matthearn.com

I work for an insurance company, so perhaps my perspective is colored a bit by that, but here’s my question: why are private enterprises allowed to offer insurance? Shouldn’t this be a government function alone?

Stay with me. The problem with the current healthcare insurance situation translates to all types of insurance, if you think about it. Insurance companies make money in two ways:

1. By taking your premiums and investing them, such that even if they have to pay out more than you’ve paid in, they made a profit on the investment. (This is how most life insurance policies work.)


2. By simply taking in more than they pay out, which is a big problem.

It’s a big problem because, as anyone can see, it behooves the insurance company to deny all the claims it can. This results in companies putting all kinds of fine print in the contracts, so they can weasel out of paying you. The more egregious companies deny even legitimate claims, forcing you to fight them to receive your benefits, knowing that many customers won’t bother to question it.

In the case of a healthcare insurance organization, it achieves its greatest profit by letting people get sick and die without treatment. If you get sick, and are denied a claim, you could try and switch to a different insurance company; vote with your feet, as the saying goes. Except now that you’re already sick, the new insurance company says you have a pre-existing condition and denies you insurance, or worse yet accepts your premiums and denies your claim.

I’ll say it again: insurance companies achieve their greatest profits by letting people die.

In the case of a public plan, though, that wouldn’t be a problem. The government doesn’t care about turning a profit. Politicians will complain if the plan loses too much money, but in the end if a program is popular no politician will vote to remove it. (See also: Medicare, which is the sort of “socialized medicine” that right-wing politicians hate, but which they’ll never get rid of because seniors like to vote.) So there’s no incentive to deny your claim because you already had cancer when you signed up, or because you accidentally mispelt your PCP’s name on the paperwork. They may haggle with providers over rates, and you may have a deductible, but they’ll approve almost anything.

Oddly enough, I think it’s even more egregious that no one offers anything like this in the area of auto insurance. I can’t think of a state that doesn’t require you to have auto insurance in order to drive, but do any offer a public insurance option? (I honestly don’t know, and am too lazy to look it up. (I am not a very good journalist.) Delaware does not, to the best of my knowledge. Seems like the kind of thing California or Massachusetts would do, though.)

I guess putting all insurance in government hands would put insurance companies out of business, but, frankly, screw ’em.

Oh, Dilbert. You will always have my heart.

Eek. I find this letter from the director of the Congressional Budget Office to be disappointing:

Although different types of preventive care have different effects on spending, the evidence suggests that for most preventive services, expanded utilization leads to higher, not lower, medical spending overall.

Read at least the first few pages for more detail. I’m frustrated because one my big arguing points on the subject of universal healthcare is that it would save money, long-term; it may not. Does that mean it’s not worth insuring the millions of un- and under-insured Americans? I don’t know.

Some good news, however, on the media front:

What just happened in three short days?

With one statement about the “public option” from Obama, the entire health care reform discussion shifted totally away from the right wing crazies and Palin’s “death panels” In just three days with one statement about the “public option”, liberal Democrats who stood on the sidelines and barely jumped in to the death panel discussions, have finely stirred off their duffs to get into the fray and argument.

In just three days, the media has shifted its coverage away from the crazies and the lies and finally, some meaningful media attention to the real issues on the health care reform effort. In just three days, the whole debate on health care reform has turned around and hopefully, now the debate and discussions can be about the real issues and real health care reform can happen. Meanwhile, the ultra conservative right wing has been stymied. Obama is brilliant!

Huh.

So I’m lifting in the gym earlier, doing my leg press so that I don’t look like this poor fellow, and another fellow comes in. He’s wearing regular street clothes, so I’m thinking he’s one of the “light workout” types, comes in for a few reps on the nautilus at low resistance, and then leaves. But no.

He strips his polo off, revealing the beater underneath, and drapes the polo on one of the weight benches, adjusting it to angle. Fine so far. He then leaves it like that and lays down on ANOTHER bench to do some pretty serious benchpressing. Huh? Was he just…reserving the first bench for something? After the bench pressing, he takes the shirt off the first bench and drapes it over the bench press bar, and then gets a paper towel and puts it on the first bench. He also retrieves two 35-pound dumbbells and sits them next to the bench. Having reserved his various pieces of exercise equipment for his personal use, he goes over to the nautilus and starts using one of those machines as well. What the hell?

What kind of self-centered prick do you have to be to reserve equipment you aren’t using, so that it’s free when you’re ready for it? If I’d known we could do that, I would have just pissed on everything to mark it ahead of time. What a dick.

Man, I’m in a mood today. I should stop doing steroids, probably.

No racism or anti-semitism at the town halls, huh? Sigh. Have they no shame? Don’t these folks understand that they are bad people for doing these things?

It’s a pity this is in video, rather than just text, because it’s hilarious, but takes 7:43 to watch when I could read it in 90 seconds. Still. Never forget: women are crazy.

Sorry for the light day yesterday; as you might expect, things are CRAZY in Hearndom. The time I normally use for scheduling posts (after the kids are abed) is now reserved for cleaning, packing, painting, etc. I’ll try and keep things entertaining around here.

The healthcare debate is raging, and regardless of your opinion, reading information from “average joes” is often helpful and interesting, particularly if “average joes” include patients, doctors, insurance agents, and other important players in the debate. If you’re interested, I’d recommend you go explore this round-up of Andrew Sullivan’s readers, writing in with their 8 farthings.

It’s a pity I plan to have a Viking funeral, since Costco has such good deals on caskets. Think of it! Get some steaks for the BBQ, a 15-year supply of Fiddle-Faddle, and a grave-box for your husband Earl, who died of a heart attack this morning while pooping.

There’s been a lot of local talk about Michael Vick, most of it ranging from “meh” to “HOLY CRAP I’M NEVER WATCHING THE EAGLES AGAIN WATCH ME BURN MY SEASON TICKETS AAAAAA”. The sports professionals are focusing on whether or not this makes the Eagles a better team, but results are inconclusive.

My take on him as a person: he spent almost 2 years in jail, he’s undoubtedly going to spend time and money on the Humane Society and other groups, and Lord knows he’s going to hear about this for the rest of his life. (If I were a Cowboys fan, I’d already be dreaming up jokes about how the center should be in a “rape stand” if #7’s gonna touch him there.) I’m willing to give him a second chance, until the first time he screws up, in which case I would imagine he’ll go back to prison and he’s out of chances in the NFL.

On the other hand, it’s hard to picture him strangling a pit bull with piano wire and think that he could have changed into a model citizen.

Still. One shot. That’s all he gets.

As to football, I guess we need to wait and see. It seems stupid to get another quarterback when we have a still-functional Donovan McNabb and the “QB of the Future” Kevin Kolb. Still, depending on what kind of shape he’s in, he could well be the finest physical athlete the Eagles have seen since Cunningham. I’m not going to say I don’t want that on my team. If he gets used as some kind of all-purpose player, returning some kicks, lining up at the slot, seeing plenty of downs, that would be well worth the money, and any PR hit the Eagles take. (Of course, if he’s instrumental in getting the Birds to the Super Bowl, he could rape each of the fans’ mothers in turn and they’d probably tip him.)

I’d really love to see him as a trick back, running crazy sweeps and taking direct snaps for flea-flickers. Or, and this would be so sweet that I may get diabetes if it happens, he runs a few option plays here and there. (I think option football is the most exciting form of the game around.)

So I guess you can put me in the “meh” camp, but with a big “if this works out it’s going to be SO AWESOME” asterisk next to it.

Something I had not previously considered: Does killing terrorist leaders actually do us any good? I think we would instinctively say “yes,” but Robert Wright points out that there is a fairly inexhaustible source of terrorist leadership, something that we only increase by killing civilians in our quest to kill terrorists.

It becomes clearer and clearer to me that military action doesn’t do nearly as much good as we’d like to think. Catching and punishing criminals should always be a function of police, not soldiers.