5 ms·

That same day 38 Studios employees were told their health insurance would expire in two days. It's in times like these that you realize the importance of uni

by maybird 14y ago

That same day 38 Studios employees were told their health insurance would expire in two days. It's in times like these that you realize the importance of universal health care. (I'm not talking about COBRA.)

trimbo 14y ago
> I'm not talking about COBRA Public service announcement: you can't COBRA on companies that go bankrupt. COBRA allows you to keep your group plan from your former employer. If that plan goes away, since the company goes away, you will be unable to COBRA. May have changed with Obamacare but this is how it was in the past.
- joe_the_user 14y ago
  Not sure how that takes away from COBRA not being enough...
  - rcthompson 14y ago
    It doesn't. It's just that original comment implied that COBRA might be of at least some limited help in this case.
bhb916 14y ago
Someone losing a benefit on short notice does not constitute an argument for tax-payer subsidization of that benefit. There are other options for these people, like individual plans that aren't provided by their employer. If such plans aren't available to these people in the state they live in it's most likely due to the regulatory environment of that state. In the states I'm familiar with (CA, WA, AZ) individual health insurance plans are cheap and readily available. (People with serious, chronic pre-existing conditions are another matter entirely) The people who will be adversely affected by this layoff in this domain will be those who get catastrophically ill, requiring huge hospital bills, who aren't otherwise individually covered and who don't find employment before they get sick. I expect that number to be really, really low. Insuring this entire population against that event seems silly. Ultimately, relying on your employer for these things is a ticking time bomb.
- asdkl234890 14y ago
  Someone losing a benefit on short notice does not constitute an argument for tax-payer subsidization of that benefit. You know there is a whole continent where most people think of healthcare as a right, not a benefit. And the Hippocratic Oath doesn't mention anything like "only if they have money". And people in the wast majority of other professions don't usually take oaths. Healthcare and medicine are treated specially around the world. Isn't it odd how the US mandates car insurance but not health insurance?
  - Drbble 14y ago
    Which part of the hippocratic oath mentions working for free? It only talks about what behavior is appropriate when rendering service, and the life debt to teachers. Car insurance is liability insurance. It is completely different. Doctors do carry liability insurance, for example.
    - Jare 14y ago
      Doctors in Europe do not work for free, what kind of, er, uninformed question is that? Europe does not have free healthcare, it has universal healthcare. It is only free for those who can't pay for it - and believe me, nobody remotely sane envies them for that privilege.
  - kika 14y ago
    And this whole continent is now sinking financially. I believe it's somehow related.
    - Jare 14y ago
      Are there any data points or studies at all that leads you to that belief? Because I can't find any.
      - kika 14y ago
        Just a little common sense: social security expenditures in European countries account for 28% of GDP. In US it's 7% (!!11). Thanks for asking, btw, I knew it is bad, but I never even thought it is THAT bad. http://video.minpress.gr/wwwminpress/aboutgreece/aboutgreece_welfare_state.pdf http://video.minpress.gr/wwwminpress/aboutgreece/aboutgreece... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_(United_States) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_(United_States)
temphn 14y ago
After a government project just fails spectacularly...the response is yet more spending of taxpayer money? Why not just free the health insurance market to operate like the auto insurance market, such that individuals can buy on their own without having to go through their employers, and such that insurers must face competition across state lines?
- benmathes 14y ago
  There are tax breaks to providing health insurance through your employer, so companies are incentivized to compensate you with health insurance instead of more cash.
  - Drbble 14y ago
    That's trivial to fix by restructuring the tax deduction to make it employee-side
    - benmathes 14y ago
      Coming up with a better way is trivial, yes, but getting it past the entrenched interests of one of the largest sectors of the economy (Healthcare) is ridiculously hard.
  - temphn 14y ago
    Yes, I know this. The solution is to either repeal those tax breaks or provide the same ones to individuals, to put all purchasers on the same playing field. Can't possible be more dislocating than the health care reform bill itself.
- bluedanieru 14y ago
  So your response to a dysfunctional government that can't even implement something as basic as health care is to say "screw it" and cut everyone loose? Health care is a public good, it belongs in the public domain. Quit electing stupid partisan assholes to run your government and you might get some policy that isn't designed for the sole purpose of benefiting special interests.
kiba 14y ago
I prefer insurance only for emergency, and everything else to be shopped. When you're bleeding to death, you don't care about if emergency care cost a lot of money, just that you get to the closest hospital possible. We need shopping anyway, as people with insurance are quite insensitive to the cost of care. There's no need for hospitals to break someone's leg if competition can lower the price of service to a reasonable level.
- wpietri 14y ago
  I have never met a person who suggests comparison shopping for health care who has actually been seriously ill. If you have had a major illness requiring serious care (e.g., heart disease, cancer, organ failure, stroke), please talk about exactly how you would have comparison shopped for the best bargain in hospitals.
  - wpietri 14y ago
    And just in case my implication isn't clear, I think the notion of comparison shopping for treatment is insane. My mother was seriously ill last year, and the last thing we had time to do was get a serious of estimates and do a cost-benefit analysis on treating her brain tumor. Just understanding the treatment options was plenty. And, of course, picking the right doctors, because this actually was brain surgery. Oh, and we had to deal with the a loved one having a brain tumor. Little thing, that.
    - kiba 14y ago
      I believe surgery can be made cheaper through scaling surgery operation. This will in turn increase the reliability of surgeons as they become more experienced in surgery. In some case, cheaper actually means better surgeon. Obviously, this won't work as well for surgery procedure that are more exotic. This is already true in heart surgery: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125875892887958111.html http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125875892887958111.html
      - wpietri 14y ago
naner 14y ago
Or simply health-care decoupled from your job.

by maybird 14y ago

trimbo 14y ago

> I'm not talking about COBRA Public service announcement: you can't COBRA on companies that go bankrupt. COBRA allows you to keep your group plan from your former employer. If that plan goes away, since the company goes away, you will be unable to COBRA. May have changed with Obamacare but this is how it was in the past.

joe_the_user 14y ago
Not sure how that takes away from COBRA not being enough...
- rcthompson 14y ago
  It doesn't. It's just that original comment implied that COBRA might be of at least some limited help in this case.

bhb916 14y ago

Someone losing a benefit on short notice does not constitute an argument for tax-payer subsidization of that benefit. There are other options for these people, like individual plans that aren't provided by their employer. If such plans aren't available to these people in the state they live in it's most likely due to the regulatory environment of that state. In the states I'm familiar with (CA, WA, AZ) individual health insurance plans are cheap and readily available. (People with serious, chronic pre-existing conditions are another matter entirely) The people who will be adversely affected by this layoff in this domain will be those who get catastrophically ill, requiring huge hospital bills, who aren't otherwise individually covered and who don't find employment before they get sick. I expect that number to be really, really low. Insuring this entire population against that event seems silly. Ultimately, relying on your employer for these things is a ticking time bomb.

asdkl234890 14y ago
Someone losing a benefit on short notice does not constitute an argument for tax-payer subsidization of that benefit. You know there is a whole continent where most people think of healthcare as a right, not a benefit. And the Hippocratic Oath doesn't mention anything like "only if they have money". And people in the wast majority of other professions don't usually take oaths. Healthcare and medicine are treated specially around the world. Isn't it odd how the US mandates car insurance but not health insurance?
- Drbble 14y ago
  Which part of the hippocratic oath mentions working for free? It only talks about what behavior is appropriate when rendering service, and the life debt to teachers. Car insurance is liability insurance. It is completely different. Doctors do carry liability insurance, for example.
  - Jare 14y ago
    Doctors in Europe do not work for free, what kind of, er, uninformed question is that? Europe does not have free healthcare, it has universal healthcare. It is only free for those who can't pay for it - and believe me, nobody remotely sane envies them for that privilege.
- kika 14y ago
  And this whole continent is now sinking financially. I believe it's somehow related.
  - Jare 14y ago
    Are there any data points or studies at all that leads you to that belief? Because I can't find any.
    - kika 14y ago
      Just a little common sense: social security expenditures in European countries account for 28% of GDP. In US it's 7% (!!11). Thanks for asking, btw, I knew it is bad, but I never even thought it is THAT bad. http://video.minpress.gr/wwwminpress/aboutgreece/aboutgreece_welfare_state.pdf http://video.minpress.gr/wwwminpress/aboutgreece/aboutgreece... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_(United_States) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_(United_States)

temphn 14y ago

After a government project just fails spectacularly...the response is yet more spending of taxpayer money? Why not just free the health insurance market to operate like the auto insurance market, such that individuals can buy on their own without having to go through their employers, and such that insurers must face competition across state lines?

benmathes 14y ago
There are tax breaks to providing health insurance through your employer, so companies are incentivized to compensate you with health insurance instead of more cash.
- Drbble 14y ago
  That's trivial to fix by restructuring the tax deduction to make it employee-side
  - benmathes 14y ago
    Coming up with a better way is trivial, yes, but getting it past the entrenched interests of one of the largest sectors of the economy (Healthcare) is ridiculously hard.
- temphn 14y ago
  Yes, I know this. The solution is to either repeal those tax breaks or provide the same ones to individuals, to put all purchasers on the same playing field. Can't possible be more dislocating than the health care reform bill itself.
bluedanieru 14y ago
So your response to a dysfunctional government that can't even implement something as basic as health care is to say "screw it" and cut everyone loose? Health care is a public good, it belongs in the public domain. Quit electing stupid partisan assholes to run your government and you might get some policy that isn't designed for the sole purpose of benefiting special interests.

kiba 14y ago

I prefer insurance only for emergency, and everything else to be shopped. When you're bleeding to death, you don't care about if emergency care cost a lot of money, just that you get to the closest hospital possible. We need shopping anyway, as people with insurance are quite insensitive to the cost of care. There's no need for hospitals to break someone's leg if competition can lower the price of service to a reasonable level.

wpietri 14y ago
I have never met a person who suggests comparison shopping for health care who has actually been seriously ill. If you have had a major illness requiring serious care (e.g., heart disease, cancer, organ failure, stroke), please talk about exactly how you would have comparison shopped for the best bargain in hospitals.
- wpietri 14y ago
  And just in case my implication isn't clear, I think the notion of comparison shopping for treatment is insane. My mother was seriously ill last year, and the last thing we had time to do was get a serious of estimates and do a cost-benefit analysis on treating her brain tumor. Just understanding the treatment options was plenty. And, of course, picking the right doctors, because this actually was brain surgery. Oh, and we had to deal with the a loved one having a brain tumor. Little thing, that.
  - kiba 14y ago
    I believe surgery can be made cheaper through scaling surgery operation. This will in turn increase the reliability of surgeons as they become more experienced in surgery. In some case, cheaper actually means better surgeon. Obviously, this won't work as well for surgery procedure that are more exotic. This is already true in heart surgery: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125875892887958111.html http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125875892887958111.html
    - wpietri 14y ago

naner 14y ago

Or simply health-care decoupled from your job.