You Do Not Have Health Insurance.

Re:You Do Not Have Health Insurance. by lutorm on Friday August 07, 2009 @02:31AM (#747154)

Explain please. I thought the distinction between what he called "employer-subsidized health care" and an insurance program was fair. It's not insurance if the very thing you insure against, a catastrophic loss, makes it likely that your coverage will be dropped. Insurance is supposed to be the spreading of risk, not the milking of those that are low risk while denying coverage to those that are on the red side of the equation.

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Re:You Do Not Have Health Insurance. by jdminhbg on Friday August 07, 2009 @03:03AM (#747192)

He's right about most "health insurance" being "employer-subsidized health care," but he's wrong that the reason is that it could go away. My car insurance will go away if I lose my job and stop making payments, that doesn't make it "not insurance."

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Re:You Do Not Have Health Insurance. by ars on Friday August 07, 2009 @02:36AM (#747160)

I need just a single word to refute everything he said:

COBRA

(Can't afford it? That's a different story - but you do have insurance as he defined the term.)

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Re:You Do Not Have Health Insurance. by tptacek on Friday August 07, 2009 @02:43AM (#747168)

And when your COBRA expires?

COBRA is a (usually) spectacularly expensive, short-term solution. As an entrepreneur, it puts you in a position where you can be forced to change jobs or suspend a venture to get coverage for your family. It's a bad answer.

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Re:You Do Not Have Health Insurance. by ars on Friday August 07, 2009 @03:07AM (#747199)

COBRA lasts at least a year and a half, and costs EXACTLY as much as your insurance cost when you were working.

COBRA is not spectacularly expensive, it's simply how much insurance costs, whether your company pays for it, or you do. If your company did not pay for health insurance, your salary would be higher.

If you have no money, that's bad, but saying you "have no insurance" because you can't afford it is silly. Talk about affordability if you like, but don't make nonsense posts about not having insurance.

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Re:You Do Not Have Health Insurance. by icey on Friday August 07, 2009 @09:50AM (#747546)

COBRA costs exactly as much as the total insurance cost when you were working. Almost all health insurance plans are employer subsidized, sometimes pretty heavily. So your 150 dollar a month plan could end up costing you 400 bucks a month to keep when you hit COBRA.

Edit: Perhaps I wasn't adequately clear. My point is that you are responsible for the ENTIRE insurance bill when you go on COBRA, your part and your employer's contribution. Sometimes that contribution is quite large and it results in COBRA bills that aren't affordable, especially when compared to individual insurance options.

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Re:You Do Not Have Health Insurance. by tptacek on Friday August 07, 2009 @10:17AM (#747589)

A family of four can expect to pay between 1200-1500/mo on typical conventional HMO/PPO coverage on COBRA.

(I was agreeing with you, just adding a data point).

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Re:You Do Not Have Health Insurance. by icey on Friday August 07, 2009 @11:42AM (#747758)

My point is that COBRA costs significantly more than your health insurance plan when you opt to use it. Why people disagree with that so vehemently is odd.

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Re:You Do Not Have Health Insurance. by gnaritas on Friday August 07, 2009 @11:21AM (#747708)

Which is beyond affordable since you just lost your job. CORBA is a horrible solution.

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Re:You Do Not Have Health Insurance. by bullseye on Friday August 07, 2009 @03:36AM (#747228)

> costs EXACTLY as much as your insurance cost when you were working.

There is usually an additional "administrative" fee added to the premiums as well.

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