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- Newsgroups: misc.consumers
- Path: sparky!uunet!ftpbox!mothost!citi.prds.cdx.mot.com!dan
- From: dan@cae.prds.cdx.mot.com (Dan Breslau)
- Subject: Re: Supplemental Health Insurance??? Does it exist???
- Message-ID: <1992Jul28.132910.6069@cae.prds.cdx.mot.com>
- Organization: none
- References: <BrwIDt.4w0@news.cso.uiuc.edu> <1992Jul27.225901.13096@tellab5.tellabs.com>
- Distribution: usa
- Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1992 13:29:10 GMT
- Lines: 45
-
- chrz@tellabs.com (Peter Chrzanowski) writes:
-
- >I don't quite understand the logic of having insurance pay for predictable,
- >probability-one expenses.
-
- >That is, I mostly need insurance to pay for low-probability, high-cost
- >losses: catastrophic medical care, for example, or the loss of my home.
-
- >The saying that comes to mind is, "nobody will insure a burning building".
- >If Bonnie has, say, $1500. in predictable, uncovered expenses next year
- >it would be surprising if anyone would contract to pay these expenses
- >(supplemental insurance) for any less than $1500. Would you?
-
- [...]
- >If the only purpose of "Health Care reform" is to get someone else to pay,
- >I doubt we'll be happy -- since we're all the "someone elses". I mean, you
- >don't expect to get, say, $1000. in medical expenses without seeing your
- >taxes rise at least $1000. ?
-
- >I understand why people buy insurance to pay for low-probability, high-cost
- >events such as, say, treatment for spina bifida or cancer. But what is the
- >purpose in having insurance pay for routine stuff like office visits (other
- >than to allow providers to raise prices) ? It's as though we all took out
- >food insurance, and then filed claims whenever we went to a food store.
-
-
- >It's not as though things somehow, magically become "free" when someone
- >else pays. Who's this "someone else", other than you and me?
-
- There's much truth in what you say -- but some of these policies show
- a bureaucratic mentality which is disconnected from the real world, and
- *doesn't* even increase the bottom line. Two examples come to mind: One,
- as in Bonnie's case (deleted), a lot of preventitive care is not covered,
- even though it's been shown in many cases to be the most cost-effective
- treatment available. An insurance company which covers such care could
- very well save money in the long run.
-
- Two, many policies do not cover outpatient care for
- many treatments, even though it's only a fraction of the cost of inpatient
- care. ("If you're *really* sick, you'd be in the hospital." Yeah, right.)
-
- Dan Breslau
- dan@codex.com
- Disc claimer: "Hey! That's my floppy!"
-
-