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A comment on Health insurance companies are useless. Parent comment

Re:Health insurance companies are useless by James_Henry on Tuesday August 06, 2019 @02:07PM (#20627809)
With the ACA, insurance companies have incentives to encourage the people they cover to take as good of care of themselves as possible more than ever. I think they are currently and in the future will do a better job of that than the tax collector ever will.

Especially when it comes to preventable diseases, good health insurance companies are doing some really interesting work on effective behavioral change and early intervention. My insurance for instance pays me to walk every day.

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Re:Health insurance companies are useless by kevin_thibedeau on Tuesday August 06, 2019 @02:32PM (#20628058)
They are incentivized to boost their 20% cut. That doesn't work if everyone is too healthy.
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Re:Health insurance companies are useless by James_Henry on Tuesday August 06, 2019 @02:44PM (#20628183)
I'm not sure what you are referencing with the 20% cut remark, but there isn't harm to health insurance companies (actually, providing care through medicare advantage may be an issue...) if everyone is extremely healthy. Then the main costs truly would be the unpreventable diseases, most of which come unexpectedly. This is the exact market that works for risk pooling!
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Re:Health insurance companies are useless by ceejayoz on Tuesday August 06, 2019 @02:51PM (#20628245)
> I'm not sure what you are referencing with the 20% cut remark

The ACA requires insurers to spend at least 80% of premiums on direct patient care. To grow profits, they must grow premiums.

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