Is insurance evil???

a reply to: NightSkyeB4Dawn

Most insurance companies don't write flooding into a policy, especially if you live on a flood plain because that if guaranteed to happen to you sooner or later. That's why the government offers it.

I am trying to remember what our policy says about flooding as we're not on a flood plain. We're covered for some forms of it, but not others.

originally posted by: trollz

originally posted by: ketsuko
a reply to: trollz

You don't have the right to go up to someone demand they labor for you. That's slavery.

It's not slavery if laboring for you is what that person is literally being paid to do during the normal course of their work schedule. If you go to a hospital and are seen by a nurse, that nurse is being paid to see you during her working hours. They're not calling in some other nurse who is off duty and telling her to come in and work for free.

Ah, but if you decide that you have a basic right, unalienable right to health care, then you are saying you have a right to the service provided by another human being. No one has the right to the labor of another human being.

The last time we had a class of people who believed that, slavery existed in this country, and we had to fight a war over it to end that practice.

It doesn't matter if you think they're being paid for it ... the fact of the matter is that you believe you have a right to their labor. You don't. The only labor you have any right to is your own.

originally posted by: neutronflux

Any who. When seen how well government has managed social security. You think government is going to manage a healthcare system any better.

Seems to me *this* is the discussion we should all be having, and even the most ardent statist should have some suspicions when it comes to how things went down with the ACA.

Can you imagine if we "fixed" the government with such efficacy that when someone suggests universal healthcare we all say, "Oh yeah, they got that."

Yeah.. I cant really either. Maybe thats cynicism, but it seems like us humans get real, real dysfunctional when dealing with large scale problems.

I feel like really pursuing decentralization might be a step in a better direction. Especially with the novel avenues that modern technology introduces. Even a decade or two ago, it would be a different Story, but now? I think we are starting to see the tools that could enable us to have all the benefits of a centralized system while pursuing more and more decentralization.

Then again.. Maybe not.

Im not sure insurance can be called "evil," or that its even an inherently "bad" concept. But like any human endeavor that isolates those involved more and more the larger it gets.. Certain factors become more relevant than others with significantly different outlooks on what those factors are to "normal" individuals and organizations.

What bothers me most about insurance (all of it) is that it pretty much does what it's supposed to do. It insulates normal people from abnormal consequences.

To clarify, let's say that you crash your brand new $25k car into a slightly older $20k car. In the grand scheme of things, $50k worth of smashed up cars is small potatoes. But to a normal person, this is a huge amount of loss at one time.

The insurance company can afford that kind of loss because they generally win. And when they don't win, they raise prices so they still win anyway. So the normal person who has all of their expenses paid for by the insurance company feels like they won because the company did what it does and insulated them from financial consequences that would have been very substantial without insurance.

But....the end result of this is that if you have an accident and your insurance company pays tens of thousands of dollars on your behalf, the worst thing that's gonna happen to you (financially) is your insurance premiums are gonna go up. Maybe significantly. But still, in the grand scheme of things, you barely felt consequences that would have knocked you for a loop otherwise.

So...insurance companies make it so that normal people don't complain about (for example) how expensive medical bills are. You pay a small copay. What do you care if the actual bill was enormous? So your detachment from the cost allows you to not give a damn and ends up screwing people who don't have insurance. Which causes them to demand that the government "Do something!". Which the government will be happy to do. They will happily make the situation worse and force you to buy insurance. So long as they can force everyone to buy it at the same time....so the insurance company still wins.

I have seen insurance go up exactly enough that in one year it would pay off a 30,000 dollar hospital bill. Just the amount above the old payment.

originally posted by: tanstaafl

originally posted by: Flyingclaydisk
There is absolutely no way you can fix the runaway costs in either of these two industries until you, through legislation, address outrageous damage awards. And, to start this discussion you can't start it with the low hanging fruit, you have to start the discussion right at the very most difficult part...how much is a life worth? This is the absolute crux of the issue.

If you don't start there, nothing will change. You have to start there because only then can you work backwards into establishing values for everything short of the upper limit. Otherwise, there is no way to contain the damages, which is exactly what we're seeing in this country right now. The United States ranks #1 in damage lawsuits world over, by orders of magnitude. This has got to STOP!

Otherwise...you might as well just suck it up. No use complaining about it, because nothing, and I mean nothing, will change!

I understand what you are saying, but to clarify...

Surely you aren't saying that doctors and/or hospitals shouldn't be held responsible for someones death or permanent disability when it is due to some negligent action by someone at the hospital or the doctor?

Surely you aren't saying that if I'm in an accident and some idiot at the hospital didn't read my chart and gave me something that I was allergic to and I died, that they shouldn't be held financially responsible? My wife and children no longer have a husband/father/provider - so, surely you aren't saying they should just 'suck it up'?

Nope, not saying that at all.

Not even remotely suggesting there should be no legal remedy for liability. What I am suggesting is that damages should be capped at reasonable levels, not insane unreasonable levels like they are now in the U.S.

Well it could be considered a form of gambling...

originally posted by: Brian4real
Well it could be considered a form of gambling...

Actually, once you get the government involved and they decide they have to force people to pay for services that they will need to save their own lives, it could be considered a form of extortion. Which it is.

originally posted by: Flyingclaydisk
Not even remotely suggesting there should be no legal remedy for liability. What I am suggesting is that damages should be capped at reasonable levels, not insane unreasonable levels like they are now in the U.S.

Ok, good...

So, now the question is, what is 'reasonable' and who gets to define it?

I would say it should be some factor of the actual damage of the harmed person... as an example...

If I am killed through some negligent action of a doctor/hospital, the actual damage should be the amount of my annual wages based on the average of the last 10 years or so, multiplied by the number of years I would have reasonably been expected to live, times a factor of 3.

So, assuming average life expectancy of a male is 79 years, and I'm killed at the age of 57, and my average gross income over the last 10 years is $100,000, that would be 100,000 x 22, which equals 2.2 million, multiplied by a factor of 3 (this is the punitive part, to create the incentive for them to institute procedures to lessen the chance it happens again), for a total of 6.6 million.

You ok with that?

a reply to: tanstaafl

Well, sure. I was going to start a little higher and a little different. Remember we're establishing an absolute max cap. So...

Let's say something like 20x annual salary as reported on federal tax returns averaged over five years.

Then there would be adders for accomplishments like Nobel Prizes, or high military awards, other accepted awards (NOT Star Search or U Toob). Something like this could be structured.

originally posted by: Flyingclaydisk
a reply to: tanstaafl

Well, sure. I was going to start a little higher and a little different. Remember we're establishing an absolute max cap. So...

Let's say something like 20x annual salary as reported on federal tax returns averaged over five years.

Ok, well at least you weren't advocating for what the Insurance Companies are advocating for...

First, after thinking about it a little more, I'd say there needs to be a base, bottom line 'What is a life worth' amount. For today, I'd say $2 million is a good figure. This makes sure that poor people aren't totally shafted if something bad happens.

Then, as opposed to your blanket '20 x annual salary', I think first it needs to be based more on 'actual damages', which needs to be based in some way on their remaining life expectancy... meaning, someone who is 80 years old doesn't have that many years of productive life remaining. Not sure how to do that fairly or in a way that makes sense, so have to give it some thought.

Then, after the 'actual damages' are determined, you increase it by some certain factor, which, in the common law, treble damages is the rule, so that sounds good to me.