Settle Your Unwanted Life Settlement Policy With Life Settlement broker
Life’s circumstances are not always what you might wish them to be; sometimes you may be led in directions that you never imagined, dreamed or designed. Life has so many things to surprise us at every phase; we cannot predict them, all we can do is to plan for these hard times that life can put in our share. Planning is the best way to deal with any hardship as it enables us to manage a solution on short notice. Though planning is not the only solution for every kind of emergency but when it is related to financial matters only planned savings and investments can prove to be the biggest help. Today many financial institutions and banks are offering finest schemes to save and invest money; these schemes are truly helping people in every phase of their life. For seniors, it is pretty difficult to deal with major financial emergencies as they rely only on their retirement amount and monthly pension. To solve their financial problems and to make every process less burdensome there are man brokers who help seniors in selling their unwanted policy without any hassle.
Though life settlement policy is a plan that helps seniors in making their post retirement life hassle free but sometimes it becomes burdensome for them due to high premium amount. In normal conditions, it enables the seniors to get financial benefit on their saving as life insurance policy and provide them with financial security in their post retirement days. However, it can become burdensome since the senior has not enough money to pay off the premium amount; in such situation it is always better to sell that unwanted and unaffordable policy instead of paying high premiums by cutting down routine expenses. They help such seniors who do not want their policy anymore as he arranges every required term and process for them.
If you are fed-up with your expensive policy and want to plan to sell it, then a life settlement broker can arrange a reasonable deal for you. He will never let you face any problem and will talk to the interested parties on behalf of you; moreover, he will also do research on current market rates so that you may get reasonable amount for your policy. Being a senior you can also find problems in calculating current value of your policy therefore, the broker will sit with you and will assess the correct value of your policy. With him, you will never have to worry about anything as he will handle everything as your representative.
Taking help from a life settlement broker is undoubtedly a good idea to sell-off your unwanted policy but always make sure that the broker is reliable or not. A reliable broker can sort out every problem for you but in any case if the broker is not certified, you can face a big loss. Therefore, it is always advisable to select a broker after doing sufficient market research as it will also help you in getting an idea about their commission. Once you find a reliable broker to settle your life insurance policy you can be rest assured that you will get reasonable amount for your policy.
How to Save Money and Get Discount Life Insurance in Virginia
Life insurance can be very pricey. Why? Because it’s vital and something that we all need if we have a family and want them to be taken care in the case of our death, which is why in Virginia there are so many insurance companies that offer life insurance products that sound enticing. It’s important you to choose the right policy for you that’s within your budget.
Ways to save:
1. Shop around. The best place to shop for life insurance is online. By shopping online for life insurance you are able to get several quotes from several different insurance companies.
2. Only take out coverage on however much policy you think you will need. Many people spend several hundreds each month taking out large amounts of money they want to leave their family with in case of their death. The point of life insurance is to make sure your family is well taken care of. So only taken out the amount of money you know will leave your family secure
3. Make progress in your health. Those with health problems have an hard time buying health insurance than those who don’t. High blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes and smokers are things that make insurance companies unwilling to sell you health insurance and it also increases your premiums. Life insurance companies prefer their clients to be in excellent health because it decreases their risk of dying faster. Those in good health are rewarded with lower premiums.
Smokers have to pay as high as three times than a non smoker on their premiums. If you smoke anything, even an occasional cigar you have to admit to being a smoker on the policy. Insurance companies use urine tests to detect nicotine in a person’s system.
Learn What Credit Insurance Can Do for You
Almost every time you make major or smaller purchases you apply for some type of credit. No matter if you are buying a house or a car, or you just go and buy some appliances or electronics for your home you’ll use some type of credit. And more or less every time you use a form of loan there are big chances that you’ll be asked to also buy some form of insurance for your credit. Before proceeding with buying any kind of insurance you should know what you’re paying for. Credit insurance is a type of insurance made on a debtor in favor of a lender and it is intended to pay off a loan or the remaining balance if the insured dies or is unable to make any more payments. The insurance for credits comes in various forms; the typical form includes credit life, credit property insurance, credit disability and involuntary unemployment. Usually all these coverages come all together with the same credit insurance. Some of them will have a value for you and some may not have. You can opt for which one of them you want to pay with one small exception: credit disability and life coverage cannot be sold separately.
Credit life coverage is actually a type of life insurance that pays off the loan or the remaining balance in case you die. The payment of the life credit insurance on this type of insurance for the credit always goes to the lender as he is the beneficiary of your policy. The credit disability insurance is the type of insurance that makes your monthly credit payments during a certain fixed period of documented medical disability. While this type of insurance can help you keep a good credit report and history, it will not make the monthly payment forever and will not, for sure, pay off all your balance. In such situations it is best to try to get back on your feet and pay by yourself the loan because, as the time passes, interest and insurance charges continue to add up to your already existing balance and you’ll end up paying more than your original credit.
The other two types of credit insurance are: involuntary unemployment insurance and credit property insurance. The involuntary unemployment insurance is very much similar to the disability insurance: the insurance makes the monthly minimum payments for a certain period of time while you are involuntary unemployed. Like we said before is better to not let this situation go on for a long period of time. The credit property insurance is different than all the other insurances in the way that it cancels the debt you owe for the items purchased if the property purchased is destroyed by certain specified risks like: fire, flood, accident, earthquake, etc.
No matter for which one of the above credit insurance you opt, it is most important to read and know the full details of the coverage. This way you’ll be able to know which one of them best suites your needs and select that particular one or maybe a combination of two or more of them. Also, you should consider your financial status before purchasing insurance for the credit. Or maybe you’re considering making several purchases from different places and each one of them asks for insurance. But this cannot be so cost effective. If you have more accounts and intend to insure all off them maybe you should think of buying a traditional insurance; an insurance agent or broker can be of big help in such a situation. He will help you make the necessary comparisons and finally with choosing the right insurance type for you.
Last but not least you have to make sure you qualify for the credit insurance you’re going to buy. These types of insurances are sold without any screening to anyone that makes a purchase on credit. Often, many people do not qualify for the insurance they are buying but the company that is selling you the insurance will not bother asking you if you think you qualify or not. So, it is you, the borrower and the buyer of the insures, that has to carefully read and understand how the insurance works and be fully aware of any special claim procedures or limitation clauses included into the insurance. It is only your responsibility.
Elderly Upset at Misleading TV Ads
Many thousands of older people are finding that life insurance they bought as a result of slick daytime television advertising in the late 80s and early 90s has turned out not to be the great deal that it promised. As a result many pensioners find that they have invested years of premiums into a policy that they can no longer afford and has a surrender value below the combined premiums that they have already paid.
Lured into buying policies dressed up as fabulous deals featuring cheap monthly premiums for the first ten years, many have now found that once they enter the 11th year of cover that their premiums rocket to exorbitant levels. This leaves them with the stark choice of paying the extra premium, slashing the value of their life cover or abandoning the policy altogether.
The policies in question offer the major attractions of allowing anyone under 80 to apply without the need for a medical examination, and offering life cover throughout the policyholder’s entire lifetime with payment of a lump sum on death. However, many of the people taking out the cover were unaware that after the initial ten year period premiums would rise dramatically.
Insurers targeted older people who wanted to bequeath a modest amount of money to their children tax-free upon death, and also provide for their own funeral expenses. Although the policies are still being sold (figures for 2006 show that almost 180,000 were bought) it is in much lesser numbers than the boom year of 1994 when almost 700,000 policies of this type were taken out.
One unnamed 70 year old took out a whole of life policy in 1991 in order to leave a cash sum to his children. At the start of the policy monthly premiums were £28.51 for £87,000 cover. However, once the ten year promotional period expired he found that to receive the same amount of life cover he would need to increase his monthly premiums to a staggering £269.84 per month, just £72.28 short of his entire annual premiums for the previous year! Unsurprisingly, he and many others cannot afford the increased premiums leaving them to cash in the fund for a paltry amount, well below the value of premiums already paid.
Insurance experts point out that this type of ‘maximum’ policy is an incredibly risky investment. Anyone wishing to pass on money to their children would be much better advised to take out a ’standard’ life insurance policy, where premiums are higher at the outset allowing more money to be invested and therefore providing greater growth opportunity for the fund.
Term Life Insurance No Physical - Really
Can you really get “term life insurance no physical” exam? Yes you can. The interesting thing is that most life insurance companies are jumping on the bandwagon. No physical life insurance has always been available to younger people. The older you get the smaller the amount available. What has happened is that one company made $150,000 of life insurance available online. It did very well initially. The actuaries from other companies went to work. They wanted to find out how far they could push the envelop. How much life insurance could they fairly safely offer online and at what ages.
Another carrier came up with policies which offered $250,000 coverage. Soon a few others joined the fray. It seems to be quite a profitable undertaking as the number of offers increase constantly. This, of course, is good for the consumer.
One guy came up with the idea that you can get $500,000 no medical life insurance online. This may be so, but I question whether this is so. I do because what he is doing is suggesting that a person can buy $250,000 from one company and the immediately go and get another $250,000 from another carrier. The problem about that is that when you buy a life insurance policy medical information about you is put into the Medical Information Bureau’s Database. If you apply to one company and they find that you just purchased no medical exam term life insurance from another company they are likely to ask for a complete medical examination.
Incidentally, when you apply for your policy you give the carrier permission to get relevant information on you. You, in fact, permit them to get an Inspection Report.
Why do life insurance companies offer life insurance and ask for no medical exam? It is simply very profitable, if the applicant is in fairly good health. Just think, they eliminate the fee they would need to pay the doctor, paramedic or nurse to check out applicants. In addition they are protected by the “incontestability” clause which states that if the applicant fails to disclose information that would prevent them from issuing the policy they can withdraw it within a specific period of time, usually one or two years.
The no physical term life insurance policies issued are usually level term policies. 10 year term, 15 year term, 20 year term and 30 year term are quite popular. The premiums never increase and the face amounts of the policies never decrease. These are the term policies most selected when the applicant needs a medical as well. The ages at which these policies are issued are usually between age 18 and age 60. The ages and type may vary a bit depending on which life insurance company you are looking at.
Guaranteed Life Insurance - When Does It Make Sense?
I’m sure that almost all of us heard about the newest advertisement hype in life insurance. “You can qualify for life insurance without a medical and no salesperson will ever call”. It’s a very attractive vision - you don’t have to bother filling out forms with health questions, don’t have to undergo medical tests and the seemingly best of the entire deal - no pushy salespersons.
On the first sight, it really seems like an exceptional offer. However, all this convenience comes at a heavy price, and these guaranteed issue plans have several serious caveats.
First, the coverage is usually limited between $5,000 and $50,000. Some plans are tricky and will give you the ability of making the total coverage larger with inexpensive and realistically speaking, worthless accidental coverage which will double or triple your total benefit if you die by accident. The problem with this is that the vast majority of insurance claims are not by accident, moreover, this number continues to diminish as the insured ages.
Second, the premiums on these plans cost much more compared to traditional life insurance, in some cases up to 300%. This makes sense as the plans put healthy people and individuals with poor health in the same boat - people that don’t have problems qualifying for regular insurance are being substantially ripped off by this form of coverage.
Third, the death benefits are usually limited to a return of premium plus interest in the first two years after the guaranteed issue plan policy takes effect, unless the insured dies by accident. As mentioned before, this is highly unlikely.
Fourth - and touching by far the most deceiving point in the advertisements - there is no actual guarantee that you will be approved for in these life insurance plans. In most cases, you will still need to answer basic health questions. This makes it possible for the insurance companies to filter out truly high risk clients.
Despite all these facts, guaranteed issue life insurance can still make sense in some cases. If you, for example, have trouble qualifying for traditional life insurance policies and got declined several times before, you should consult with an independent life insurance broker and ask him/her to find you a plan that will group you with a set of healthier people and translate into lower premiums. Otherwise, it’s likely that traditional policies will be likely available at lower rates than guaranteed issue life insurance.
Prescription for malaise? Providers are rushing to participate in Medicare’s new drug-benefit program. Companies are proceeding with caution
BLAME UNCLE SAM FOR the latest anxiety overwhelming the healthcare sector. For the better part of a year, health insurers and pharmacy benefit managers have been preparing bids to provide prescription drugs to the nation’s 43 million seniors. If their bids hit the mark, these providers stand to reap a sizable chunk of the prescription–drug market for seniors. If their bids fall short, they risk becoming marginal players in a market that is set to explode as more baby boomers enter retirement age.
This nail-biting bidding process, part of the government’s plan to provide Medicare Part D drug benefits to eligible seniors when the program goes into effect on January 1, 2006, is secret and unparalleled–the first passing of the baton from the public sector to the private sector for the administration of a federal health-care program. Among the hundreds of health-insurance providers and pharmacy benefit managers gearing up to introduce the new prescription-drug plans is PacifiCare Health Systems, which is spending an estimated $50 million this year to prepare itself internally to develop and market products, establish lists of preferred drugs, enroll and educate beneficiaries, and deal with mountains of federal regulations.
The company, which had previously considered dropping its Medicare offerings, is now basing its future success partly on the bid it presents to the government to provide the drug coverage to seniors. “The government has set up this unique bidding process where we can all become government contractors and provide these services at competitive rates,” explains Gregory Scott, executive vice president and CFO of PacifiCare, a Cypress, California-based managed-care services provider with $12 billion in 2004 revenues.
Like other providers, PacifiCare is enticed by the potential financial gain–sharing in an estimated $59 billion in Medicare payments to private plans for the drug benefits next year, a figure expected to double within five years. Nothing is guaranteed, of course. While all bidders are eligible to become Medicare Part D providers, “the reality is that if your bid is not competitive, you’re not likely to attract any customers,” concedes Scott. “If you bid 50 cents to provide a particular drug and another provider bids 25 cents, people won’t buy your product. We don’t want to bid too conservatively and not get market share, or bid too aggressively and wind up with market share but a product that doesn’t perform from a P&L perspective. Hopefully, we’re smart enough to avoid getting egg splattered on our face.”
To assure the best bid possible, Scott has assembled a dedicated team of a dozen finance, marketing, and customer-service professionals. This group is working with several consultants to design a cost-effective system for providing benefits in the 34 regions where PacifiCare has applied to offer Part D services. Each region requires a separate bid, based on respective market dynamics, notes Scott. “Frankly, I’ve never seen anything like this in my business career,” says the CFO, adding that “a large, new market [has been] created with the swipe of a pen and put in the private sector–a $400 billion to $500 billion program over the next 8 to 10 years. And in my view, we are making a $50 million venture-capital investment in a brand new business that could pay off nicely down the road.”
ALL BIDS FOR PLANS SOLD INDIVIDUALLY to seniors are due June 6 to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the federal agency that administers the Medicare programs. The insurers and pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) will then negotiate over the bids and thus over how much they will be paid by CMS. By October, contracts will be signed, and come January, eligible providers will administer the drug benefits to the nation’s seniors.
How well the investment will pay off for providers depends mostly on the purchasing choices seniors make. It also depends on how corporations respond. While seniors have until May 15, 2006, to sign up individually for a prescription-drug program, companies have no mandate to offer the benefit to their retirees. But starting in 2006, companies will have several options that will allow them to receive financial rewards if they provide retiree drug coverage.
What corporations will choose to do is uncertain. In fact, CFO called more than a dozen finance chiefs and employee-benefit managers and asked them about their upcoming plans regarding Medicare Part D, but the companies declined to discuss their retiree benefits before the implementation of the new drug program. “Employers are just not at the point where they want to discuss this openly,” explains Dana Sohn, a media specialist at Chicago-based Aon Consulting.
Their reticence is understandable given that companies first have to decide whether or not they want to participate in Part D. They have shied away from providing prescription-drug benefits over the past two decades, because of the high cost of many drugs, the rising cost of health care generally, and the need to slash bottom-line expenses. “If you look at large employers back in 1988, about 66 percent offered drug benefits to retirees,” says Leslie Norwalk, CMS deputy administrator. “By 2002, that percentage had dropped to 37 percent, and we feel it has continued to fall since.”
Airborne liability: the Airbus A380 is coming to an airport near you, with increased liability limits on its wings
* A GE Insurance Solutions study in 2006 found the debut of the A380 would result in a 20 percent increase in maximum airliner hull value.
* The industry’s average liability loss is expected to jump from $329 million to $359 million.
* Experts say, however, the A380 is making a quiet entrance from an insurance pricing standpoint.
When the first commercial Airbus A380 blesses the tarmac at Singapore Changi Airport this month with its elegant, 22-wheeled, reinforced-plastic self, it will carry with it a new era of liability exposure in aviation insurance.
But delays in delivery and overcapacity in the market mean the 239-ton jet’s most significant impact on insurance pricing is probably still a few years away.
The A380 is the industry’s latest attempt to fly as many passengers as quickly as possible from point A to point B, a business strategy that’s easy to grasp. The idea is to get maximum revenue out of an aircraft that needs no more space to take off and land than the reigning wide body, the Boeing 747.
The European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co.’s double-decker passenger plane in some configurations could seat more than 800; the current limit is around 500. But that increased seating capacity also means increased liability limits and hull coverage.
A 2006 study by GE Insurance Solutions, now part of Swiss Re, concluded that the increased cost of the A380 will result in a 20 percent increase in maximum airliner hull value, from a previous high of approximately $250 million to as much as $300 million.
The actuaries also estimated that by the time the first wave of 130 Airbus A380s made it to the market, the percentage of worldwide aircraft with seating above 450 could triple to 15 percent. Orders for the A380 are now above 160. Average liability loss in the industry is also estimated to increase 10 percent, from $329 million to $359 million.
Wayne Wignes, executive director of the Global Aviation Practice Group for Chicago-based Aon Corp., says the debut of the A380 reminds him of the 1969 introduction of the Boeing 747. As the 747 did, the A380 will increase prices for all commercial airlines, not just operators of the A380.
“If action or inaction by a service provider is ever found to be the cause of an incident with the A380, the liability would be immense,” Wignes says. “Underwriters would be aware of that, and it would be reflected in insurance pricing.”
In the short term, experts say the A380 is making a quiet entrance from an insurance-pricing standpoint.
One key factor is overcapacity. After Sept. 11, 2001, airlines felt obligated to increase coverage. Premiums skyrocketed from an annualized rate of $1.75 billion to around $4 billion. But when faltering airlines reduced their number of routes, reducing risk exposure, the result was airlines holding too much coverage. A vastly improved industry safety record contributed to the bulge.
Martin Stevens, the London-based chief underwriting officer for American International Group Inc., says the aviation industry’s insurance premiums are now below where they were pre-Sept. 11, and this fall’s A380 debut in Singapore isn’t likely to alter them substantially.
The slow pace at which the aircraft has been delivered also has lessened the A380’s impact, says Steve Alexandris, a vice president and senior airline underwriter in the Atlanta office of specialty insurer C.V. Start & Co. Inc. Originally expected to be in use in Singapore in the fall of 2006, the A380 has been delayed more than a year because it was overweight and required complicated wiring.
The delay meant a handful of top Airbus executives lost their jobs, the number of A380s ordered was reduced and the sales price dropped in some cases. Furthermore, the delay has given customers more time to shop for coverage.
“Is it a big deal?” says Steven Doyle, the London-based executive director for Aon Global Aviation. “Probably it would have been had it come to the industry a little bit quicker than it has. It has been such a long, ongoing process that people are now kind of accustomed to it. You’re not going to see the skies darkened with A380s.”
Luxury-seating arrangements requested by the A380’s first customers are also playing a role. Neither Singapore Airlines Ltd. nor another early customer, Qantas, is ordering planes with much more than 500 seats, equal to what some 747s already carry.
“The addition of the A380 is not suddenly going to dramatically change the risk profile of airports that are already seeing large, wide-bodied aircraft,” Doyle says.
In addition, Alexandris, who specializes in coverage for airlines based in the United States, says U.S. airlines will be slow to take on the A380 because of the country’s litigious atmosphere and the different service needs of airlines based here.
“The U.S. airlines we have spoken to don’t seem to have a whole lot of interest in the A380,” Alexandris says. “They would rather offer two flights of 300 people two hours apart than one flight flying 600 people.”
Evaluation of the effect of a consumer-driven health plan on medical care expenditures and utilization
Consumer-driven health plans (CDHPs) have moved beyond the concept stage and are now health benefit options available to employees in many large companies. Mainstream insurers, such as Aetna, United Health Group, and Wellpoint have introduced their own CDHPs to compete with products offered by start-up companies such as Definity, Luminos, and others. Health policy analysts have expressed concerns that CDHPs could create adverse selection problems and have unintended impacts on service use. These concerns are motivated by analyses of plan designs and philosophical beliefs, but have been largely uninformed by empirical research. In this research project, we used a claims dataset to compare the medical service use and expenditures of employees who were enrolled in a CDHP in 2001 and 2002 to employees enrolled in a health maintenance organization (HMO) and a preferred provider organization (PPO). Our analysis addressed the following questions:
1. What was the impact of the CDHP on payments to providers (i.e., total expenses)?
2. What was the impact of the CDHP on employee out-of-pocket expenses for medical care?
3. Was service use different for CDHP enrollees compared with enrollees in the other health plans?
4. Was the illness burden different in the CDHP versus other plans, and how did it change over time?
5. Were the CDHP effects different in the first year of enrollment, compared with the second year?
Consumer-driven plans differ from traditional insurance and managed care products in philosophy and design. Philosophically, they seek to involve the consumer more directly in health care decision making. Typically, in these products, a “health spending account” is created from which the employee purchases services. Some form of major medical or “wrap-around” coverage is also a key part of the benefits design. If an employee spends all of the dollars in the health spending account in a given year, she then spends her own money until the deductible requirement in the major medical coverage is met. Expenditures in excess of the deductible are covered by the major medical plan. The benefit design can be tailored to cover all or part of these “excess” expenditures. To facilitate informed decision making, the employee is provided with information about health care providers, including physician education and experience, prices, and quality ratings. Usually, this information is available on the Internet to ensure easy access and promote its use .
Consumer-driven health plans are often compared to medical savings accounts (MSA). MSAs first became available in the mid-1980s; they were later regulated by the 1996 Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) as a tax-exempt health insurance product offered primarily to employers with 50 or fewer workers and individuals in Medicare . Consumer-driven health plans differ from MSAs in several important ways. Most CDHPs are Internet-enabled health plans that were originally financed by venture capitalists during the dot.com boom of the late 1990s . The use of information technology in an effort to create “informed consumers” is a distinguishing CDHP feature . In contrast, MSAs typically instruct subscribers to “shoe-box” their medical bills for later reimbursement from their accounts, as long as they are under the deductible. For many CDHPs, the Internet has an interactive customer support system to allow a subscriber to track medical expenditures deducted from her account online. Consumer-driven health plans offer online linkages to prescription drug benefit programs as well as online benefit eligibility information to ensure prompt payment to medical providers. Because CDHPs are much more sophisticated in their product delivery to consumers and employers, they are attractive to many medium-to-large employers. In contrast, HIPAA-regulated MSAs contain a number of restrictive provisions that can make these plans difficult to describe to consumers and intimidating for health benefits managers and insurance brokers.
Interviews with employees and CDHP managers suggest several reasons why larger employers are attracted to CDHPs. Philosophically, these employers want informed employee decisions to “drive the market.” Under the CDHP spending account approach, employers believe their employees have an incentive to seek information on providers’ prices and to carefully consider their need for services, because any unexpended funds “roll-over” into next year’s account balance. This potentially reduces the annual “gap” between the spending account contribution and the deductible amount faced by the employee. Also, employers see CDHPs as possibly reducing their administrative expenses. If the CDHP is popular with employees, it may mean that other plan options can be dropped. Finally, some employers may see the CDHP approach as a way to divorce the amount their contribution to health insurance increases each year from trends in premiums, linking it instead to overall employee compensation increases. In this respect, CDHPs would function as “transition vehicles” that could be used to redefine the role of employers in the purchase of health insurance, much as defined contribution retirement accounts did with respect to retirement benefits.
In theory, by combining a high-deductible health insurance plan with a health spending account, a CDHP creates incentives for enrollees to economize on their utilization of medical care. However, there is very little empirical evidence from the MSA experience to inform our research design. Simulation analyses indicate that an employer-funded MSA may have moderate effects on health care spending, depending on who joins (Keeler et al. 1996). A mandatory MSA might reduce spending by 6 percent to 13 percent. The RAND Health Insurance Experiment found that a high-deductible health insurance plan would reduce spending by one-third compared with comprehensive fee-for-service insurance . But, the RAND study did not examine what would happen if the high-deductible plan were combined with a health spending account.
Cost of dying is biggest item in health care costs, actuaries tell Romanow
The high cost of dying has more to do with soaring health care costs than the aging population does, according to the Canadian Institute of Actuaries.
In its submission to the Romanow commission on the future of health care, the institute said that 30 to 50 per cent of total lifetime health care expenditures occur in the last six months of life. Noting the sensitivity of the subject, the group suggested greater use of less expensive palliative care and living wills.
The debate on health care cannot move forward without a recognition that about 30 per cent of spending currently comes from the private sector, the institute said. That sector includes doctors, who are private entrepreneurs, and hospitals, which are generally private, non-profit corporations.
Standard insurance principles, including deductibles and co-payments, should be applied to medicare, the institute said.
Where an analysis of medical efficacy results in a service being dropped from provincial health plans, it should still be available to consumers who can pay directly or through private insurance, CIA said.
It also called for prescription drug coverage for all Canadians, noting that costs could be controlled through a national drug formulary that uses cost-benefit analysis. A British Columbia study showed that one-third of the 147% increase in drug costs for seniors over 15 years was the result of a shift to new, more expensive drugs with no improvement in therapeutic outcomes, CIA said.