I guess you couldn’t be bothered to read and comprehend my first sentence.
Why not? They are people too. Aren’t you willing to sacrifice for these people…er…your country?
I didn’t claim it is old vs young. The new healthcare plan is pitting the old against the young in pricing these plans.
I did, but you seem to have a much narrower view of “community” than I do.
I’m not willing to make a pointless sacrifice for anybody. I’m not claiming that any individual or small group of individuals is the same as the country, but that the entirety of the people in it is.
I will ‘age out’ to Medicare in six months, so I have little direct stake in Obamacare, it I just don’t get this ‘burden on the young’ calculus.
I have paid for my own insurance for the past four years and for thirty-eight years before that, my employer and I have paid for insurance. Doubtless many hundreds of thousands of dollars, with most of it in the last twenty years. Only one minor surgery in all those years.
Who has been spending all those dollars? Perhaps the uninsured?
It is a shared burden, regardless of age.
Please explain why you think it does this - as opposed to including reasonable steps to expand the risk pool and keep people from gaming the system. While you’re at it, explain how a system that allows people with pre-existing conditions (like me) purchase insurance in the open marketplace can be viable without these rules.
There’s a stronger focus in health care now in prevention. That is what they will be selling to the young - an opportunity for improved monitoring so they don’t get old and sick as fast as previous generations.
Isn’t it true that there are now more minority babies being born than non-minorities?
Under the law insurance companies cannot use an age ratio greater than 3 to 1. If the law limits the amount paid by older people that money has to come from somewhere.
It can’t. That’s exactly why it is pitting old vs. young or, if you prefer, young and healthy vs. older and not so healthy.
Starting a family and foregoing health insurance is not wise. My last bill for labor & delivery charges alone was $12,500 without any childbirth complications. My sister’s premature labor and delivery probably cost ten times that.
Sure. Let’s take from each person according to their ability, and give to each person according to their need. People should be willing to give according to their own ability, and recognize that others simply need more than their own ability can provide for themselves. We’re all in this together.
What could possibly go wrong?
To answer without sarcasm: the claim that you’re supposed to be willing to sacrifice for your country is not without a context. In my opinion, that context is: your country is also being supported by others who have sacrificed. This scheme, in contrast, allows grasshoppers to enjoy the summer while the ants labor to prepare for the winter, and then rewards the grasshoppers for their choices by demanding the ants share their accumulated bounty.
It does not, in other words, do much to separate those who refuse to plan from those who legitimately lack the resources.
Um…I didn’t say young people shouldn’t get insurance.
One simple question: why are Congressional employees not require to enroll in Obamacare? Why are unions exempt?
Seems to me that if we allow people with high incomes to avoid contributing, the thing is bound to fail.
Congressional employees are required to enroll in Obamacare. I don’t think the unions are exempt but they are fighting mad about some of the changes to their gold-plated Cadillac plans.
I don’t understand. What do you think those who can’t provide for themselves should do? Crawl under the porch and die?
The ability > need phrase assumes that the collective abilities meet the collective needs, which hasn’t been demonstrated in health care or anything else. I am just saying that all the people in the society should have equal access to opportunity, including health care. If we as a society can’t afford to keep sick people alive, so be it, but I don’t see why the insured are somehow more worth saving than the uninsured, or the rich more than the poor.
We have a saying in the insurance industry. 20% of insured people use 80% of the money paid in.
As stated before, these are not static categories. Everyone young will become old. Every one who is generally healthy will at times get sick or injured. The idea that the young are so desirous to avoid a short term bad deal that will pay likely pay off in the long run is just not borne out by most metrics.
Almost every young person I know is planning to go to college, and would go to the most prestigious and expensive college they can get in to and afford (with loans) regardless of whether it’s a good investment. They routinely work for free in internships, and accept jobs where they are often paid far less than their value relative to more experienced employees. Look at what college students major in versus what income those majors can command. If the young were so desirous to make purely rational economic decisions, then why aren’t they are STEM majors and bankers? Yes, financial incentives are helpful, but that’s not the only metric. Young people are more forward looking than most people give them credit for.
Plus, there is also good reason to think today’s economic circumstances will make the young generation more risk averse, like those who grew up during the depression.
Lastly, there is only a very small slice of the public for whom not buying insurance makes economic sense. Between the subsidized plans for the working poor-ish, and the penalties for not being covered, it hard to make the math work. The people we are talking about are probably over 25 and under 40. If they have a decent job, and their employer doesn’t provide insurance, they will likely be liable for any and all healthcare costs they incur. The problem is compounded by the fact that they will pay MUCH higher rates for most of that care. Even if foregoing insurance is a negative proposition relative to health care costs shouldered by the insurance company, it likely isn’t for someone paying out of pocket. It is a win-win for many relatively healthy people given the insurance company can leverage their power in pursuit of lower prices.
Are you for letting the insurance companies charge older people an unlimited amount, or do you favor the limit being 3.5x?
Got it. You are in the let them die or go bankrupt camp. Specifically, let me die or go bankrupt if I am ever unlucky enough to lose my job and my insurance, and I get a very possible stroke.
But the identity of that 20% changes over time, doesn’t it? Five years ago my wife had several retinal surgeries, and cost our insurance company a bundle. Since then she has been very cheap.
I suspect the curve of medical costs per person is reasonably Gaussian, with peak at a few hundred bucks per year, censored on the left at 0, and with a reasonably long tail.
All doctors and hospitals have to do is charge the same amount for each interaction, be it a shot or heart surgery, and this curve will be a lot flatter. 
By definition, the participants in an insurance plan have to pay in more than they receive in benefits, on average. Else the plan cannot continue.
[QUOTE=jasg]
I have paid for my own insurance for the past four years and for thirty-eight years before that, my employer and I have paid for insurance. Doubtless many hundreds of thousands of dollars, with most of it in the last twenty years. Only one minor surgery in all those years.
Who has been spending all those dollars? Perhaps the uninsured?
[/quote]
The other participants in the plan have received the money, less admin costs and returns to shareholders. The uninsured are indirectly subsidized in that health care providers charge more for their services to cover the costs of patients for whom they receive no reimbursement. If the indigent had health insurance that was covered by the taxpayer, like Medicaid, that wouldn’t change the costs overall - you would simply have to pay more in taxes to cover the health insurance reimbursement. Same money, different pocket. (In case someone is going to claim that we would save money by funding preventative care, no, we probably won’t. There is little evidence that preventative care, overall, saves money in the long run.)
Well, no. The majority of the health care costs of the average American are incurred during the first year of life, and the last six months of life. Newborns don’t pay taxes, and old people benefit more from taxpayer funded health care because they collect more than they pay in. So it may be a shared burden, but it falls disproportionately on those who, by and large, don’t incur as much health care cost as older groups.
As I mentioned above, I don’t see how that can be avoided. As the OP mentions, Obamacare is just not that attractive to the currently uninsured. Since one cannot be declined from coverage by pre-existing conditions, one viable strategy might be to forgo insurance. Thus you just pay the tax that Obama claimed absolutely wasn’t a tax - although I think he said now he wasn’t going to enforce the fine for not having insurance. Then if you get hit by a truck or something, you fill out the insurance forms in the ambulance, and presto, covered. Because the fine is less than the cost of health insurance.
Regards,
Shodan