I agreeto Idea Health Care ReInsurance
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Health Care ReInsurance

Why Is This Idea Important?: Part of the cost of health insurance is to cover catastrophic health events. Insurance companies are incentivised to deny really expensive procedures. By providing insurance companies with backup insurance for really expensive cases, the cost of health insurance for everyone can more closely resemble the cost to cover the average person.

This might not be the forum, but I think this is an interesting idea that has not received any discussion.

I know a lot of people want single payer health care. This idea is not intended to demote that idea. However, if our government decides that single payer is not the way to go, we somehow have to make the insurance system work. This idea addresses that. Please don't vote against it just because you'd prefer to see single payer!

We are all concerned about the cost of health care. To insure a family can easily cost upwards of $10,000-20,000 per year.

I believe that one of the reasons health insurance is so expensive is because some people cost the system a whole lot of money. Cancer, heart transplant, HIV, etc. So the cost of those really expensive cases has to be built into everyone's insurance.

After 9/11 the government introduced terrorism insurance. The idea with this insurance was that after a certain cost threshold and for particular events, the government would cover a big % of the insurance claims, and the insurer would cover just a portion (90%/10%, I believe).

Why not do the same for health insurance. Have a program where, if a single individual costs more than $X in a single year, the insurance company can get the government involved and ultimately the government would cover a big part of the cost.

Many big news reports (and movies) are about insurance companies refusing expensive treatments to really sick people. For the insurance company that is a huge amount of money that can be saved with a single "No." If only a part of that were their money, they could pay more attention to the benefit and less to the cost.

Example: once an individual costs $100k over any 12mo period, the government could be on the hook for 80% of the additional cost. Of couse there would probably be case managers, etc, but those controls would be a separate detail.

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Submitted by Peter Jackson 3 years ago

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Comments (4)

  1. LeMarr Dailey

    I think the easiest way to fix health care is to open the buisness on an international level. If an international insurer can find cheaper treatment in Germany or Egypt (including the cost of air fare and lost wages) then let capitalism lower the price, not the government.

    3 years ago
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  2. jodax72

    That's what long and short term disability insurance companies do now and just FYI, it doesn't work.

    3 years ago
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  3. ls072456

    this still allows insurers to profit from the sick. profiting off the sick is repugnant. profiteering insurance middlemen have no place in our democracy.

    3 years ago
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  4. debdaveandpets

    I would like to share my ideas regarding national health care with you.

    I believe that someone such as the Surgeon General or someone else should determine what a basic health plan (driven by public health care policies) should be. Once such a basic plan is determined all health insurance companies will be required to provide the provisions of such plan to any United States citizen. Insurance companies would be allowed to charge whatever price they determined is equitable but they would have to charge all of their customers the same price, though each company would differ in price. Everyone would get a tax credit that would cover most of the cost for buying the basic plan and be required to buy the basic plan before buying any optional health insurance. Along with this basic policy for everyone, the paperwork would be standardized across all insurance companies, hospitals and health care providers.

    Since the insurance company has to charge each one of its customers the same price they can advertise the price on radio, television, print advertising creating a competitive market. Since the basic plan is the same, consumers will be able to compare the base rate and optional coverage easier. This would eliminate insurance companies from refusing people for insurance for the basic plan. However, insurance companies could charge accordingly and set their own guidelines for optional insurance. Also government can help the poor with their premiums. The government also should set up an insurance plan for the insurance companies that thay all pay into, so that smaller insurance companies could offer health insurance, so if a insurance company has a person with health cost of over a million dollars thay could collect from the government plan. Also make medicare and mediaid cradle to grave plans so to make insurance companies to keep you healthy for your whole life and not just keeping you healthy till you get on medicare. And to make every one get health insurance give a tax credit to everyone that buys health insurance that will pay for most if not all of the cost of the health insurance, the tax credit would be base on the number of people insured for the household and not the cost of the health insurance, but it still should cover most if not all of the cost of the health insurance. For people doing unhealthy acts, I say tax them, tax smoking, tax unsafe cars, tax unhealthy food, and use those taxes to help fund health care.

    I posted my plan under

    uncategorized

    please read all of it and tell me how to make it better and vote on it

    my email is debdaveandpets@gmail.com

    if you want to contact me, I think my plan would be easier to do than most other health plans.

    David McDonell

    E5273 Airport Road

    Ironwood, MI 49938

    Make basic health insurance like milk, you do not see huge difference in milk prices because milk is milk someone charges to much and people will buy it elsewhere, but for the free market to work well people have to be able to compare the different plans, and by making the basic plans the same across all health insurance companies people will only have to compare price and service for the basic plans and what optional insurance is offer by the health insurance companies. If the Clintons past single payer health care what would Bush have done with it by cutting coverage it offered. That is why I do not want single payer. By having sick people pay the same as healthy people, employers would not have to pay more for workers with medical problems and those people can change jobs and find work easier. Unhealthy items and acts would be taxed. Insurance companies can not use paper work to denied coverage and would get rid of most of it. Freemarket would keep costs down. people and retirement plans owning stock in health insurance companies would not lose a lot of value. Putting health insurance companies out of business would have costs.

    3 years ago
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