[quote]cwill1973 wrote:
I watched a special on Utzi the Iceman Mummy last night and was surprised to learn that, despite only being in his 40’s and presumably eating “paleo”, he still had heart disease. [/quote]
Question. This has been observed before, but it was not exactly heart disease. They have some lesions or something (can’t recall), but it was not the same. Not sure about this mummy though
[quote]sen say wrote:
[quote]Jackie_Jacked wrote:
IMO you have raised some of the best points in the thread. Insurance was initially meant for only catastrophic events and a few other things you had mentioned. Not for people that take no responsibility for their own health and want a pill to counter whatever bad behaviors they’ve accumulated over the years.[/quote]
Can someone confirm or deny that forcing the insurance companies to insure someone with a “pre-existing condition” is assinine? If you have just been diagnosed with cancer why would I insure you? Isn’t it the same fucking thing as if I just crashed my car and now I want you to insure it?[/quote]
It’s asinine. Why is it that someone who doesn’t pay into something until they need it be entitled to the same benefits as the people sustaining the system? Also, as you mentioned, you can’t buy auto coverage after the fact so why should health insurance be any exception?
I’m smart !!
[quote]sen say wrote:
[quote]Jackie_Jacked wrote:
IMO you have raised some of the best points in the thread. Insurance was initially meant for only catastrophic events and a few other things you had mentioned. Not for people that take no responsibility for their own health and want a pill to counter whatever bad behaviors they’ve accumulated over the years.[/quote]
Can someone confirm or deny that forcing the insurance companies to insure someone with a “pre-existing condition” is assinine? If you have just been diagnosed with cancer why would I insure you? Isn’t it the same fucking thing as if I just crashed my car and now I want you to insure it?[/quote]
In a very real sense, that’s why they have those statistician people (can’t remember the name) who calculate risk, so that they can adjust the premium to maintain a profit.
While it’s kind of hard math (morally hard), it generally comes down to making sure “cost of coverage” - (“life expectancy” * “premium”) = profit.
If your life expectancy is shorter or the cost of treatment is higher, they raise the premium to maintain their profit. And if you’re part of a group plan, like most people are, they’ll do some amount of balancing that cost across the entire group… so that everyone pays a bit more to cover the sicker people. (My industry, the software industry, is prone to mental health issues more than anything.)
It’s one of the reasons why there’s a growing trend for corporate wellness programs, since healthy people cost less to insure, and everyone bears that cost.
EDIT: insurance companies have crazy tax loopholes too, which I think were intended to cut down on the need to raise premiums to cover corporate taxes.
[quote]jehovasfitness wrote:
[quote]cwill1973 wrote:
I watched a special on Utzi the Iceman Mummy last night and was surprised to learn that, despite only being in his 40’s and presumably eating “paleo”, he still had heart disease. [/quote]
Question. This has been observed before, but it was not exactly heart disease. They have some lesions or something (can’t recall), but it was not the same. Not sure about this mummy though[/quote]
They found he had arteriosclerosis.
[quote]sen say wrote:
[quote]Jackie_Jacked wrote:
IMO you have raised some of the best points in the thread. Insurance was initially meant for only catastrophic events and a few other things you had mentioned. Not for people that take no responsibility for their own health and want a pill to counter whatever bad behaviors they’ve accumulated over the years.[/quote]
Can someone confirm or deny that forcing the insurance companies to insure someone with a “pre-existing condition” is assinine? If you have just been diagnosed with cancer why would I insure you? Isn’t it the same fucking thing as if I just crashed my car and now I want you to insure it?[/quote]
The thing about pre-existing conditions is that it only affects people that have not had insurance or have let their insurance lapse. People like to act as if a pre-exisiting condition automatically screws you, it doesn’t.
For example if you’re on your parents insurance and say get, I donno, a skin condition, you get a full time job, and then transfer to your own insurance policy, you’re good even though the pre-existing condition exists. Now if you get off your parents insurance, but don’t elect to get coverage for a couple of years (the grace period is a month or so I think) your skin condition would be a pre-existing condition that would not be covered.
There are few reasons not to have coverage. Times can be tough, but you can always sacrifice your cable for COBRA or your own coverage. If it’s between food and coverage well then obviously I can see not having coverage and this situation shoudl be addressed if it hasn’t already been.
Jackie_Jacked thanks for the compliment 
[quote]LoRez wrote:
[quote]sen say wrote:
[quote]Jackie_Jacked wrote:
IMO you have raised some of the best points in the thread. Insurance was initially meant for only catastrophic events and a few other things you had mentioned. Not for people that take no responsibility for their own health and want a pill to counter whatever bad behaviors they’ve accumulated over the years.[/quote]
Can someone confirm or deny that forcing the insurance companies to insure someone with a “pre-existing condition” is assinine? If you have just been diagnosed with cancer why would I insure you? Isn’t it the same fucking thing as if I just crashed my car and now I want you to insure it?[/quote]
In a very real sense, that’s why they have those statistician people (can’t remember the name) who calculate risk, so that they can adjust the premium to maintain a profit.
While it’s kind of hard math (morally hard), it generally comes down to making sure “cost of coverage” - (“life expectancy” * “premium”) = profit.
If your life expectancy is shorter or the cost of treatment is higher, they raise the premium to maintain their profit. And if you’re part of a group plan, like most people are, they’ll do some amount of balancing that cost across the entire group… so that everyone pays a bit more to cover the sicker people. (My industry, the software industry, is prone to mental health issues more than anything.)
It’s one of the reasons why there’s a growing trend for corporate wellness programs, since healthy people cost less to insure, and everyone bears that cost.
EDIT: insurance companies have crazy tax loopholes too, which I think were intended to cut down on the need to raise premiums to cover corporate taxes.[/quote]
What loopholes?
[quote]cwill1973 wrote:
[quote]jehovasfitness wrote:
[quote]cwill1973 wrote:
I watched a special on Utzi the Iceman Mummy last night and was surprised to learn that, despite only being in his 40’s and presumably eating “paleo”, he still had heart disease. [/quote]
Question. This has been observed before, but it was not exactly heart disease. They have some lesions or something (can’t recall), but it was not the same. Not sure about this mummy though[/quote]
They found he had arteriosclerosis.[/quote]
no he did not have artherosclerosis, he was genetically predisposed to it, meaning he had the gene that can lead to familial hypercholesteremia a.k.a. low LDL receptor activity but effectively still doesn’t mean anything (hell high cholesterol doesn’t even mean anything).
Once again shocking journalism at it’s best.
[quote]Professor X wrote:
I think that’s retarded. If humans need to be spoonfed like that just to avoid morbid obesity, what are we saving them for?
Uh, no, I don’t need a warning sign on that bag of cookies. If I want cookies, I have enough sense to not eat them until I become obese.[/quote]
Believe it or not people need to be spoon-fed like this x. You, I and the people in this forum may be educated on what is and what isn’t good for us but people of lower socioeconomic status do not. We are saving them (people) to decrease the amount of dollars of indirect and direct costs to health care. Obesity costs Canada billions of dollars yearly. Type 2 diabetes costs about $16 billion yearly and monthly medical costs to people who become diabetic are in the $1,000. We are trying to stop the epidemic of obesity due to the risk factors that follow it such as CVD, some cancers, diabetes, and hypertension to list a few.
Obesity in children has tripled in children and doubled in adults in the past decade. Tell me you never seen gum problems in people who are obese. I think this is a step forward in the right direction.
Now only if we could get more than 54% of the country to become more physically active the savings for the country and people would be amazing.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
…and then insisting that the quasi-omnipotent federal, state or local government should be doing it.
At the point of a gun.[/quote]
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