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Everyone knows that you can negotiate the price on a new car, but did you know that you also can negotiate the price of healthcare?
If you are not the type of person who will insist on a lower price on a new car, chances are, you probably don't ask for lower prices for healthcare. By not asking for discounts, however, you end up paying too much.
According to this video article from the Sun-Sentinel, 74% of people surveyed said they did get discounts from their doctors when they asked.
This is one of the key secrets to maintaining a health savings account plan. Because the plan carries a high deductible insurance policy, everyone insured with an HSA plan learns to negotiate prices for services performed. The better negotiator you are, the lower the prices you'll pay.
Visit our main website for details on how a health savings plan can help your family save on health insurance.
High deductible plans
Almost 500 teachers in the Milwaukee district have been laid off due to tough economic times, and many who are left are fighting - not for their former colleagues to be reinstated but for inclusion of Viagra in the district's medical plan.
You can't make this kind of stuff up.
On the one hand, male members have a point, sort of. They argue that many "female only" things are covered, such as birth control pills, estrogen replacement, and vaginal creams. Interestingly enough, penile implants ARE covered under the plan; Viagra is not.
Many who follow my blog may find this difficult to believe, but I actually agree with the men here, and no, not for personal reasons.
Viagra is a prescribed drug that is prescribed in response to a diagnosed medical condition (ED as it is commonly known). It is not just a "sexual problem" thing. Usually, the condition itself is reflective of other issues such as hypertension, etc. So medically speaking, the drug usually helps, but even if it's purely from a mental standpoint, it still should be covered because many other drugs are covered for mental-nervous conditions.
Like it or not, the men's position here is at least consistent. And that's one thing I consistently argue for - consistency.
Either do it all or not at all.
The real problem with our healthcare system, however, is that we have developed a mentality that our health plans should "do it all" for us.
If those teachers had to pay the full cost of their own premiums, they would have a dramatically different outlook.
And THAT my friends is the real problem with our system that the teachers highlight here by arguing for Viagra inclusion: LACK OF PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY.
High deductible plans go a long way toward restoring the personal responsibility that is lacking in our healthcare system today.
Make no mistake: High deductible plans ARE the wave of the future. We are just beginning the process of reverting to the 1980's before copay plans were invented. The cost of premiums for copay plans has gotten too much out of control and the copays themselves are greatly at fault. Copays are the antithesis of personal responsibility. Copays encourage someone else to pay or heavily subsidize the cost of one's own medical care.
CD Richard
"the health insurance guru"
Licensed Agent/Broker since 1980
From AHIP, this says it all about the Senate's latest boondoggle effort to "reform" health care.
As structured, the Senate bill will dramatically INCREASE premiums almost immediately, due to a number of factors including a new $70 billion tax on the insurance industry (to pay for so-called reform) and a mandate to cover all applicants regardless of health conditions.
This bill continues to be mindboggling to the normal American. Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and the rest of the Chicago politicians are utterly clueless.
Advertising emergency room wait times gains popularity -- latimes.com
From the LA Times comes this interesting story of American ingenuity. Emergency rooms around the country are responding to long wait times by posting wait times at various ER rooms around the vicinity.
2-hours were you are? It could be only 4 minutes down the street.
Another new company is testing the idea of place holding, for a fee. Get online, pay a small fee, save your place in line, wait at home, then go when it's your turn.
My goodness. And to think nobody has relied on the government to figure this out.
What will they think of next?
46 million huh?
Wow, that's a lot.
And as it turns out, a gigantic overstatement that can have only one purpose - to persuade the American public that the health care "dilemma" is so dire that only his (still undefined) plan can save the country.
Let's review the facts, sans hyperbole.
- Fact 1: Percentage-wise, the number of uninsureds actually is lower than in 1998 (Obama claims it continues to rise).
- Fact 2: Health care of children has improved dramatically since 1998 by about 3 million kids.
- Fact 3: As many as 12 million (of the uninsured 46 million) are ILLEGAL aliens -- ILLEGAL as in they shouldn't be here in the first place and certainly should not be counted.
- Fact 4: About 8.3 million earn between $50,000 and $75,000 (meaning they have the means to buy health care coverage, but opt not to).
- Fact 5: Amazingly, even more, about 8.7 million, earn over $75,000 (no excuses for them whatsoever).
That leaves a grand total of about 8.8 million (legal) American citizens who are, according to Kaiser Foundation, chronically uninsured.
So why all the fuss over a mere 8.8 million people who are here legally and cannot, truly cannot afford to purchase health care coverage?
Would it not be much, much simpler to focus on THOSE people? Forget about the illegals and I mean that literally. They have no right to be here in the first place; therefore, they should have no "right" to expect health care coverage (which they now get for free merely by showing up in emergency rooms at all hours of the day and night).
As for the 16 to 17 million legal Americans who clearly earn enough to buy health care coverage but opt not to do so, again, forget about them -- start turning them away if they can't cough up the cash to pay the doctor. (There's actually a good example of why making the purchase of health care coverage mandatory makes sense, 10th Amendment issues notwithstanding).
What about the chronically uninsured? Why not qualify them for Medicare (under age 65)? In theory, many of them should qualify now for Medicaid - based on income. If the threshold needs to be lowered, fine - let's get those people covered, and I have no problem subsidizing that effort with tax dollars.
But the illegals? The people who clearly make enough money but opt not to spend it in advance on purchasing health care coverage? Those laggards have been turned into pawns by the Obama administration that clearly has one overriding goal in mind: Install some kind of system that eventually will become the only game in town.
(The essence of this article was derived from an article by Peter Hannaford in The American Spectator.
Finally!
Somebody has picked up on the fact that current CBO estimates for Obamacare extend only for 10 years out.
At some point, one must ask: What happens after the initial 10 years? Does Obamacare suddenly stop and cease to exist? Of course not. It's a government program, which can only mean one thing - it is destined to get bigger and bigger until it becomes self consuming.
But at what cost?
A new article from the WSJ shows a scary scenario where the costs in the second decade of Obamacare greatly exceed anticipated revenue creating a "Grand Canyon" of additional national debt.
Just how much debt will the Chinese be willing to underwrite?
My suspicion is that these blowhard Democrats who today are crying over the incessant constituency outrage had better start looking for a new job in another year, should they bow to Pelosi and vote in favor of the largest single boondoggle in American history.
