[mikemike]

To be honest what is your return (in interest) of the money you have "locked up"...
Those "plans" are strictly for someone else to make money. Think they do it for free:?

The first $1000 has to be in an interest bearing checking account (0.10%) with the plan provider, then next $1000 can either be in a money market fund or the checking account, the rest is free to be invested in mutual funds there are a few hundred choices from vanguard, fidelity, and oppenheimer. I have everything over $2000 in the stock market right now because I can always just contribute from my next paycheck and meet my $4000 deductible if an expense came up. If I switched to a plan where I was not eligible to contribute to the HSA I would probably keep more than $2000 out of the stock market, depending on how much my annual maximum out of pocket is.

All you peole talk about is getting gov out to simplyfy your life and what do you do.. MAKE IT MORE COMPLICATED by adding a million "shopping choices".. that's plain stupid.
[...]
not fine if my "bottom dollar" doctor

When my daughter was born my wife's OB worked with three different hospitals where we could have the baby delivered. We called ahead and asked how much a typical maternity stay costs and the range was $7000, $12,000, and $20,000. The cheapest place also had the lowest rate for c-sections and was the highest volume of the three they were cheaper because maternity is their specialty. Cheap care doesn't mean bad care. The middle priced one was where most of the doctor's patients delivered because it was across the street from her office so it was convenient but they had the highest rate of c-sections and other complications. The most expensive place was so expensive because we had insurance and they do mostly Medicaid patients. The same doctor would be delivering the baby at all wherever we chose to go for the same price (we got separate bills from ob/gyn, hospital, and anesthesiologist).

If it is an emergency you don't have the luxury of shopping around, but if you have a little bit of time to decide where to get care you will probably find that you can save money AND get better care by going to the hospital with the most expertise in what you need.

[jeffkrol]

The first $1000 has to be in an interest bearing checking account (0.10%) with the plan provider, then next $1000 can either be in a money market fund or the checking account, the rest is free to be invested in mutual funds there are a few hundred choices from vanguard, fidelity, and oppenheimer. I have everything over $2000 in the stock market right now because I can always just contribute from my next paycheck and meet my $4000 deductible if an expense came up. If I switched to a plan where I was not eligible to contribute to the HSA I would probably keep more than $2000 out of the stock market, depending on how much my annual maximum out of pocket is.



When my daughter was born my wife's OB worked with three different hospitals where we could have the baby delivered. We called ahead and asked how much a typical maternity stay costs and the range was $7000, $12,000, and $20,000. The cheapest place also had the lowest rate for c-sections and was the highest volume of the three they were cheaper because maternity is their specialty. Cheap care doesn't mean bad care. The middle priced one was where most of the doctor's patients delivered because it was across the street from her office so it was convenient but they had the highest rate of c-sections and other complications. The most expensive place was so expensive because we had insurance and they do mostly Medicaid patients. The same doctor would be delivering the baby at all wherever we chose to go for the same price (we got separate bills from ob/gyn, hospital, and anesthesiologist).

If it is an emergency you don't have the luxury of shopping around, but if you have a little bit of time to decide where to get care you will probably find that you can save money AND get better care by going to the hospital with the most expertise in what you need.

I rest my case... to darn complicated for something that could mean life or death... but you'll never get it. The rest of the world generally doesn't have "this problem" I fail to see (best in the world propaganda aside) why what we have is "better" and your Proof really is nothing more then taking a simple need and unduly complicating it for profit.........
K.I.S.S...................
And as to ANY safety nets put in private hands.. buyer beware...

Oh dear, investors are freaking out over China’s surprise decision to raise its key interest rate by a quarter of a percentage point. Near the start of trading, the Dow Jones industrial average was down more than 150 points, and all 30 stocks within the index were down.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/markets/markets-blog/sober-tho...rticle1763465/
Such a little thing, such a profound reaction.........

[mikemike]

The rest of the world generally doesn't have "this problem"

How does the rest of the world handle the issue that different hospitals have different specialties and expertise, communicate those expertise to the patient, and patients decide which hospital to go to for which services?

The point Rand Paul was making, and BTW he made the pre-WWII comment in 2002 way before health care reform was on the congressional agenda, was that the health care system is messed up and making the market more efficient through disintermediation and less distorted by removing subsidies is a tactic we should consider.

[jeffkrol]

How does the rest of the world handle the issue that different hospitals have different specialties and expertise, communicate those expertise to the patient, and patients decide which hospital to go to for which services?

Ask them, doesn't bother me in particular and looks more like a smoke and mirrors issue.. We have the absolute worst med records sysem short of some 3rd world countries........
We track your credit score better..... much, much, better then your health records.

Only 28% of U.S. physicians have such systems, compared to 98% in the Netherlands and 89% in the UK

http://healthcommentary.org/?p=222

The point Rand Paul was making, and BTW he made the pre-WWII comment in 2002 way before health care reform was on the congressional agenda, was that the health care system is messed up and making the market more efficient through disintermediation and less distorted by removing subsidies is a tactic we should consider.

Was considered. Won't work, didn't work, isn't working. Face it you already pay more for those that EXCEED their input, as well as paying more for those without altogether....
Capitalism and health care is plain BAD even in the best of times (when employers carried most of the burden). Ask yourself this, why did the rest of the world eliminate it( for most intents and purposes)?
Again why complicate your life so much... there are other more elegant ways to go bankrupt.
Using words like disintermediation will not change the profit motive (which always increases over time) and sounds more like more voodoo......
Cut the middle man??? Our nation is a nation OF middlemen...... good luck with that.
The republica/libertarian/tea party people's "band aids" are useless on a runaway train caused by years of unequal and profit driven systems....
I could probably give you a thousand reports like this and you still want trickle down health care.......

A new report released last week on the state of U.S. Healthcare system barely gives it on the whole a passing grade. Why is such an advanced and wealthy country so bad off in this respect? The fact is the United States spends more on healthcare than any other country in the world. These are our tax dollars, our hard earned health benefits at work. And many would say we are not getting what we’re paying for. So, if you were to grade our healthcare system, what would YOU GIVE IT? One person named Danny says. “I would probably give it a D. I think we are one of the best countries in the world and we deserve better.” And that is exactly what a commission evaluating the performance of our healthcare system gave it: a barely passing grade of d. The really big goal to fix this grade: gets care and is treated equally. Something Sherette here, who has asthma, would love to see.

http://www.empowereddoctor.com/failing-us-healthcare-grades
Yep all we need is tort reform and savings plans....

It’s sloppy when it comes to patient care: for example, only half of heart failure patients get written hospital discharge instructions. The result: the U.S. is at the bottom among industrialized countries for life expectancy. “We have more of a model focused on disease instead of wellness and patient. I think focusing more on patients and wellness so that we can do better scores on things like infant mortality or for end of life care or immunization or screening,” says Dr. Michael Raffinan of Long Island College.
He says it’s also the worst when it comes to infant mortality. “We are not taking care of the pregnant women and we’re not taking care of the women even before they are pregnant,” says Dr. Ruffinan. Some folks from the u.k. are happy with their socialized medicine. “You can’t pay for better treatment. The basic care is free for everyone.”
The problems go on: duplicative and costly oversight systems. Horrible medical records systems. And high rates of preventable hospital admissions. “There are countries that have free healthcare you know and this is suppose to be the wealthiest strongest country on the planet, what happened,,” asks Sherette.”
At least we are starting to recognize there’s a problem in need of fixing. 16 percent of our gross domestic product is devoted to healthcare, compared to the 10 percent or less number in other industrialized nations. this survey was carried out by 18 academic and private sector health care leaders, who rated our health care system on 37 different measures.

This is all caused in a large part by "capitalizing" health care.... and max. profit/turnaround.
Yep everythings just freaking rosy. I really don't understand how we can't be insulted by these things.
http://www.seattlepi.com/local/427266_medicalerrors23.html

Washington's medical error reporting program isn't able to enforce the reporting law because it's underfunded and lacks enforcement powers -- and because the rules laying out which incidents must be reported make it easy for hospitals to rule that an error isn't a "reportable error."

Yep give the bean counters more control.. that will work. were all honest people, trust me...

Efforts in the past year to correct those problems have fallen short, a follow-up Hearst investigation has found. The most serious problems with the program include:

* No enforcement: There's no penalty for those who ignore or violate the law.
* It's easy to dodge the intent of the law: The rules laying out which incidents must be reported make it easy for hospitals to determine that an error isn't a "reportable error." The definitions used in Washington are being rewritten to eliminate loopholes.
* Hands-off oversight: The nurse who runs the state medical error reporting program receives and reviews reports, but said she takes no steps to investigate non-reporting. A lawmaker who co-sponsored the law says the program is supposed to do more to track down missing reports.
* Underfunding: Washington has one of the worst-funded error reporting programs in the country.
* Underreporting: Hospitals in Washington appear to be reporting less than a tenth of the events the law requires them to submit.

According to a federal study released in March, underreporting is the norm: the Heath and Human Services Inspector General reported that 93 percent of serious adverse events in hospitals went undetected by the hospitals' own internal reporting systems.

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Last edited by jeffkrol; 10-19-2010 at 02:15 PM.