When will health insurance become affordable?

Question

If the insurance companies and pharmaceuticals won't reign in costs, then we need to go to socialized medicine. It is ludicrous that insurance costs so much for individuals.

Answer 1

get a job.

Answer 2

I don't think we'll get to see it in our lifetime, because some of us may not have the insurance needed to keep us alive that long.

Answer 3

When luxury healthcare isn't considered the minium it will become affordable.  Prescription junkies are to blame for this.

Answer 4

When we stop giving hospital care to illegal immigrants. Clinics are one thing aspirin and bandages. But don't cross into our country to get a by-pass or a MRI. We have insurance when we travel the world they should to.

Answer 5

When everyone moves to Sweden

Answer 6

Insurance will become affordable when people start saving their money in accounts like they pay their preminum and then they can pay cash for burial and hospitals costs.Example a $10,000 policy paid for a period of 40 to 50 years and you could have paid over triple this amount and if one would have place their preminum in the bank they would almost be on the rich side. So you get in a rut and stop paying your preminum, who won the insurance company and you lost lots of money. Oh well, insurance companies are rip-offs.

Answer 7

When will people stop whining and expecting everyone else to take care of them. Socialized medicine is ridiculous.  You will pay more as a tax payer for that crock than you would paying 400 dollars a month for insurance. Get off your butt. Work a second job if you have to and get insurance. It is not your constitutional right to be provided medical services.

Answer 8

Look into individual health care plans. There's a company out there offering low cost plans for young, healthy people. I saw it online recently and it looks pretty cool. . You buy into an individual health plan at a super low cost with fixed benefits that will cover the typical activities and illnesses of a relatively healthy person. Then, if something catastrophic happens, you have the OPTION to get additional levels of coverage, even AFTER the event. Coverage on demand! You’d have to check it out for more details, but that was the gist, http://www.precedent.com Obviously, this isn’t for everyone, but for reasonably healthy people, it sounds like a great alternative to group plans where premiums are higher because the risk pool includes people with less healthy lifestyles.

Answer 9

It is ridiculous.  Especially when most of us only use our insurance a couple of times a year when we are truly sick or have our yearly check up.  It is those people who take advantage of it that runs it up, and also because of lousy lawsuits on doctors.  However, it is kind of like the gas prices, we don't like it but we have to have it.

Answer 10

first off, drug spending is less than 10% of healthcare spending in the US last time i heard. and drug company profits arent much different than other other industries, some of them have even been losing money. it costs hundreds of millions of dollars to bring a drug to market, and while it may only cost a few cents to make a pill they need to make up for those research costs as well. why do you think computer programs cost $100? a blank CD costs pennies. because of research costs.

what costs money is our highly advaced technology (like MRIs, other fancy tests) and chronic disease. we try to make people live forever. also, americans dont take care of themselves worth a c**p. half the population is obese, and then they get diabetes and have heart attacks which costs thousands of dollars. and like the other guy said, you have the stupid people that sue to get rich. look at the guy who won $250 million from merck because he was put in a wheel chair from a heart attack allegedly caused by vioxx. the dude was pushing 80 yrs old and diabetic (older diabetics are often heart attacks waiting to happen)

insurance companies cut healthcare down to the bone, a lot of establishments (i know pharmacies in particular) struggle to survive because of poor insurance reimubursement. healthcare is just plain expensive, and if you want it, work for it. like somebody else said its not a right and you cant expect the goverment to wipe your *** all the time

Answer 11

one of the major problems is greedy stupid people who sue every time the wind changes don't get me wrong if true negligance is involved then yes people need to be punished but not because you're a greedy s.o.b. that is to lazy to work and make your own money-- case in point my ob/gyn who was NEVER SUED and never commited a terrible mistake had to retire because his insurance rate tripled in one year because of people suing and the insurance company is for profit so ALL  rates go up this ob/gyn i am speaking of is one of three that i lost in less than one year because of this average premium is about 120,000.00 year liability for ob/gyn for general practicioner about 40,000.00 per year it is crazy about health care costs i get to decide well do we eat this week or does my sick child get to go to the doctor and for those of you who say public help for me wrong i have middle class income to much money for public help and my insurance you have to meet the 2,000.00 per year deductaable before 80% is payed if i go in network I REALLY DO NOT KNOW WHAT THE ANSWER IS TO THE HEALTHCARE CRISIS BUT WHO EVER CAN SOLVE IT SHOULD MAYBE GET A NOBEL PRIZE BECAUSE NO ONE HAS SEEMED TO BE ALBE TO SOLVE IT

Answer 12

The change is already here it's just going to take a little while for the news to spread.  It's called consumer driven health care, and the change is going to come from people looking at alternatives to insurance like discount benefit plans. Discount benefit plans are offered by companies which negotiate lower fees for services directly from the doctors and hospitals and then pass the savings on to the consumer rather than just jacking up the premiums like insurance companies do.  If you would like to learn more you can check out http://www.YourSimpleCard.com to see the plans offered by the leading discount benefit company in the US.  also you can check out a special report done by 60 minutes on consumer driven health care here: http://www.ameriplanusa.com/video/AMR300...