the medical industry and worked in hospitals back in the day when we paid our own way. I remember how efficient hospitals were run back then, how clean and antiseptic they were especially seeing nurses in crisp white uniforms and Doctors in white coats and jackets. Not the case anymore. You go into a hospital now and don't know who you are talking to. Also, while there, you may get a MRSA or C Diff infection.
Imagine what medicare for all will do to hospitals when there is a lack of MD's and Registered nurses and the government is in charge of your health.
2 people like this.
Reply 13 - Posted by:
snowoutlaw 10/3/2019 10:33:10 AM (No. 196544)
A couple points. I believe companies write these cost off as an expense so the government is already paying some of these costs. Also since I believe most all companies do everything they can to reduce these cost so they could be higher, of course the government would never try to keep the cost down so they would be much higher.
1 person likes this.
Reply 14 - Posted by:
Hugh Akston 10/3/2019 12:13:12 PM (No. 196656)
I need my sugar pills.
No, you need to lose at least 100 lbs.
And you wouldn't need knee replacement if you weren't carrying 350# on a skeleton designed for 150#
Or that cpac machine that insurance paid for and you probably only used for month.
Most of us are our own worst enemy...and the solution is cheaper than insurance and medical care.
1 person likes this.
Reply 15 - Posted by:
chumley 10/3/2019 12:22:24 PM (No. 196667)
A crisis is brewing. We cant blame people for the ills of the world based on race, sex, sexual behavior, nationality, immigration status, age or most anything. All that is left is smokers and fat people.
So if it makes you feel any better, blame away.
2 people like this.
Not so fast. For years they have cried about people who cost insurers a lot of money. However, none of them talk about how many are paying for insurance they never use, particularly young people. Doesn't it level the playing field ?
Thanks to the un-ACA, insurers have to use the majority of premiums on the insured and keep 15% for admin costs. Commissions for agents were all but wiped out. But Obola covered that too. Only navigators will little training, no license, no fingerprinting could sell OCare.
Now I hear people saying they have no insurance because they couldn't afford OCare.
0 people like this.
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Comments:
The title should be "Your obesity is costing us all a fortune."