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August 02, 2005
Aging
Our health insurance provider is upset with us. People seem to be getting older, going to the doctor more. One person even had the nerve to die, and event that, because of the coverage that person had, siphoned off quite a few euros from the premiums we and our employer pay. I wonder if some of our provider's actuaries got called up on the carpet.
Probably not. The ones who did the original calculations back in the 80s or whenever, back when stock options were like a money press and people were younger with no kids, good eyes, and whiter teeth, probably went on to higher and better things. Maybe they fired them all. Maybe actuaries got laid off. They're probably awfully expensive to keep around, quiet mathematicians sitting in front of PCs with statistics programs, putting confidence intervals around our life expectancies and how often we'll have children, get ill, or have a cavity that needs to be filled. Maybe they put the salespeople on commission.
If I were in sales, I'd go for that. Find someone in good shape this year, sell them the big plan, security, the whole 9 yards. Then get my commission and get out. Five years later the excrement would of course hit the air conditioning as Vonnegut wrote, but by then I'd be a Vice President in some quite savings & loan.
If you stand back and look at the situation, you'll notice how obviously reasonable the handling of it is. You get too old, your coverage costs too much. We'll have to cut you off since you're ruining our margins. All for one and everyone for himself, that's why so many of them call themselves "mutuals." Notice this is also the approach we're going to be taking more and more as entire societies as well.
Posted by Mark at August 2, 2005 03:41 PM