Insurance Co-ops: Private And National

I find it very interesting that the news media is finally talking about the co-op option. Odly enough they are saying there are no examples to show it works. Hm mm

• The North East Florida Real Estate Association (NEFAR) had a co-op for a few years. If you were a member you could belong, and enroll your family. It was negotiated by a local insurance agent with an insurance company called Well Care. It was excellent.
  1. No pre-existing conditions applied
  2. Very affordable since there were many members involved
  3. The doctors liked and accepted Well Care because they were good about paying.
  Government regulation put a stop to it though.
• You might also recall me telling you how small business owners use to be able to pool together in a large group to do similarly
• The North East Florida Builders Association also once had one before regulations put a stop to that as well.

These programs worked so well that I tried many times to find one again. Eventually I asked a local agent why it was so impossible to find. His reply: "There were people joining them who were not members." Hm mm....who was so concerned about that?

The consideration today, of course, is a government run program rather than private ones as the above examples. Have you ever called the IRS? Well, that is what it is like to call Medicare. I much prefer calling my local agent as I can easily fire him if he does a poor job.

Personal Story: Health Insurance

As business owners My husband and I had company insurance. Medical insurance for employees is more expensive for the small company than for large corporations. If the small business has anyone on the plan with pre-existing conditions the cost is driven higher for every employee on that plan. For the large companies that is not the case. True the larger the pool the more costs are absorbed.

However, at one time, small business owners could unite to create a large pool. Regulations no longer permit that. (I do not know if it is due to State regulations, Federal regulations, or both)

Solution: Allow co-ops. As citizens we should be allowed to unite, and create non-profit insurance pools independent of business if we so choose...like through Churches, professions and other organizations. We should also be allowed to cross State lines to do so

Simple solutions such as this are far less complicated, they are constitutionally legal (Federally run health care is not legal as per the U.S. Constitution), and there is less chance of pork (a nice word for theft) than with the Federal Government's thousand plus pages that no one can read.

There is no need for protesters to holler or disrupt meetings. The law and common sense are on their side.

More On What Drives Up Health Care

• 
  Ron Paul, in his recent video mentioned interest rates, frivolous law suits, and government intervention drive up health care costs. He also mentioned that health insurance was not intended to pay for things beyond catastrophic events (like paying for subscriptions)

http://www.ronpaul.com/2009-06-15/ron-paul-obamas-healthcare-plan-will-make-things-much-worse/

More Research on The Subject

• 
  Government forcing free heal care for illegal aliens amounts to aiding and abetting:
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLJxmJZXgNI NOTE: someone pays for all this free stuff...you.
• 
  Almost half (48.7 percent) of all uninsured workers are either self-employed or work for firms with fewer than 25 workers. Insurance companies offer better deals for large companies with a large pool of employees, and routinely raise prices for the small business owner. Solution: Create alternative pools for the employees of small firms--including plans offered through churches, unions, and other intermediaries, as well as through the FEHBP--so that these workers and their families can access a wide range of affordable plans. Yet both the tax system and government insurance rules discourage other insurance arrangements for these uninsured working families (Government Intervention) http://www.heritage.org/research/healthcare/bg1769.cfm
• Government run health care programs like Medicare and Medicaid are so inneficiently run they also drive up the cost for everyone http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZDk0YmY2ZTZmMDMzZmUzNTMyNzA3NjkzZWVmOTM0NjY=
• Third Party coverage explained in the link below. "Our healthcare system is in trouble today because we have consistently ignored market-oriented solutions and instead sought out policies based on public finance and top-down regulation. Historically, each crisis has brought its own government solution, which in time has given rise to new problems necessitating still more government intervention. This all began in 1944, when employers began offering health insurance and other benefits to attract prospective employees because government wage and price controls prevented the payment of higher cash wages. Thus government regulation had the unintended consequence of giving rise to the current system of employer-provided health benefits. In the mid-1960s, President Johnson's "Great Society" gave us Medicare and Medicaid, which insured millions of senior citizens and in the process drove up the cost of medical care due in part to the third-party payment problems discussed above. In response to high prescription drug costs, President George W. Bush gave us an oddly designed Medicare prescription drug coverage benefit (Medicare Part D). Apart from being excessively complicated, the plan is a great example of the misuse of insurance-Medicare Part D should cover catastrophic drug expenses, not mundane drugs such as Viagra.
  Fast forward to today and we are on the cusp of instituting nationalized healthcare despite the fact that the baby boom generation is beginning to retire and both Social Security and Medicare are staring down the barrel of insolvency http://www.american.com/archive/2009/may-2009/what-is-driving-rising-healthcare-costs ;