Health insurance in the United States

Health insurance is the one of the main avenues for the payment of medical expenses in the United States, whether through insurance premiums, social insurance such as Medicare or a social welfare program funded by taxation.[1]
Health insurance in the United States
Public health spending via publicly subsidized insurance programs such as Medicare and Medicaid makes up the largest single share of the US health care spending. For the average person, most health care spending is incurred in the last years of life when costs are met by social insurance programs rather than private medical insurance.
insurance in the United States
Most people below the age of Medicare entitlement obtain their insurance from an employer based insurance scheme.
Health insurance
Persons unable to obtain insurance through an employer and wishing to be insured have to buy a policy in the individual insurance market. This is highly expensive and premiums are typically much higher than for an equivalent policy paid for by an employer.

United States Health insurance
There is considerable debate in the US regarding the health insurance system which has many critics. President Obama has called for two main reforms. That all Americans should be covered without discrimination on age or health status and that a public health insurance should compete with private providers "to boost competition and keep the private insurance industry honest".

from:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_insurance_in_the_United_States
United States Health insurances

Health insurance in the United States

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What’s the recession doing to the insurance industry?

When you're sitting at home worrying about the mounting pile of bills to pay, it's easy to lose sight of the big picture. Fact is, just as you're in a new world of hurt, there are other people hurting as well. In this case, the people are the inventors in the insurance industry. They all bought shares in these big corporations when the prices were high, never thinking that the world could suddenly turn sour. Although it's a mutual insurance company, let's take State Farm as an example of what's happening across the industry. This is one of the biggest insurance companies in the US and it's just turned in an operating loss of $542 million for 2008. Its net worth just dropped a whole 16%. Now, you have to understand this company did not get caught up in mortgages of any prime. There were no securitised thises or derivative thats. This company has just been caught in the general collapse of stock exchange values.

To understand all the details, we need to look at how insurance companies work. They charge most policy holders with a vehicle or a home a monthly premium. This brings in a small mountain of cash every month. That money is invested until it's needed to pay out on claims. Some goes into fixed-income products. The rest goes into shares. As you may have noticed, the Dow and other stock exchange indexes have been in free-fall. The result is that State Farm has lost the capital value of the investments and, in many cases, no longer receives any income as interest or dividends. This might have been manageable except for this little thing called global warming that no-one believes causes hurricanes and other weather catastrophes. The last two years have seen an big increase in weather-damage claims. Put the loss of investment income and the unexpected rise in claims together and you turn a $5.46 billion profit in 2007 into a loss in 2008.

Should this make you worry? Well, look at it this way. The insurance industry is suddenly making a loss. Shareholders in general and the policy holders in State Farm are not happy. Senior officers of the companies want their bonuses. The for-profit companies are tempted to raise the premiums across the board to get their earnings back into profit. Except with a recession threatening to turn into a depression, that's not going to work. Make the policies unaffordable and people stop buying. That's why State Farms just dropped its auto insurance rates in Georgia by an average of 1.5%. For the record, this means the current premiums are 12% lower than five years ago. Since State Farms insures around one quarter of all vehicles on Georgia's roads, this is a good deal. So the next time you're shopping round for a car insurance policy, you may be pleasantly surprised that the premium rates from an increasing number of insurers have fallen in other states. The next bill may not be quite as painful as you fear.