I don’t think you’re getting what he’s saying.
FTR, **Fear_Itself **does not speak for all, or even most of us WRT tyranny by the majority.
I’ve called a number of pharmacies and they all say they can’t help me with it. I wasn’t aware of this particular law, which says there might have been options, but now I’m probably too close to the expiration dates. Dammit.
I’m not gay either. Libertarianism is so, so-- liberating!!
And hope his employer doesn’t take it badly when he refuses to work 60 hour weeks.
-Joe
You’re missing the point. **Fear Itself **is pointing out why Crafter_Man’s position is stupid–he’s not actually advocating such a position.
Would you like a small diagram as well, or do you get it now?
Yes, but that has nothing to do with health insurance, and more to do with how an employer will abuse their status as an immigrant’s sponsor.
I wasn’t even thinking about the immigrant thing - just that by tying healthcare to someone’s job the employer is given a hell of a lot more control over them. And if that employee has some major health problem like a diabetic who needs to get a job within six months (number picked at random) or they DIE? Some of the people I’ve worked for over the years I wouldn’t give life-and-death power over a fruit fly, much less a person.
-Joe
The point is, though, that if you’re relying on your employer for health insurance, you are less able to negotiate when your employer asks you to do something that you don’t want to do. Even if you’re not an immigrant on an H1B, if you can only get health insurance through group coverage (which is the case for many people with pre-existing conditions), your employer has an inordinate amount of power over you.
But this is exactly how things should be! 
I’m not going to comment on health insurance; I have my own opinions and have expressed them some time ago. But I do find interesting the meme showing up in here expressed by some that finding a job is somehow an easy thing to do.
I live in South Carolina. The county I live in, Lancaster County, has an 19% unemployment rate, as of last month. That counts only those people who are working or actively seeking work in the figures. Those who have given up looking aren’t even included. Current estimates of actual percentage of unemployed adults (over 18 years of age) who are capable of work run from 25% to 30%.
Tell those people that finding a job is an easy thing to do.
We have not seen unemployment levels this high in a very long time. I was fairly young, when it last happened. And although the rest of the nation is not so bad off, it’s not good, either.
This is the Yew-nited States, son. If you can’t find a job you’re supposed to either found a small business/multinational conglomerate, or at least admit you’re a sponge soaking up money from those around you who contribute to society and who deserve to be allowed their lifesaving drugs.
Or they didn’t have the sense to become assistant-junior tax accountants or whatever.
-Joe
I don’t think that it’s a reasoned response. Rather, it’s a mantra. Get a job … get a job … get a job.
I know that was tongue-in-cheek, but here I am, an entrepreneur who started her own business nine years ago, with shitty insurance. It has a high deductible ($5,000 per year) and won’t cover my cholesterol medication because of pre-existing conditions. I can afford it most months, but some days I take only 2 or 3 capsules rather than the four prescribed, so as to stretch it out until I can afford to get it refilled.
FWIW, I had a rather nice job and (supposedly) rather nice health insurance 7 years ago when Whatsit Jr. got sick, and the insurance company still managed to fuck us out of coverage to the tune of $8,000 out of pocket.
So, trust me, “just get a job” or “just get a job with insurance” or “just get a better job with better insurance” is no solution.
Do you really believe this? While society may be obligated to feed people, there’s no obligation to feed them the same things that wealthy people eat—things they buy with their own money. Do you not see a similar situation with healthcare?
MsWhatsit: You too, huh? When I had an emergency appendectomy, the insurance company declined to pay because the hospital was out of network. Even though it was an ‘emergency’.
That bill was $17 k. The hospital nicely wrote off more than half of it, but I will be paying them a little bit every month until I get the $8 k paid.
Why can’t there be a Plain Jane insurance for the poor, and the wealthy pay for ‘gap’ insurance, or insurance which covers more?
What have you seen that suggests healthcare will be any different? The government will give you food, but if you have a job you can buy much better food and in higher quantities. The government will provide housing, but they won’t give you a two-bedroom 1500 square foot house in the suburbs. The government will provide a police force, but it’s unlikely to be as good or responsive as your own private security detail, should you be able to afford or need one.
Why is it assumed that everyone will have the same type of healthcare? I would imagine there’d be a baseline healthcare plan regardless of who you are or how much money you have, but if you make enough you could easily buy a better plan.
The government provides the bare necessities, but that in no way precludes the ability or desire to buy better stuff. Unless you *like *eating ramen in a shelter, anyway.
If I had $100 for every time I’ve heard this story, I’d be well on the way to paying off the damn bill. (Well, it’s since been paid, but it took forever and sunk us in credit card debt for a very long time.) This seems to be an extremely common insurance company technique. You have some insanely expensive but necessary treatment done in a hospital, and they say, “Oh, that was out of network” and refuse to pay. In our case, the hospital was actually in-network. But one of the pediatric specialists in the NICU was out-of-network, and her specific services were not covered by our insurance plan. I am not making this up. I even called the insurance company, two days into the hospital stay, to ask them if we were covered. They said yes, absolutely. Then four weeks later we were notified, oh, whoops, that one doctor in the NICU was out of network, so you owe $7000 for her services.
We fought with them for about six months, and then I was depressed and exhausted and tired of getting medical bills and collection notices in the mail every day, and we just gave up and put it on our credit card. I probably should have hired an attorney to help us, but we didn’t really have the money for that, either. I know, it would have been cheaper than $7k, but my fear was that we’d shell out for the attorney and then lose and still have to pay the $7k plus now attorney’s fees too.
It sucked, and when I see people smugly say that if you can’t afford healthcare, why then you should just go out and get yourself a job (one of those jobs that has health insurance that always pays exactly what it says it will and never ever ever fucks over its customers just because it can, and because that’s what its goddamn profit strategy is), it makes me want to scream, or punch something.