Chuck Asay by Chuck Asay
- August 06, 2009
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Nick Anderson by Nick Anderson
Tony Auth by Tony Auth
About Chuck Asay
Chuck Asay sifts the events of the day through his biblical worldview and tries to persuade readers to see things his way...that rights are given by a higher authority than the governments of men, that mankind is not the ultimate arbiter of truth and that our Constitutional Republic is worth protecting. Chuck believes ideas, not politicians rule the world. He tries to protect ideas which he thinks are good and attacks ideas he thinks bring harm.
© 2009 Creators Syndicate - All Rights Reserved.
Comments (37) Jump to Comments Form
nomad2112 said, 3 months ago
She’s still off of the mark.
ussottawa said, 3 months ago
She only got one out of the five responsible. (Including herself as a voter.)
Corosive Frog said, 3 months ago
They ARE the ones to blame. they are the ones that make huge bucks out of people’s suffering.
HOWGOZIT said, 3 months ago
So the Obama “change” is now insurance reform instead of healthcare reform.
harleyquinn
said,
3 months ago
next up “You are just mad at Obama”
Bluejayz said, 3 months ago
ANandy said: “Since every insurer is licensed by each state insurance commissioner to conduct business, their activities are well monitored. Premium levels are reviewed and approved. Excess profits are not a possibility.”
A state license does not mean that insurers are well monitored. Enron was “well monitored” by the SEC, and look at what happened. AIG was “well monitored”? HAH!
I’ll guarantee that premiums are not monitored or approved by the 50 states in any kind of consistent manner, and I doubt that premiums and coverage are even minimally controlled throughout most of the country.
“Excess profits are not a possiblity.” What alternate universe are you living in? Excess profits are the American Way!
oldlegodad
said,
3 months ago
Edgar Bumpers Your droll wit went right over 98.9% of this rabble. Good shot!
iamthelorax said, 3 months ago
I think it’s funny to hear people hate on insurance companies that make a profit. Do you know what happens to unprofitable insurance companies? They have no money to pay your claim!
It’s a good thing to do business with an insurance company with a sound financial credit rating. You’re supposed to check on that when you choose a company along with premiums and coverage.
They tend to be the ones with better service and less BS when it’s time to use them.
WestTex13 said, 3 months ago
I’d like to see some insurance reform, tort reform and pharmaceutical negotiation..
I actually prefer fixing the system to scrapping it and implementing an expensive, bulky system that has minimum long term promise.
Anthony 2816
said,
3 months ago
Another erudite comment, WestTex.
Having had direct experience with all three, your suggestions should be the basis of any reform.
ezdeb said, 3 months ago
Alright, let’s say that insurance companies are being unfairly victimized here.
Can anyone tell me why it makes sense for our nation to have a healthcare system based on these foundations:
The insurance company collects money in premiums.
They pay out money in claims.
The money they collect minus the money they pay out = profit.
They survive and make money if they collect more than they pay out.
Since people file insurance claims for medical expenses, the insurance company must look carefully at the amount they are being asked to pay out, and make sure it’s in the profit interest of the company.
If I’ve only paid premiums for, say, 2 years, and then I develop a complicated medical condition, I’ve suddenly become a liability to the company’s profit margin. Suddenly, there’s a problem.
The problem is: the company’s conflict between doing their job and covering my medical expenses as per our agreement, and losing money.
We can all find plenty of anecdotal evidence out there for instances where insurance companies decided in favor of profit over healthcare payout.
The system doesn’t work because of the conflict there. No hate, no blame, except that capitalism’s motto is “whatever the market will bear”. Profit - wise, the more profit the better. So decisions are not made based on health, but on $$.
So if you have lots of $$, you can get what you need. If you don’t, you are at the whim of the insurance company.
It doesn’t have to be a polarizing topic, people. The for-profit system tends to greed. Is that OK? Do these processes just seem fine to you? Is it OK that marketing and focus groups determine which drugs come out onto the market for hopeful sufferers?
If so, I guess that’s just your position. Americans aren’t dirty “others” you know.
ezdeb said, 3 months ago
Iamthelorax thinks it’s funny. Look at his post! It’s just all so simple. If we just all get insured with responsible insurers with good business track records, we’ll have no problems. Don’t wake up from your dream, lorax!
I think it’s “funny” when ppl like lorax lump humans in with other commodities. As if big, respectable insurance companies will not try to avoid payouts because they say to themselves: “Well, we’ve made a good profit this quarter. Let’s agree to pay A’s and B’s claims, and, oh heck, we can afford to pay C’s claim too!”
Next quarter, they can only “afford” to pay A’s claim, because their fiscal policies are so responsible that they can’t jeopardize their credit rating by paying out.
You MAKE my point, lorax, you don’t refute it.
People are not statistics. But they are to insurance companies. My health is not a question of profit.
WestTex13 said, 3 months ago
Thank you Anthony..
One thing which I failed to mention in other posts.. Despite the VA being slow and arduous, their costs for prescriptions is greatly reduced and I think that is something that should be available to everyone.. My Grandfather before passing away was paying over half his social security check just for meds. Nothing exhorbant, but heart medication, a blood thinner, anti-gout and certain painkillers for the cancer. If not for my mother supplementing their income they couldn’t have afforded it..
There are so many things we can easily do to drive costs down. Then we can use that baseline to setup programs to aid those who cannot afford basic medical treatment.
tpenna
said,
3 months ago
iamthelorax said: “I think it’s funny to hear people hate on insurance companies that make a profit. Do you know what happens to unprofitable insurance companies? They have no money to pay your claim!”
This line of reasoning runs into trouble when faced with nonprofit health insurance companies which are perfectly able to pay for claims.
Furthermore, while I typically feel little but disdain for for-profit insurance companies, one like Wellmark also defies lorax’s logic with this statement from their website:
“While it’s important to do well financially, Wellmark doesn’t pride itself on huge profit margins. To seek a balance between profit and marketplace growth, Wellmark’s goal is to realize a 2 percent operating margin, and use the better results to improve health status in the communities it serves.”
GNWachs
said,
3 months ago
There are many reasons why medical bills are so expensive. To put charges in some perspective, if total US health costs are $10 than the pharmaceutical medication portion is $1. Defensive medicine costs are between $1-2. The rest is hospitals, labs and professional fees.
To explain to someone not actually practicing medicine why defensive medicine is so terribly expensive is very difficult. Each physician orders thousands of tests, not to make a profit, not to make a diagnosis but to provide a paper trail so as not to get sued. The question we as a society must answer is how much should we spend to go from 99% accuracy to 99.5%. Remember if we miss that 1% there are lawyers who will sue. Now it is $billions. We have never been very successful in showing the public the true costs are not how much I pay in malpractice insurance, that is pennies. The true cost is the unnecessary tests I order. The vast vast majority of time the tests are performed elsewhere and the physician does not make a penny on them. Defensive medicine. Remember Obama pulled tort reform off the table at the request of the American Trial Lawyers Assn.
iamthelorax said, 3 months ago
tpenna: The example of Wellmark doesn’t defy my logic, because they are acting in a profitable manner.
And non-profit insurance companies are only able to pay claims and keep doing so if they collect more money than they pay out. The difference between the two is profit, even if they don’t want to call it profit. If that doesn’t happen, the operation shuts down.
And yes, cheap discount insurance companies are harder to deal with than the more expensive brands. They are the ones who nitpick every detail, have poorer customer service and try very hard to trim down their actual payout. But that’s the trade-off to opting for the cheapest deal available.
dtroutma said, 3 months ago
I’m not a fan of insurance companies (Though my auto company has “done well” by me for 40 years now.), definitely not big pharma, or lawyers. I believe MOST doctors do practice medicine for people more than profit. The trick is this, in a “team sport”, is it a single player, or the whole team that wins or loses. In health care, every player is taking the field only for their own, and ignoring the game. We lose if they don’t play “nice” together. THAT is the crux of the problem, ALL sectors, and Congress need to stop being prima donnas and profit wonks, and sit down, work together, and get viable solutions so that ALL citizens are served best, instead of any single player on the “provider” team.
iamthelorax said, 3 months ago
Ezdeb, the government is going to make decisions on which medicines are going to be covered as well. If, in an example with cancer, none of the routine medicine has worked and a new medicine comes out, you can’t just ask to try it and expect it to be covered. If the medicine is too new, too little data on effectiveness to justify the cost, you’re not getting it.
You are a number on a public option as much as you are on a private option. There isn’t going to be any “compassion” in a government plan that you believe is missing from a private plan.
tpenna
said,
3 months ago
A bit more about Wellmark’s model, for those interested: http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20070930/BUSINESS/709300324/1001/NEWS.
And lorax, the difference is that, while publicly traded health insurance corporations seek profit above anything (per Milton Friedman’s well known dictum), Wellmark is a mutual company that can afford to consider its overall footprint in the communities it serves. Ergo, they do not operate for the sole purpose of profit.
GNWachs
said,
3 months ago
This just out
“American voters, by a 55 – 35 percent margin, are more worried that Congress will spend too much money and add to the deficit than it will not act to overhaul the health care system, according to a Quinnipiac University national poll released today. By a similar 57 – 37 percent margin, voters say health care reform should be dropped if it adds ‘significantly’ to the ! deficit.”
Anthony 2816
said,
3 months ago
Wachs, that’s simply because (1) many of our Congressmen are tied to to the healthcare industry, and (2) many of the others will end up “comprimising” (that is, sell out) to the first group.
iamthelorax said, 3 months ago
tpenna:I think the difference in the case of Wellmark (I have never heard of them), is that people approve of the profit because of what people want them to do with it. Which is fine, they’ve attracted customers for it because they are doing what their customers want them to do with it.
But very often, when people want a villain, they point to profit with the insinuation that you’ve been taken advantage of. It’s not just about insurance companies, it’s any industry when you need to blame someone.
Speaking of profit, you should contact Wellmark and ask for a cheque, you’ve given them good publicity on the internet LOL! :-)
tpenna
said,
3 months ago
Not a bad idea, lorax. ;)
dtroutma said, 3 months ago
Lorax, VA and insurance companies use drug formularies, so yes, they ALL “decide” which drugs get used. They also have rules for doctors to go off the formulary if a specific drug is needed, fairly common when new drugs appear that are patent protected (at generally very high price), doctors can USUALLY get them approved. My experience with VA is that they are quite good at seeing patients NOT just as a number, and do a good job of caring for patients. It was my “private” carrier “number cruncher” that insisted on substituting a drug I was lethally allergic to instead of what my doctor prescribed, and it took months to get it straightened out. When I got to their PHARMACIST, he got it straightened out. This happened TWICE with the private guys.
secondson said, 3 months ago
It’s interesting that profit is such a dirty word in the leftist lexicon.
believecommonsense
said,
3 months ago
dtrouma, thanks for sharing that … I hope folks remember your story when they hear about government getting between you and your doctor … insurers are already between folks and their doctors and their only motivation is profit ….
tpenna
said,
3 months ago
secondson, you should know very well that profit is not a dirty word for us liberals. We simply believe that it is not the highest good, or summum bonum. And for certain vital needs, the profit-driven market simply does not work.
For instance, if I decide that I want to buy a laptop computer, and the one I want to buy is too expensive, I may wait for a month or two to see if the price comes down. It is unreasonable to expect the same method when I become diagnosed with cancer and need expensive treatment. It simply cannot wait.
senorbullwinkle
said,
3 months ago
YES, it’s quite Honorable for CEO’s* to make Billions on the sick and dying. To have them pay outrageous premiums, only to end up loosing their homes and become bankrupt and Die. Yes quite HONORABLE . Here, have a billion, just kidding, but take a look at My health care package. (*corrected)
secondson said, 3 months ago
tpenna, if a person has insurance and needs expensive cancer treatment they will recieve it, with co-pay. However if a person has made a personal choice to fore go insurance until they are diagnosed with cancer and then need expensive treatment they have gambled with their own life. It is not the fault of an insurance company if they will not accept this person that will be a financial drain on the rest of those who have been prepared for this eventuality. The government already assures this person a level of catastrophic care. Just ask the illegals.
senorbull, name one CEO that has been paid billions. If you want to make exaggerated claims to puff up an argument thats fine, you obviously are capable.
tpenna
said,
3 months ago
secondson says: “if a person has insurance and needs expensive cancer treatment they will recieve it, with co-pay.”
Sorry, but that’s just not always the case, secondson. There have been cases of treatment denied or even coverage dropped upon the diagnosis of cancer.
My wife’s mother, for instance, was dropped from her policy shortly after her breast cancer diagnosis. And she wasn’t alone. I have heard about a newly-diagnosed woman dropped because she had failed to mention on her application that she had once been treated for acne.
And then there is the case of Nataline Sarkisyan in California whose doctors told her that she needed a liver transplant in order to survive. Cigna initially denied treatment and received a barrage of criticism from all over the spectrum. Weeks later, Cigna relented and agreed to cover the transplant. But within hours of their decision, Nataline was dead.
All three of these decisions were made for the purpose of profit. Perhaps now you can understand liberal’s suspicion of the profit motive in the case of healthcare.
senorbullwinkle
said,
3 months ago
SECONDSON, Did I exaggerated ? OH, you mean about how much they make ? Not about losing house, money, and life. Shame on you.
Individually or all together ?
I’m sorry, only the republicans are allowed to exaggerate or just flat out lie.
Did you know that Obama is not a citizen, is a Muslim, a socialist, hates America, and so on……Profit is a dirty word of the left….
OH, and as ” you are very capable of “.good one !
http://www.bobcesca.com/blog-archives/2009/06/obscene.html >
>
http://www.aflcio.org/corporatewatch/paywatch/game_goldenboot.cfm
believecommonsense
said,
3 months ago
to add onto tpenna’s post, the woman she mentioned testified before Congress. She saw a dermatologist related to menopausal acne, and the physician put something on her chart that allowed the insurance to claim she committed fraud by not listing it as a pre-existing condition of cancer. They rescinded her policy retroactively when she was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer.
It’s called “recision” and private insurers do it all the time, even when clearly there was no fraud or attempt to mislead on behalf of the patient.
Also, what secondson fails to understand is that insurers won’t sell policies to many people who seek them. Insurers also sell policies to people without employer-paid benefits that are outrageously expensive, have high annual deductibles (as high as $5,000), high co-pays and will not cover any pre-existing condition (which can mean almost anything) for 12 months.
The situation you describe, secondson, applies only to a portion of the uninsured, usually young people who don’t worry about medical care.
GNWachs
said,
3 months ago
Just you wait for ObamaCare. Over 65/70 with cancer, sorry. See the protocol in the UK. Palliative therapy not aggressive.
I will believe i am wrong when the Feds begin to pay $20,000/year to treat elderly psoriasis patients with the biologics. Now our patients can get them.
Anthony 2816
said,
3 months ago
I don’t know why you keep calling it ObamaCare. What finally comes out of Congress is going bear little resemblance to what Obama originally wanted.
secondson said, 3 months ago
senorbull, thats a funny tactic, to change the subject by implying those exaggerated claims were made by me. Actually it’s hilarious because I take BHO at his word, and I have derided people in my RL for suggesting otherwise. I believe he is christian, I believe he is a citizen, I believe he is trying to do good work for America (even if I disagree most of the time), and his stance on socialism is obvious. The fact remains that liars lie, whether they are on the left or the right. To accuse those who disent from your opinion of being liars because the truth is damaging to your point is as reprehensible as an actual lie.
tpenna, I agree that insurance companies should be taken to task for their blatent abuses. I do believe that corporatation act in a criminal manner sometimes. The story you posted shows that the system is not perfect. My mother, God rest her soul, had a heart attack, by-pass surgery, breast cancer, diabetes, and high blood pressure. All of these were treated under her insurance, and she was never dropped. I am not suggesting that abuses do not occur. What I am saying is that the vast majority are treated properly.
David
said,
3 months ago
Nice one Chuck…you nailed it.
That is why this farce of a healthcare bill will not do anything but transfer the cost to the taxpayer who is already $11 trillion in debt and over a trillion dollars overdrawn this fiscal year. Every individual American citizen’s share of this debt is over $38,000. You can thank Presidents farther back than Kennedy for delivering this to you and President Obama for continuing this trend at record pace.
David
said,
3 months ago
This bill is government engorgement disguised as healthcare.