JetBlue to cancel traditional healthcare plans

[Lake Alice]

Wake up and smell the coffee. The US Healthcare system is sub par. According to the New England Journal of Medicine, not only did we lag the rest of the industrial world, we're falling further behind.

[FONT=&quot]Ranking 37th — Measuring the Performance of the U.S. Health Care System[/FONT]
Christopher J.L. Murray, M.D., D.Phil., and Julio Frenk, M.D., Ph.D., M.P.H.
N Engl J Med 2010; 362:98-99January 14, 2010

“It is hard to ignore that in 2006, the United States was number 1 in terms of health care spending per capita but ranked 39th for infant mortality, 43rd for adult female mortality, 42nd for adult male mortality, and 36th for life expectancy.3 These facts have fueled a question now being discussed in academic circles, as well as by government and the public: Why do we spend so much to get so little?
Comparisons also reveal that the United States is falling farther behind each year.”

What subsequent articles mention which this one fails to incorporate is spending is relative. No consideration for this article. Infant mortality is higher in the united states due largely to birth counts AND reporting. As the leading industrial nation EVERY birth is reported. Not true for the rest of the world. As
for male and female mortality and life expectancy you can make multiple arguments including diet and reporting rates as well.
There quite a few articles regarding this issue encompassing various view points and facts.

Lastly anyone who is unhappy with the medical care they receive in the united states I encourage you to travel overseas and enjoy some of the worlds leading national healthcare systems.

 

[FDJ2]

What subsequent articles mention which this one fails to incorporate is spending is relative. No consideration for this article. Infant mortality is higher in the united states due largely to birth counts AND reporting. As the leading industrial nation EVERY birth is reported. Not true for the rest of the world. As
for male and female mortality and life expectancy you can make multiple arguments including diet and reporting rates as well.
There quite a few articles regarding this issue encompassing various view points and facts.

Lastly anyone who is unhappy with the medical care they receive in the united states I encourage you to travel overseas and enjoy some of the worlds leading national healthcare systems.

Spending differences may be an acceptable argument if we're simply comparing ourselves to third world countries. The same goes for the accuracy of counting, but when you compare us to well developed, industrial countries, we fair poorly. Australia, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand and the United Kingdom are quite capable of counting and record keeping, they also all out rank the US.

U.S. Last in Health Care Among 7 Industrialized Countries

LiveScience Staff
Date: 24 June 2010 Time: 05:26 AM ET

Although its citizens pay more for health care, the United States ranks last on several measures of health system performance compared with six other industrialized nations, according to a new report.

Australia, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand and the United Kingdom all beat out the United States when it came to health care quality, efficiency, access, equity and the ability for citizens to lead long, healthy lives, says the report, from the Commonwealth Fund..

While there is room for improvement in every country, the United States stands out for not getting good value for its health care dollars, ranking last despite spending $7,290 per capita on health care in 2007 compared with the $3,837 spent per capita in the Netherlands, which ranked first overall.

 

[Lake Alice]

Spending differences may be an acceptable argument if we're simply comparing ourselves to third world countries. The same goes for the accuracy of counting, but when you compare us to well developed, industrial countries, we fair poorly. Australia, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand and the United Kingdom are quite capable of counting and record keeping, they also all out rank the US.

U.S. Last in Health Care Among 7 Industrialized Countries

LiveScience Staff
Date: 24 June 2010 Time: 05:26 AM ET

Although its citizens pay more for health care, the United States ranks last on several measures of health system performance compared with six other industrialized nations, according to a new report.

Australia, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand and the United Kingdom all beat out the United States when it came to health care quality, efficiency, access, equity and the ability for citizens to lead long, healthy lives, says the report, from the Commonwealth Fund..

While there is room for improvement in every country, the United States stands out for not getting good value for its health care dollars, ranking last despite spending $7,290 per capita on health care in 2007 compared with the $3,837 spent per capita in the Netherlands, which ranked first overall.

Take a look at the categories mentioned. Quality, efficiency, access, equity.

Efficiency, access and equity stand out. I'm not sure so efficiency is measured. In nationalized healthcare a physician office works from 9-5. Thats it. Not a minute earlier or later. The US doctors office by comparison, because of the pay/reimbursement structure, often opens early and they stay late. Access and equity and in a nationalized system everyone gets the same mediocre treatment. There is little to no incentive to do more.
As for the spending I look at two factors. One is average annual household income and government spending. I am absolutely in agreement we pay too much but much of that is waste created by the insurance companies and failure to control tort reform and over all size and demographic of our country. I can't think of a single ailment I would travel to another country to have treated.

 

[Smarta$$]

Take a look at the categories mentioned. Quality, efficiency, access, equity.

Efficiency, access and equity stand out. I'm not sure so efficiency is measured. In nationalized healthcare a physician office works from 9-5. Thats it. Not a minute earlier or later. The US doctors office by comparison, because of the pay/reimbursement structure, often opens early and they stay late. Access and equity and in a nationalized system everyone gets the same mediocre treatment. There is little to no incentive to do more.
As for the spending I look at two factors. One is average annual household income and government spending. I am absolutely in agreement we pay too much but much of that is waste created by the insurance companies and failure to control tort reform and over all size and demographic of our country. I can't think of a single ailment I would travel to another country to have treated.

It would seem all of your assertions about the U.S. being the best healthcare system in the world are untrue. At least if you like comparative data.

http://scienceblogs.com/denialism/2009/05/are_patients_in_universal_heal.php

Among large industrialized and advanced nations, healthcare system USER SATISFACTION data (the actual populations of the different countries that USE healthcare), the U.S. citizens rate their OWN system satisfaction regularly with lower scores than citizens of other advanced countries.

So........ Either someone forgot to tell Americans that they have the BEST system...

Or...... Someone forgot to tell citizens of foreign systems that the U.S. has better a health care system than they do.

Or..... You are wrong.

As far as comparing costs among different countries, I believe most data is leveled to make differences in currency value irrelevant. If you don't believe that, than look at health care spending by nation with respect to GDP. It is the PERCENTAGE of the overall economy consumbed by health care. That should remove ALL doubts that we are not spending considerably MORE, while not covering as many people and still without healthcare outcomes that are justified by the outrageous costs....

 

[Smarta$$]

There is no magic bullet for health care, folks. Insurance companies are easy to blame, but one HAS to consider the costs involved with actually providing care.

My wife is Type 1 diabetic; her prescription is 300 monthly test strips and the PPO copay is $30. A blood sugar test strip costs about $0.05 to manufacture, according to a family member who previously worked for a large diabetic care company. Retail cost of those test strips at a pharmacy or retailer is about $1 per strip. And hospitals charge insurance companies $8 for that same test strip.

But hospitals, even for-profit ones, aren't exactly rolling in cash reserves. Their negotiated rates with insurance companies (including Medicare/Medicaid) help cover the cost of indigent care.

Combine this with doctors wanting to run all sorts of expensive (and often unnecessary) tests/procedures and a society that has an unhealthy diet & lifestyle and you get double-digit increases in insurance premiums year after year.

Insurance costs & coverages are a symptom of the problem...not the root cause.

You are correct in a lot of ways. But, the system of private insurance as our primary means of financing health care is disasterous and horribly inefficient.

It has been said by conservative "news" sources that private health insurance only has a 1-2% profit margin, but this is an incredibly misleading statistic.

Health insurance is just a means for financing health care. In its most simple terms, they take IN money from premiums (basically ALWAYS paid out of workers salaries, your employer doesn't actually pay it, you do), and money going OUT.

The money going IN is simple, its premiums. The money going OUT is in two buckets. The first is to pay doctors and pharmacies (the good part), and the second bucket is profit (supposedly 1-2%) AND OVERHEAD.(another 17-21%)...

Conservative "news" never mentions the very significant overhead, which is measured in billions nationwide, and not ONE penny of overhead pays a doctor or pharmacy. If I recall, their are hundreds (had heard 1300 at one point) of private health insurance companies nationwide. Each company, especially the large ones, have a CEO, other executives, glass and marble headquarters, teams of lawyers, teams of lobbiests, salespeople, plan designers, plan administrators, and much more that I can't even imagine.

They spend incredibly amounts of money on things that have NOTHING to do with providing health care. In fact, they spend incredible amounts of money to AVOID spending money ON healthcare (lawyers exploiting contract loopholes, lobbiests lobbying to avoid mandates and restrictions).

Large health insurance companies don't even take on much risk. They will only take you if you are healthy (unless you are on a group plan, sorry if you are self employed), and they always adjust their premiums to more than cover their expenditures.

If you are still hung up on the 1-2% profit margin, remember that is calculated AFTER stock dividends and executive compensation. For example, it is entirely possible that a company could have a 5% profit margin with executive comp at 1 million dollars, but only 1-2% after a executive comp at 5 million... They can make the numbers look any way they want....

The argument of hundreds of health insurance companies competing with one another holds NO water. Their is NO inovation in insurance. They take in premiums, spend billions of dollars on unrelated things, and try and MINIMIZE what they cover and pay for. At the end of the day, the people PAYING the premiums (US workers) cover ALL of the costs of providing the care (thats good), and also pay ALL of the costs of maintaining hundreds of insurance companies and ALL of their overhead (that really bad)... In fact, those PAYING the premiums PAY for the lawyers and lobbiests that work diligently AGAINST the interests of those paying the premiums.... It is amazing.

So, WE pay in premiums, the insurance company spends BILLIONS industry wide on things that do nothing for us, our system, our care (and spend money on lawyers and lobbiests to work against US), and then pay SOME of OUR money back on our behalf to doctors and pharmacies.

Military Tri-Care and Medicare have estimated overhead expenses of around 2% (unless you get your estimates exclusively from the Heritage Foundation). They are incredibly popular by those that USE them. For every 100 dollars in taxes (premiums) those plans take in, approximately 98 dollars goes to doctors and pharmacies.

For every 100 dollars private insurance companies take in, approximately 78-85 dollars goes to doctors and pharmacies.

This is mainly due to economies of scale and the absence of executive comp, duplication (hundreds of companies doing the same thing, each needing a headquarters building etc... for example) and the absence of lawyers and lobbiests to avoid paying claims.

Sorry, its not idioligical, its just math. And fact.

Now before the mis-informed pipe up about Medicare, it is UNDERFUNDED, NOT INEFFICIENT.

Why is it over-budget and underfunded. Well WHO does it cover? Everyone is OLD, with pre-existing conditions (all of them, they are OLD, that is a pre-existing condition itself), and in need of lots of expensive health care.

80% of the population would consume ALL or nearly ALL of their retirement income in their later years just to cover the cost of a private health insurance plan with their own money. That is IF THEY COULD EVEN GET A PRIVATE COMPREHENSIVE PLAN IN THEIR 70S-80S.... Most likely, without legislation opposed by Republicans, seniors could not get a private policy because of their age and pre-existing conditions. And after age 65-70, the premiums would be SO prohibitably expensive, that seniors simply could not pay for it. It is statistically normal for an elderly person to consume more health care dollars in their final year of life than they did for all prior years combined. For this reason, as people age start approaching the statistical life expectancy, the premiums become exponentially more expensive (not a linear increase like in early life).

Regardless of your political affiliation, Medicare is INCREDIBLY important for nearly ALL of us when we reach retirement age. Any reasonable and thoughtful person should be horrified to even imagine how life for ourselves and our parents and grandparents in retirement would be without it in todays America. If you are not horrified, you simply don't know any better.

Knowing how CRITICAL the program is (and understanding how truly efficient it is at converting premiums into doctor and pharmacy payments), look at your next paycheck and see the PALTRY withdrawal to fund such a critical program.

It is underfunded and over budget because:

1. Everyone on the program is OLD and in need of expensive care.

2. We pay VERY little into the program from our paychecks.

3. The underlying cost of care and prescriptions has increased WAY faster than wage inflation.

We NEED to fund the program and get the underlying costs of care and prescriptions under control.

None of this directed at boilerup.

Or, you can just have BLIND faith that we are the "best" and BLIND faith in what Fox "News" wants you to believe.

 

[BoilerUP]

You are correct in a lot of ways. But, the system of private insurance as our primary means of financing health care is disasterous and horribly inefficient.

It has been said by conservative "news" sources that private health insurance only has a 1-2% profit margin, but this is an incredibly misleading statistic.

You can look at the 10-Ks for Anthem, United Healthcare, Cigna, Humana, etc. and see what the profit margins are for yourself. Having looked at them recently, I'll tell you they're all in the 3-6% range.

You can also see what their expenses are.

They spend incredibly amounts of money on things that have NOTHING to do with providing health care. In fact, they spend incredible amounts of money to AVOID spending money ON healthcare (lawyers exploiting contract loopholes, lobbiests lobbying to avoid mandates and restrictions).

Pretty much every business in every industry spends 'incredible amounts of money' on things outside of the product or service they provide...including lobbying for policies that improve their bottom lines.

Airlines, labor, farms, pharma, construction, aerospace, financials, etc...

Military Tri-Care and Medicare have estimated overhead expenses of around 2% (unless you get your estimates exclusively from the Heritage Foundation). They are incredibly popular by those that USE them. For every 100 dollars in taxes (premiums) those plans take in, approximately 98 dollars goes to doctors and pharmacies.

For every 100 dollars private insurance companies take in, approximately 78-85 dollars goes to doctors and pharmacies.

Source?

Tri-Care is administered not by the federal government, but by private insurance companies that include TriWest, Humana, and Health Net.

This is mainly due to economies of scale and the absence of executive comp, duplication (hundreds of companies doing the same thing, each needing a headquarters building etc... for example) and the absence of lawyers and lobbiests to avoid paying claims.

Seems to me that private insurance clients of the private administrators may be covering the overhead costs related to Tri-Care...

None of this directed at boilerup.

Never thought it was...this is actually a rather reasonable debate by FI standards!

My wife is Type I diabetic, so I have a very real understanding of the importance of having insurance and access to health care. I know the costs of insurance first-hand; my small company can't get into a group pool for another couple years and the only plan they can afford is a HDHP that would cost me nearly $18,000 a year between premiums and meeting the deductible for my wife's diabetic care. Thankfully, my wife has a union-negotiated PPO plan through Anthem that costs $40 per paycheck for family coverage.

Going to a European-model single payer health care system will do NOTHING to address the cost of actually providing health care, which is what is causing insurance premiums to skyrocket.

 

[linepilot]

Just look at all the nodding heads. When shareholders and CEOs say that don't want to provide health benefits anymore, it's the sorry sheeple nodding their heads YET AGAIN.

Some people need to get a spine and fight for their families.

 

[Smarta$$]

You can look at the 10-Ks for Anthem, United Healthcare, Cigna, Humana, etc. and see what the profit margins are for yourself. Having looked at them recently, I'll tell you they're all in the 3-6% range.

You can also see what their expenses are.



Pretty much every business in every industry spends 'incredible amounts of money' on things outside of the product or service they provide...including lobbying for policies that improve their bottom lines.

Airlines, labor, farms, pharma, construction, aerospace, financials, etc...



Source?

Tri-Care is administered not by the federal government, but by private insurance companies that include TriWest, Humana, and Health Net.

Seems to me that private insurance clients of the private administrators may be covering the overhead costs related to Tri-Care...

Never thought it was...this is actually a rather reasonable debate by FI standards!

My wife is Type I diabetic, so I have a very real understanding of the importance of having insurance and access to health care. I know the costs of insurance first-hand; my small company can't get into a group pool for another couple years and the only plan they can afford is a HDHP that would cost me nearly $18,000 a year between premiums and meeting the deductible for my wife's diabetic care. Thankfully, my wife has a union-negotiated PPO plan through Anthem that costs $40 per paycheck for family coverage.

Going to a European-model single payer health care system will do NOTHING to address the cost of actually providing health care, which is what is causing insurance premiums to skyrocket.

The 3-6% is profit, and still doesn't account for all OVERHEAD costs.

I think you (and much of America)are missing the bigger point here. Yes, other industries have overhead that has nothing to do with their primary business. But we are talking about health care. And we are discussing the merrits of how we FINANCE the health care we all need.

Now, as a matter of FINANCING our nations health care. Private insurance is a disastorous way to do it.

It is in all of our best interests to finance health care in a way that puts more of OUR dollars to paying for doctors and pharmacies. We are not doing that as efficiently as other advanced nations. We get LESS for far MORE dollars.

You are correct, it does not reduce the cost of services. That is a seperate and more challenging problem. They are seperate problems requiring seperate solutions.

If my car had a flat tire and a dead battery, I wouldn't make the argument that I shouldn't charge the battery simply becuase it won't simulataneously inflate my tire.

It is just a fact that private insurance as a way of financing our primary care does nothing but skim billions of dollars out of our health care system with NOTHING to show for it.

It simply takes OUR money (in premiums) and then gives us SOME of OUR money back in the form of doctors and pharmacy payouts (if they don't deny the claim or drop your coverage).

It does nothing more than that. That's all it accomplishes. It doesn't ADD any value. It is the wrong way to finance our system.

 

[BoilerUP]

What is your solution for financing the health care system, then...given that regardless of how you finance it, the underlying cost drivers responsible for double-digit price increases haven't been addressed?

 

[Smarta$$]

What is your solution for financing the health care system, then...given that regardless of how you finance it, the underlying cost drivers responsible for double-digit price increases haven't been addressed?

There are examples all over the advanced and industrialized world on how to spend less, cover more people, and get more. The citizens of those nations self-rate their satisfaction with those systems higher in almost all cases.

We have PROVEN that our system costs more of our GDP. Why reinvent the wheel? To win an election? Because of ideology?

As for bending the cost curve of services and prescriptions, well that is another problem to address, and will be more difficult to fix. We need changes in laws that allow re-importation of drugs and also to allow Medicare to negotiate for volume discounts for prescription drugs to save US, the taxpayer billions. That would be a great place to start...

Why is it that we have to pay 3x or 4x as much for the same brand and item number of patented drug than a resident of Canada, or Japan, or England, or Australia? The SAME drug, from the same plant.

Now sheeple will say that drug companies need to be shielded from competition (even from themselves!) due to re-importation so that they can recover the costs of developing the drug. To pay for all that R&D... Well, why are those same drugs sold so much cheaper simultaneously in other advanced countries? How can they be sold profitably for 50% off, or less everywhere but the U.S.? Why are we exclusively privileged with covering all those R&D costs? It is the laws here that were the result of powerful lobbies, and it costs us billions.

Some say that the re-importation laws are to protect us from bad drugs... Well, some of those same people tell us how over-regulated the other industrialized countries are.... With their over-eager consumer safety protections... Well, you can't have it both ways. If those drugs (the same brand and model as they sell here) meet those EXTRA health and safety guidelines, then surely they are safe for us free-wheeling Americans...

There are hundreds of undustrial chemicals and food processing chemicals/proceedures that are banned in other countries. The reverse is almost never the case... Those drugs are safe.

People do leave this country to Canada and Mexico for the same drugs, only much cheaper. Re-importation restrictions are a crime.