[geeks] Discuss this quote...

[Doug McLaren]

On Tue, Aug 28, 2007 at 03:29:31PM -0500, Jonathan C. Patschke wrote:

| Sticking that $200 - $300 a month into moderate yield/risk savings
| will outweigh healthcare costs in all but some unfortunate folks.

Yes, but that's what insurance, of all sorts, is all about --
spreading the misfortunes of a few out among everybody.

What you said applies to all sorts of insurance.  It's what insurance
*does* -- and yes, in general most people would be better off saving
their money rather than buying insurance.  The problem is that you
rarely know if you're one of those people or not until after the fact.

Now, what's really a crime is how insurance providers negotiate
cheaper rates for healthcare -- how an insured patient pays much less
(even when you include what insurance pays) than an uninsured one.
>From a business perspective, it makes perfect sense -- but it's still
`wrong'.

| Now, yes, that means not going to the doctor with every sniffle and
| getting a prescription for antibiotics as is the current American
| custom

Why would it mean that?  That's actually quite cheap -- a few minutes
for a doctor to look at you and a cheap drug.  I believe you can even
get penicillin at the grocery store in Mexico .. no doctor at all.  Or
get some for your fish tank ...

(Granted, antibiotic resistant bacterias are a real problem, but we're
talking about expensive health care here, not antibiotic abuse.  Also
granted, `the sniffles' usually means `a cold', which antibiotics do
nothing against, but sinus infections and ear infections are a
different matter.  They don't give out medals for suffering through a
sinus infection ...)

I seem to recall hearing about an HEB in Katy (?) that has a doctor's
office in it where they can diagnose things like `the sniffles' and
prescribe drugs as needed.  Or was it a mall?  Well, I was thinking it
was a recent thing, but maybe not --

   http://www.bizjournals.com/sanantonio/stories/2005/12/12/daily2.html

I'm guessing that's relatively cheap for routine things.

In any event, if forging insurance means you get sub-standard health
care, it stops sounding so great.

| but there are good reasons to let the body fight off the infections
| that it can, leaving drugs for only the ones it can't.  Bed rest,
| hot tea, and a pepper-laden soup did as much for all but the worst
| cases of the flu I've had than anything a doctor ever told me to
| take.

And there's little a doctor can do for the flu ...

-- 
Doug McLaren, dougmc at frenzied.us
"Do not look into laser beam with remaining eye."