Disqus - Latest Comments for lukkyjay

Re: Django Tips #5 How to Merge QuerySets

Guest — Wed, 17 May 2017 18:40:53 -0000

This was very helpful. Thanks.
What if you have an unknown number of querysets? Say you have an unknown number of Person objects in a Household. Each returns their own filtered queryset from a Product object. The Product object has a "name" and "price" field. Each person will return a queryset of Product objects with the same Product.names but different Product.prices based on their age. Is it possible to combine the queryset for each Person into one queryset? I'd like to then Sum the Product.price fields for each product with the same name. In the end, I want to return a queryset that shows each Product with the Sum of the Product.price field for the entire Household.

Re: Information About Medical Cost Sharing Programs

Guest — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 15:58:16 -0000

threevok Thank you. You are correct. Medi-Share customers should NOT expect their bills to be paid. Medi-Share customers need to understand this. From Medi-Share's website, http://mychristiancare.org/...

"Medi-Share isn’t insurance. Resources are shared directly between members. There is no pooling of funds as practiced by insurance groups. Christian Care Ministry and the Medi-Share program are not registered or licensed by any insurance entity, nor are we required to be. We do not collect premiums, make promise of payment, or guarantee that your medical bills will be paid. Sharing of medical bills is completely voluntary."

A Google search will yield plenty of examples, like this:

http://www.tulsaworld.com/n...

Re: Claims Expenses In New Colorado High Risk Pool Are Double The National Average

Guest — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 14:43:16 -0000

Remember, applications for CoverColorado need to be submitted by the 15th of the month for a 1st of the month effective date.

Re: The Latest Word - Kelsey Whipple - Occupy Denver: Michael Moore calls CBS4 reporter "punk media" liar -- on CBS4 (VIDEO)

Guest — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 22:37:05 -0000

Is that "Carlton" from Fresh Prince of Bel-Air? I love that guy.

Re: The High Price of Becoming A Doctor

Guest — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 14:14:57 -0000

Dicks, could you link to your source on those numbers? New England Journal of Medicine shows the opposite:
http://www.nejm.org/doi/ful...
"administration accounted for 31.0 percent of health care expenditures in the United States"

Re: The Archipod Comes To America. But Will It Catch On? : TreeHugger

Guest — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 18:33:43 -0000

Kids. We have two kids and I'm on the phone all day. We insulated the office as much as possible, but it was still an unprofessional background noise for talking about insurance. So we did the same thing:
http://on.fb.me/tYv2CJ
We just spent $3K on a tuff shed plus the materials to finish it, not $40K

Re: Aetna Withdrawing from Colorado Individual Health Insurance Market

Guest — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 12:37:50 -0000

Ever since Aetna entered the Colorado market, I was skeptical:
http://healthinsurance-colo...

Re: Grand Rounds: "It's Up To Us" edition

Guest — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 13:35:42 -0000

Well done, Hank!

Re: HB 1256 Not Really A Benefit To Consumers

Guest — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 14:57:50 -0000

Brian,
Yes, that sounds pretty simple. But most of the people we talk to aren't as savvy as you when it comes to understanding all of the details of their health insurance policy and how it pertains to their possible financial risks. They trust that what they're buying has been reviewed by the Colorado department of insurance to meet a certain standard. Invite an agent from MEGA Life and Health over to your house to see how well the complicated contract gets explained and how well you understand what's not covered. There is a commission involved, so he wants to make his product sound really good.

And I'm sure you know people that benefit from government mandated guarantee issue coverage (like through an employer). Health care isn't as simple as choosing between McDonalds and Burger King. If we left it at the "right to trade with others on a voluntary basis" in the health care market, people with pre-existing conditions would have no choice and that logic breaks down.

There are simple examples, like choosing to buy steel from Hank Rearden or not. But the invisible hand only works when both the consumer and producer are able to choose freely. Saying something like "people have the right to trade with others on a voluntary basis" is misses the point in a discussion about health care.

Re: Obama's bone-headedness, day 2 (Scripting News)

Guest — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 01:32:24 -0000

I originally told myself to be patient with Obama and things he might do that seemed against the interest of the democratic base. After all, it is still politics and there are a lot of moves that have reasons we don't know about. I can easily see how allowing a simple speech here or there is a good way to reach out. It's things like the appointment of Vilsack as agriculture secretary despite his connections with agribusiness biotech giants like Monsanto that surprise me because he will be making actual decisions that fly in the face of the base.

Re: New Year’s Eve Cavalcade Of Risk

Guest — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 14:45:52 -0000

Thanks Hank, and thanks to everyone for the great articles. Louise and I had a good time reading them. Happy New Year.

Re: Guaranteed renewable insurance

Guest — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 16:53:41 -0000

Brian,
The guaranteed renewability you've proposed in this post already exists and has existed for a long time. And the guaranteed issue of group policies is what makes them 2-3x the price of individual plans.

Insurance companies don't want insureds for more than a few years, atleast in the same pools they are actively marketing and want the price to be competitive on. To get around guaranteed renewability, they practice sunsetting.

You don't ever cancel any of the insured's policies on them, but you quit marketing it and start marketing a new policy. If you've obtained a health condition while on the plan that now makes you uninsurable, you're stuck and the prices are going to now start increasing very quickly. Everybody else healthy enough to have other options will leave the pool - or as libertarians put it, "take their business elsewhere." Eventually, the only people left in the block are those unable to "take their business elsewhere". The cost of their premiums is roughly equal to the cost of their claims.

Luckily for Coloradoans, once their premiums exceed the premiums of CoverColorado (the taxpayer subsidized option), they are able to switch over to that. You can see a good discussion on this topic in the comments section of one of the posts on our website HERE.

That is the difference between the health care market and other markets. Even if there were a truly "free" market as you say, the invisible hand requires each consumer to be allowed to choose freely what to buy and each producer to be allowed to choose freely what to sell and how to produce it. In a truly "free" market lacking consumer protections from the government, the producers would make sure the consumers with health conditions lose their ability to choose freely.

Also, I'd like to request that you install the subscribe to comments plugin. That would be helpful for me to know when people reply.

<hr>
Good point, Jay. Vip Patel and Mark Pauly address this issue in a 2002 Health Affairs article, "Guaranteed Renewability And The Problem Of Risk Variation In Individual Health Insurance Markets" on-line here. They write:

Another possible harmful insurer strategy is subtler still. An insurer may raise premiums for all insured persons more than experience would dictate.<sup>7</sup> This will cause below-average risks to drop out. The insurer may then offer to cover only those low risks in a new underwriting class at a premium appropriate to them, while refusing the insurance coverage to higher risks. In effect, the insurer can cause the underwriting group to self-destruct.

However, such behavior should be limited because no one would knowingly buy coverage from an insurer with a reputation for engaging in such behavior, and even the lower risks might be nervous about repurchasing from an insurer that they have observed to engage in such practices. After all, even though they have remained lower risks so far, they would fear themselves becoming higher future risks with coverage from a company that schemes to avoid its obligation to provide them with protection. Reputation surely does not provide complete protection, but its effect is enhanced if insurance brokers and state insurance departments, at a minimum, identify the insurers engaged in such practices. With a reasonable amount of consumer attention to premiums and probabilities—and remember, adverse selection can only occur if consumers do pay attention to such matters—a consistent policy of offering vacuous guaranteed renewability should be self-defeating for any company that wants to remain in a market for the long run. We know (based on anecdotes) that these practices do occur, but we also know (based on data) that many people with prior and costly chronic conditions obtain nongroup insurance at premiums close to the average.<sup>8</sup> The answers to the key empirical questions—how frequently such behavior occurs and how well reputation-based incentives police the market—are not known.

Brad Herring and Mark Pauly also address this issue in a 2006 paper, Incentive-Compatible Guaranteed Renewable Health Insurance.

</hr>

Re: People who can buy insurance but don’t

Guest — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 02:10:03 -0000

Yeah, it's not like looking at the menu at McDonald's, pumping gas, or buying steel from Hank Reardon. Maybe people should stop making that association.

Re: Guest Blogger – Concerns About Health Insurance

Guest — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 17:53:20 -0000

That is a similar situation to a close friend of mine and she hasn't found any better solutions either. She had to go on cover colorado, but it has a high deductible and is expensive. She is also concerned about the $1,000,000 lifetime maximum. Hopefully somebody knows of a better solution?

Re: Business 101 For Joe The Plumber

Guest — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 16:54:18 -0000

This is what Obama gets for going around talking to "average Joe's" like this. The McCain campaign has made sure he only talks with people who agree with him and ask him questions like "when are you going to take the gloves off" and "I don't trust Obama, he's an arab"

Re: Where The Uninsureds Live

Guest — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 03:01:45 -0000

If it is the US Census, I would think they are technically "documented" because the Census Bureau is documenting them. Right?

Re: Dangerous Bill To Be Aimed at the Individual Market

Guest — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 02:22:13 -0000

If I am to contact my local representative, what do I say? There is no name of bill to refer to?

Re: More Transparency For Network Negotiated Prices

Guest — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 00:55:06 -0000

Susan,
I was thinking of starting up an engine like that last year, but noticed there were already other sites starting that same thing. The best one I know of so far is www.carol.com, but it still doesn't have that big of a database yet.

Re: Individual Health Insurance Vs Government Intervention

Guest — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 17:12:23 -0000

Don,
Good idea. When the employee carries his policy with him to the new employer, what happens if the new employer has a tighter budget and doesn't offer as rich of a plan? Does the employer still need to contribute atleast 50% toward that plan (that's how it works in Colorado)? Or what if the new employer doesn't offer health insurance as a benefit? Or what if the employee had to leave the job because of a serious illness and had no disability coverage and now has no income to pay for any of the premium along with big medical bills to pay? I have a lot more "what-if's," but I'll spare you.

Do you think a better option would be to just eliminate the patchwork and cracks in the system for people to fall into and have coverage that's more, uh, what's the word I'm looking for... universal?

Re: Obama And Individual Health Insurance Mandate

Guest — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 16:56:22 -0000

Don,
Thank you for a good response. I didn't see anywhere in the article where Louise mentions government footing the bill. But you're right, rich (mostly employer sponsored group) benefit packages increase the demand for many services because providers are over recommending/prescribing services and medications that really aren't needed. And consumers aren't questioning anything because the insurance is covering it with no problem.

Even though the article didn't address a government solution, I'll play devils advocate in response to the question about how such a solution would be less expensive...
Mainly, less overhead and less of a reason to try to find more ways for people to use the system (usage). In the profit based private sector system, the more people that use the products and services - the more profit there is to be had. The corporations need to show shareholders growth year after year. Pharmaceutical companies push providers to prescribe more, providers run extra tests and procedures to pad their pockets, the AMA, pharma, and the insurance industry bankroll large amounts of money to lobby lawmakers and fund think tank organizations.
Overuse and overhead are the problems. A government system discourages usage as much as possible and runs lean.

Re: Running Out Of Benefits

Guest — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 17:19:59 -0000

Don:
A person with $250,000 net worth would only need to have lifetime medical expenses of $1,250,000 to go bankrupt with a $1,000,000 lifetime maximum. Or, they would only need $350,000 worth of medical expenses in one year to go bankrupt on a policy with a $100,000 annual maximum. Those are not uncommon amounts. So that person may or may not know about those maximums on their policy, but their assets are not protected.

Re: Smoking Can Be Hazardous To Your Career

Guest — Sat, 03 May 2008 12:54:32 -0000

Louise and I watched Gattica last night and I can see why forHealth was reminded of that movie by this discussion.

Re: Physical Therapy Expenses

Guest — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 01:17:04 -0000

I guess that your insurance is really paying off right now because the physical therapy on my knee was priceless. But I know how many times I would be able to dish out $637 for a visit.... zero!

Re: Health Insurance Covering Infertility Treatment

Guest — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 17:52:06 -0000

"My hospital stay alone was a little over $131,000. That doesn’t include all the doctor fees for myself and for my children."

I guess that's why health insurance companies won't even consider somebody who has gone through IVF before. If that person pays the $13,000 out of pocket for the IVF when she has coverage, the insurance company is on the hook for a big claim. Allowing them to put an exclusion on pregnancy would be a perfect solution.

Re: Valentine’s Day Cav

Guest — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 13:43:56 -0000

John,
I left a reply to the post on your blog. But, yes. Employer sponsored health insurance has left people confused about the point of health insurance... insurance. So when it comes time for them to purchase it on their own, they use flawed logic in their decision to purchase or not.