Unskilled sure, but Guin’s not a 20-something.
I did, in fact, have that very experience last year. My husband and I both needed some medical stuff, but did not have insurance. I researched the costs and determined that yes, we could actually afford to pay in cash the very day we had treatment.
Here is the thread from last year where I ask for advice on resolving one of the problems, which basically came down to I could not get a medical test even though I could pay cash. I had to cross a state line to get a test done.
I also could not get a tetanus booster around the same time - one HAD to have before I could start work at a job site. No tetanus update, no job. The booster costs… oh, around $25 if I recall. Again - multiple refusals DESPITE having the money to pay in hand. If I had no insurance I would not be seen - be careful and when you get hurt go to the ER for your shot. WTF?
That’s your “free-market” in action - it’s not a free market at all! If you aren’t going through the insurance racket you ain’t shit and you ain’t getting shit - even if you have the money to pay up front!
I don’t really care why they feel it is OK to take my money. Feeling that way is bad enough.
Then let them give it, and leave me alone.
Orangutans are solitary, monkeys, like us, are social and communal. If we really left you alone, you’d learn that in a big-ass hurry.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/01/business/01meddebt.html A mere 68 percent of the people filing bankruptcy due to illness had medical coverage. Had . If you have it, it may be only good until you need it. Then they wont pay.
Wait, employer-provided insurance is FORCED to cover someone despite pre-existing conditions? This is news to me.
If this is true, then where is all the controversy over “job lock” (being unable to change jobs because medical insurance in the new job won’t cover you) come from?
Liberal media. They made it up. I mean, otherwise you are left saying that American business cares more about profit than they do about Americans.
I have a college degree – in something other than internet trolling, as your’s appears to be.
Wrong. You have less safety and security, you also have less freedom. Which is much of the point of opposing social programs; to make people less secure, and therefore less free.
“Socialist hellholes” are better places to live; it’s America that’s degenerating towards a hellhole with it’s fanatic attachment to privatization and the free market at any cost. And this society was founded on slavery and only landowners being allowed to vote; the kind of libertarian values I oppose .
Utter garbage; it’s the horror of the world. People in other nations have trouble believing just how awful it is.
It’s called “serfdom”; the ultimate end goal of libertarianism. A society where the rich are the masters, and the commoners do what they are told or die. A libertarian society is one where your boss can demand your daughter as a sex toy, and you’ll hand her over because you’ll starve if you don’t. And the government won’t interfere.
Libertarianism is AGAINST equality. It wants to eliminate the ability of the common people to defend themselves through the government, which is the only effective tool they have. The libertarians have no interest in equality or freedom; they oppose them.
The fact that humans are monkeys and therefore communal doesn’t justify every program that you think would benefit everyone. There are other things that I think benefit everyone that I think are just fine (and in fact mandatory) for the US federal government to do.
Dude, why do you even try anymore? Absolutely no one takes you seriously.
One could say the same about you.
I picture you saying that to yourself in the mirror every morning. 
And that’s part of the problem - healthcare is not based on free-market principles. Due to competition, the free-market always provides a better service and lower costs vs. a government system.
No, it doesn’t, and never has. Your statement is an ideologically driven statement of faith, and nothing more.
You know what’s funny? He’s taken more seriously than you are. I’m sure you’ll try to blame us for that, but it’s really all your fault. Der Trihs, at least, didn’t name himself after a failed social philosophy.
So I’d like to repeat a question asked before: what changes, exactly, do you think are needed (if any) to improve the current system that (in your opinion) would create a better result than any step towards UHC? Be as specific as possible; if, for example, taking down certain regulations is needed, which ones?
As mentioned, the current health system we have makes sense only to a medieval feudal lord.
So in this case, many do take Der Trihs seriously. If you are a shining example of libertarianism :dubious: then it is no wonder that even Republicans think that Libertarianism is a philosophy created for and by rich teenagers.
That statement is one of the points under debate. If you want to convince anybody, you need to back it with sound arguments and cites.