Individual Medical Insurance Plans - One Great Big Ponzi Scheme?
Are individual medical insurance plans one great big ponzi scheme? We've heard so much about ponzi schemes lately, what with the recent conviction of Bernard Madoff and some of the other "lesser-known" scam artists who have also surfaced in the media lately.
What exactly is a ponzi scheme (also known as a pyramid scheme)? By definition, a ponzi scheme (according to Wikipedia) is a fraudulent investment operation that pays returns to investors from their own money or money paid by subsequent investors rather than from any actual profit earned.
"Commercial, for-profit health insurance is one of the greatest Ponzi schemes ever foisted on the public", says a family medicine physician on Medscape's Physician Connect (an all-physician discussion board).
"The executives are the ones that benefit to the detriment of everyone else.
How else does the president of one of the largest insurance companies get to be a billionaire? By being at the top of the pyramid of companies' and individuals' premium payments.
" So the big question is: Why does health insurance cost so much? Why are your monthly medical premiums going up while your actual benefits are going down? Why do insurance companies pick and choose what claims they will cover and what they will deny? So many people have suffered because their individual medical insurance plans won't cover "preexisting conditions".
Why is that? If you have a health problem, you would expect that your individual medical insurance plan should cover it, right? Wrong.
In the United states, health insurance is a business that exists for profit, like any other business.
So paying for your terminal illness or a chronic medical condition that you already had before signing up for insurance is a liability for them.
Why else do many individual medical insurance plans impose "waiting periods"? They want to take your money up front to pay into the system and then after a year (or whatever the elapsed time period is) they will allow you to start getting coverage for it.
But what if it is too late by then?
What exactly is a ponzi scheme (also known as a pyramid scheme)? By definition, a ponzi scheme (according to Wikipedia) is a fraudulent investment operation that pays returns to investors from their own money or money paid by subsequent investors rather than from any actual profit earned.
"Commercial, for-profit health insurance is one of the greatest Ponzi schemes ever foisted on the public", says a family medicine physician on Medscape's Physician Connect (an all-physician discussion board).
"The executives are the ones that benefit to the detriment of everyone else.
How else does the president of one of the largest insurance companies get to be a billionaire? By being at the top of the pyramid of companies' and individuals' premium payments.
" So the big question is: Why does health insurance cost so much? Why are your monthly medical premiums going up while your actual benefits are going down? Why do insurance companies pick and choose what claims they will cover and what they will deny? So many people have suffered because their individual medical insurance plans won't cover "preexisting conditions".
Why is that? If you have a health problem, you would expect that your individual medical insurance plan should cover it, right? Wrong.
In the United states, health insurance is a business that exists for profit, like any other business.
So paying for your terminal illness or a chronic medical condition that you already had before signing up for insurance is a liability for them.
Why else do many individual medical insurance plans impose "waiting periods"? They want to take your money up front to pay into the system and then after a year (or whatever the elapsed time period is) they will allow you to start getting coverage for it.
But what if it is too late by then?
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