I don’t believe the issue for you is cost, since there are lots of models of healthcare systems around the world with lower costs than ours. Adopting them could provide equal or better outcomes at lower costs. I understand you see a downside in terms of personal responsibility or personal liberty or something.
You don’t see the slight difference between a gym membership and access to health care which can save ones life?
Right to life. For people who actually have working brains. You might be familiar with the term.
It will always be rationed. Is it more moral to ration it based solely on wealth or based on medical necessity?
The first responders at the crash site in SFO sent people to the hospital in order of their need, not the thickness of their wallets. Is this a good policy or a bad one?
You do a fantastic job of quoting out of context (and just generally ignoring context, it seems). If you are unable to understand my question, just say so and I’ll keep simplifying it until you do understand it. If you have no interest in my question, then why do you keep bringing it up?
I didn’t think this took “rocket science” to figure out.
American health care is very expensive, but we don’t want to reduce the costs: those who benefit have powerful lobbies; and, anyway, the high cost creates the illusion we’re getting better care.
The high cost means lower-income older and infirm people will not be able to afford care, nor afford unsubsidized health insurance priced by a fair market.
Society must decide whether to subsidize health care for those who cannot afford it. A sense of community and charity is fine, but money doesn’t grow on trees.
Health insurance for those who cannot afford it must be subsidized by those who can. Two obvious candidate groups to exploit are: (a) high-income people, (b) young healthy people.
Obamacare was largely designed by the GOP, despite that they kept their promise to vote against it once they had it just the way they wanted it. Transferring the financial burden away from the wealthy was win-win for them: Please their donor base, while helping the Demo base to find fault with Obamacare.
This works out badly for young people, already enjoying the burdens of student loans and unemployment. Maybe we should start another war and offer more military jobs.
Actually, this thread has nothing to do with healthcare as a right. That argument is a tangent that all of these threads end up on.
I disagree with this. You know very well that the number of people who are uninsured is not equal to the number of people who cannot afford insurance. Subtract out illegals, those who are between jobs, those that can afford insurance but do not get it, and those eligible for government programs that don’t sign up and the numbers are a lot lower. BlueCross took a stab at trying to calculate the number of people in that “working poor” group about a decade ago and their number was in the neighborhood of 8 million. Many people, myself included, think there are better ways of dealing with the health care problem (including pre-existing conditions) than trying to change the entire system and force people to purchase a product they may not want.
The states that refused the Medicaid expansion did not do so because “they don’t really even want to pay for the very poorest.” They refused the expansion because the states will be on the hook for some of the costs over the long haul. A lot of states are strapped as it is and don’t think they can afford the expansion. Many states are struggling with the cost of the current program. Claiming that evil republicans don’t want to help the poor is a poor way to make any kind of argument.
I can certainly understand your concern and frustration. But, personalizing this is a poor way to make a point. Claiming that another poster would prefer you just die or go bankrupt may make you feel better but it does nothing to further your point of view.
In case you care I grew up in poverty and did not have insurance until after I was married in my late 20’s. My mom couldn’t afford insurance for us and, in fact, didn’t get insurance for herself until the kids were out of the house. We are damn lucky nothing very serious ever happened. I’m lucky enough to have finished college, get married, and have a decent income now. I can afford insurance but I am not some privledged guy that can’t understand the suffering of the poor. I lived most of my life in poverty and most of my family struggle to make ends meet. Regardless, you seem to think that anyone who disagrees with the Medicaid expansion or Obamacare in general want to see poor people suffer. In reality most of us feel that Obamacare will do more harm than good over the long term.
Well, feel free to provide some context. I didn’t take your question out of context…I damn near quoted the entire post. Here, I’ll quote the whole post so you can point out that part that I missed (you know, the context and all)
Now, maybe I’m dense but I don’t see any reference there to health care. Oh, maybe the context was in your mind but I’m unable to read that. What I can clearly see is you trying to backpedal.
What? Did I say I wan’t interested? Where? What I’m not interested in is a poster who either can’t read or understand his own post (in context)
This strikes me as highly dubious. Seems much more likely that the opposition to joining is strictly a case of cutting off their noses to spite their faces. Let’s look at the numbers:
For the first three years, the federal government will pick up 100 percent of the tab. Obviously any state can afford that (and if they don’t, their citizens are still paying for this expansion in other states when they pay their federal taxes). The fourth year, it drops to 95 percent; the fifth, 94 percent; the sixth, 93 percent; and for subsequent years, 90 percent.
I would argue that even at that 90 percent level, the money injected by the federal government into those states (allowing hospitals, clinics, labs, and doctors’ offices to hire more workers, who will spend more money at other businesses who will then hire more workers as well with the multiplier effect) will provide more than enough tax revenue for the states to pay for that last ten percent. But let’s say very pessimistically that it only covers half of it. This would still mean that this is an area where a state can spend a dollar to get twenty dollars’ worth of benefits for its citizens. That’s a very good deal!
And finally, the ultimate proof that they are full of shit is that if it were really just about cost to them and not about thumbing their noses at Obama, they could sign up, take the money for the first three years when it costs them not a cent, and then drop the expansion any time they like after that.
One of the assertions about Obamacare is that health insurance companies will somehow “compete” among themselves, and that this competition will “lower” healthcare costs.
I live in Massachusetts, which has had compulsory health insurance for years. All of the health insurers here have similar plans, with premiums that differ only by a few dollars/month. There is no effective competition at all-you pay what they say, and there is nothing to suggest that premiums are going any way but up.
So whatever is said about the ACA, there will be no effective competition-just monopoy price fixing.
Yeah, and while I’m at it, why should I pay auto insurance while I have a perfect driving record? I’d rather just wait until I have an accident and then start paying premiums. Which, of course I won’t, because I’m very careful and I’ll never have an accident. This “insurance” racket makes no sense.
Well, perhaps - but only if you are lucky enough to get hit by that truck during the annual Open Enrollment period and can survive until coverage begins - weeks later in most cases.
I don’t know a lot about Canadian health care - can you help? Can you buy supplemental insurance for a private hospital room in Canada after surgery because you don’t like your semi-private room? Can you buy dental coverage the day after someone takes out a few teeth in a bar fight?
Serious question here: do you know anything about how markets work? I mean, even the first thing?
Like, do you go into the package store and notice that Bud Light and Miller Lite are priced almost exactly the same, but then you see that Samuel Adams costs more; and then complain that there’s no competition in the beer market?
Medicaid is already one of the biggest cost drivers of state budgets…typically accounting for a quarter of state budgets. States can see the writing on the wall…spending will only increase over time. Paying 10% of the increase could stretch some state budgets to the limit.
Your link says this is the first public confirmation that states can reduce coverage in the future but, as you well know, entitlements are seldom if ever cut or reduced.
Yes, competition means that someone puts out a better product at a lower price. Non-competition means that everybody supplies the same lousy product, at the same price. have I answered your question?:smack:
PatriotX is right. A law against it? Is that a whoosh?
Most insurance companies exist only because they caninvest the premiums - and there is no law against it. Remember a little company called AIG that almost trashed the world economy back in 2008?
So, Bud Light and Miller Lite are not in competition? You think that Coke and Pepsi have actually just colluded with each other to arbitrarily set the price of sugar water at $1.25 per 20 ounce bottle? There must be some illegal antitrust stuff going on because a Hershey bar costs the same as a Snickers?
So what you are really saying is that even though they can take the free money for three years and then quit, they will be unlikely to do so because they would find it too uncomfortable to cut off that service. Thing is, though: that is already what is going to happen to them. Under the old system (if we can call it that), the federal government provided hospitals money to care for the uninsured. Now, in states that don’t have the Medicaid expansion, that money will be gone. Hospitals in those states will have to reduce their staff, and some may even close.
And comparing this expansion to the regular program is ridiculous as the federal government’s leaves a much larger share (up to 50%) for states to pay.
A snapshot is the wrong way to look at it. Young people become old people. (If they get appropriate medical care). Might as well say that a long-term savings account is an unfair tax because you get nothing for it the year you put in your deposit.
As the young age, they will get an increasng number of health problems and will need younger people to pay into the pool.
ALL other models are cheaper than yours. And its not by any small amount. Just US government healthcare, covering 27 % of the population, costs more per citizen than the total healthcare expenses, including 100% coverage UHC, of all but two other countries.
It is a fundamental motivator for which side you come down on.
It is not just the uninsured, it is the underinsured also - those who buy very high deductible policies with maximums that might lead to bankruptcy in any case - and those whose financial situation discourages them from seeking care which will not be covered, being under the deductible.
And article in the Murky News the other day noted that in some states, like California and New York, premiums on the exchanges are below current averages, while in others, I think Indiana was one, people would pay more than they do today. It turns out a major reason for this is first increase in costs for the young, as you mention, and also that ACA minimum standards are above what a lot of people are buying. The quoted study did not include subsidies, by the way.
I certainly agree that politics made this more of a hodgepodge than it had to be. But I’d like to hear a better solution. The only stuff I heard from Republicans is to cut costs by stopping working people from going to the doctor for fun, as if that happens. Since then we have had evidence of the wide range of prices, and the near impossibility of choosing a provider based on price.
This seems to be highly correlated with party. I know going forward the states would have to pay 10% of the bill. I suppose they could honestly believe low taxes for the rich are more important than healthcare for the poor, but I rather think it is more that the poor don’t support them in elections, so screw them.
I bet your mother was very concerned about this. And health costs were a lot lower back then. When I was born the cost of a hospital stay for maternity was under $100. And those in their '20s seldom need insurance. I think I was covered by my school when I was in grad school but I pretty much never went to the doctor, so I didn’t even think about it. My daughter makes decisions based on this - before she got a postdoc she had arranged for funding which came with insurance that would cover her husband also, and rejected a somewhat better source which only covered her. That’s crazy.
I wouldn’t want to guess at anyone’s motivations - they might have no intention of hurting the poor and the working poor. But that is how it comes out. California covered these people before this program, so we are going to do very well with it. I don’t mind paying a bit more in taxes to give these people a break. Some politicians disagree. I think we get more money from Alabama refusing coverage, but I’d rather get less.
How does similar pricing demonstrate a lack of competition? For a product which is easily compared on the basis of benefits, any company charging significantly more for the same benefits isn’t going to do much business. Of course they are similar. That is the result of competition.