,
10 tweets,
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Many large employers have chosen to utilize a method called "self-funding" to achieve significant cost reductions on the health insurance plans they make available to their employees.
"Self-funding" is the basis of the "single-payer" paradigm used in most advanced countries to provide, at a worst case cost of 1/9 of their economies (and in many cases much less) health care that is equal to or better than that which consumes 1/6 of the U.S. economy.
The purpose of this thread/Moment is to illustrate some of the ways in which single payer systems can provide significant cost savings and to demonstrate how employees at large corporations are already able to take advantage of some of those savings.
It began as a short three sentence answer to an insightful tweeted query, but that answer felt insufficient, so I kept adding tweets to try to elaborate. The result was "The COG view of health insurance" 
It began as a short three sentence answer to the immediately following insightful tweeted query, but that answer felt insufficient, so I kept adding tweets to try to elaborate. The result was this "Moment", "The COG view of health insurance"
This is a placeholder for a needed segue tweet that I haven't figured out the best way to proceed with.
American insurance companies are machines, with cogs for:
Advertising
Policy Sale
Claim Receipt
Research for Claim Denial
" for Policy Cancellation
Processing of claims
Rating Cogs
Each of those cogs consumes premium dollars for both it's function and for employee salaries.
Advertising
Policy Sale
Claim Receipt
Research for Claim Denial
" for Policy Cancellation
Processing of claims
Rating Cogs
Each of those cogs consumes premium dollars for both it's function and for employee salaries.
Self-insured policies can have surprisingly few limits.
For example, my last employer allowed up to three stints in drug rehab, but limited employees to a maximum (?!?) of one sex change. And drug "step" and quantity limits were less restrictive than they might have been.
For example, my last employer allowed up to three stints in drug rehab, but limited employees to a maximum (?!?) of one sex change. And drug "step" and quantity limits were less restrictive than they might have been.
In particular, self-insured policies:
A) Don't pay for sales, advertising, rating or policy cancellation cogs (or employees of those cogs)
and
B) In most cases, there's no need to pay for research to discover circumstances under which policy loopholes may be used to deny claims.
A) Don't pay for sales, advertising, rating or policy cancellation cogs (or employees of those cogs)
and
B) In most cases, there's no need to pay for research to discover circumstances under which policy loopholes may be used to deny claims.
