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The industry, Potter says, is driven by “two key figures: earnings per share and the medical-loss ratio, or medical-benefit ratio, as the industry now terms it. That is the ratio between what the company actually pays out in claims and what it has left over to cover sales, marketing, underwriting and other administrative expenses and, of course, profits…”
The best way to drive down “medical-loss,” explains Potter, is to stop insuring unhealthy people. You won’t, after all, have to spend very much of a healthy person’s dollar on medical care because he or she won’t need much medical care. And the insurance industry accomplishes this through two main policies. “One is policy rescission,” says Potter. “They look carefully to see if a sick policyholder may have omitted a minor illness, a pre-existing condition, when applying for coverage, and then they use that as justification to cancel the policy, even if the enrollee has never missed a premium payment…”
The issue isn’t that insurance companies are evil. It’s that they need to be profitable. They have a fiduciary responsibility to maximize profit for shareholders. And as Potter explains, he’s watched an insurer’s stock price fall by more than 20 percent in a single day because the first-quarter medical-loss ratio had increased from 77.9 percent to 79.4 percent.
The reason we generally like markets is that the profit incentive spurs useful innovations. But in some markets, that’s not the case. We don’t allow a bustling market in heroin, for instance, because we don’t want a lot of innovation in heroin creation, packaging and advertising. Are we really sure we want a bustling market in how to cleverly revoke the insurance of people who prove to be sickly?
- The Truth About the Insurance Industry - Ezra Klein
Horseshoe Bend in HDR (via filippo rome) it’s amazing to me how things like this happen over time.
![startmeup:
“This is a roof of a warehouse in Greenpoint, which is now covered with 200,000 pounds of soil, 1,000 earthworms, and an abundance of vegetables, herbs, and flowers.” (nymag)
“Husband-and-wife green roof architects Chris and Lisa Goode starting planning this rooftop garden atop a warehouse in Greenpoint last December, enlisting the help of an aspiring urban farmer and a planting specialist from the New York Botanical Garden along the way. And so far the results are very encouraging, according to an article this week from New York Magazine. Corn, radishes, lettuce and peppers have all been planted, and the yield thus far is being snapped up by such locavore-friendly restaurants like Marlow & Sons and Anella. Great stuff.”This Is a Roof [New York Magazine] (via: Brownstoner) Photo by Lucas Foglia
This makes me very very happy!
Looks beautiful.](http://12.media.tumblr.com/1EkLrJGLAp5f2xhpLoADOhqOo1_500.jpg)
“This is a roof of a warehouse in Greenpoint, which is now covered with 200,000 pounds of soil, 1,000 earthworms, and an abundance of vegetables, herbs, and flowers.” (nymag)
“Husband-and-wife green roof architects Chris and Lisa Goode starting planning this rooftop garden atop a warehouse in Greenpoint last December, enlisting the help of an aspiring urban farmer and a planting specialist from the New York Botanical Garden along the way. And so far the results are very encouraging, according to an article this week from New York Magazine. Corn, radishes, lettuce and peppers have all been planted, and the yield thus far is being snapped up by such locavore-friendly restaurants like Marlow & Sons and Anella. Great stuff.”
This Is a Roof [New York Magazine] (via: Brownstoner)
Photo by Lucas FogliaThis makes me very very happy!
Looks beautiful.
Bill Maher.
There are some gems in here:
“A new study has shown that exercise is just as effective a cure for depression as paxil and zoloft…So ask your doctor if getting off your ass is right for you.”
“There is a point where even the most universal government health program can’t help you…they can’t outlaw unhealthy food, alcohol, or cigarettes (just pot)…because the government isn’t your nanny, they are your dealer. And they subsidize illness in America. Because you see there’s no money in healthy people. And there’s no money in dead people. The money is in the middle. People who are alive…sort of. But with one or more chronic conditions that puts them in need of Celebrex, Nasonex and Valtrex.”
“In Hillary Clinton’s health plan, the words nutrition and exercise appear once…the word drugs, 14 times. Just as the pharmaceutical companies want it.”
It’s 4:20 Somewhere…
Click through for human size
LEAP Stumps the Drug Czar
Tom Angell, media relations director for Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, asks White House “Drug Czar” Gil Kerlikowske what he thinks of all the recent discussion on drug legalization.
Any citizen can join LEAP at http://www.CopsSayLegalizeDrugs.com
My thoughts exactly, while we sit back and flip between Jon minus 9 and Gov. Sanford’s sexcapades there are real issues going straight over our heads, and unfortunately for all of us, they are the issues that are dictating how our and our country’s futures are going to look in the coming years.
