[Welcome Industry Radar readers!]
In the state where everything is bigger and better than anywhere else, residents (so it seems) want their health insurance to also be bigger and better . . . and cost is no object.
Only 387,000 people have signed up out of the 12 million with employer-provided insurance
The article doesn't say how many with individual coverage opt for copay plans over high deductible plans.
Critics argue that the plans benefit only the healthy and wealthy, with sick patients who can't afford deductibles of more than $2,000 doing without care.
I really have trouble buying in to this argument.
Buying health insurance is (in many ways) like buying almost anything else.
Monthly payments.
Hardly anyone could afford a home if they had to pay cash, so they borrow money and make a monthly payment. Automobiles easily run $25,000 and up yet I see quite a few nice cars on the road and most come with monthly payments.
$2,000 is a drop in the bucket and very few people will actually incur $2,000 in charges during the year.
Mr. Goodman said high-deductible plans get at the heart of the health cost problem – overuse of medical services by people who, if they paid with their own money, might decide against that trip to the doctor
Over-utilization is something that is rarely voiced in these arguments. I know quite a few people with copay's that cannot afford the premiums and are behind in their medical bills. They go to the doctor so much they can't even pay the $20 - $30 copay on a timely basis.
And most of those visits are not medically necessary.
Bigger and more expensive.
Who says times are hard?
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