Voldemort? I don’t think I’ve ever seen him express much interest in the debate over UHC.
I asked my insurer a hypothetical question: Suppose I broke my leg. Would an ambulance ride be covered? (I live alone, and this is a seasonal community so I don’t know anyone.) I was told that an ambulance would only be covered for life-threatening situations. I was advised to hire a cab. :rolleyes: ‘Excuse me, Mr. Non-Medically-Trained Cabbie, will you help me into your vehicle – without doing any further damage? Thank you.’
He has his minions for that.
He wasn’t particularly evil until his plan refused to cover rhinoplasty and hair plugs.
You can also call for a non-medical-emergency transport which looks like an ambulance but takes longer to arrive. And you get to pay for it all yourself.
Did you even read the discussion? It’s pretty apparent that you didn’t.
No, stupid, I said that it is unfair that those who do not have or intend to have children have to pay a much higher premium for their group coverage to cover the (at minimum) tens of thousands of dollars of prenatal, birth, post natal and early child care costs. All of which costs you all chose to incur, unlike the other big ticket medical expenses like cancer treatment.
Now wait a minute - EVERY policy I have had through an employer charger a higher rate for family coverage as opposed to individual, and for the last two (that covers 20+ years) they had single, single+1, and family, in ascending order of premiums.
In other words, those with kids WERE paying more for their policies. Substantially more.
Isn’t that what you wanted, curlcoat?
FWIW, having signed up with a new policy for a new job back in July, my company does “single” and “family up to 10 kids”.
They also pay 100% of single, which is pretty rare nowadays.
-Joe
Another anecdote to throw in for poops and giggles.
I have a problem with headaches. A few years ago I was down flat on the ground, brain throbbing out my ears in pain. However, I did not have the $100 copay to take myself to the ER, so I dealt with it until the following morning when I could get in to see my regular doctor (and pay only the $25 copay).
Due to other heath issues, she wanted to rule out an aneurysm, so sent me over to the hospital for an MRI.
It ended up simply being the worst migraine I had ever had. A scrip for migraine meds issued, and I was okay later in the day.
A few weeks later I received a bill from radiology for $400. Called my insurance company asking WTF? They only paid for part of the MRI. If I had taken myself into the ER it would have been covered in full. But because I tried to save money by seeing my regular doc I ended up paying much more than I was originally worried about.
Made sense.
And, as Broomstick posted, I have always paid much more to have TheKid on my insurance policy. Right now if I wanted insurance just for myself, I would pay $35/mo. I pay for 1+child which is $290/mo. The 1+ is relatively new. I used to pay $370/mo for family - just her and I.
They pay more AFTER the kid is born. Before that, the insurance company pays out those tens of thousands on the mom’s policy. Despite my various health issues, I haven’t cost my insurance companies as much in the last 10-15 years as one normal pregnancy, and trust me, my medical problems were/are not something I chose to do.
Then, when the kid is added to the policy, under your single, single+1, and family, if we are talking Dad, Mom and 2.5 kids, they are paying less per person for their policy than that single is, or the single +1 (which is frequently employee + spouse). Even tho children are far more expensive to cover than most adults, even if they are born healthy. Not born healthy? Tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. All for something someone chose to do. Why is this choice the only thing that is covered across the board, no matter what your situation is, yet people suffer from actual medical conditions with no care? Maybe if we quit subsidizing all this childbirth, fewer people would send their kids into the world unprepared to take care of themselves.
Boy, you really aren’t very bright. Follow along with me: if it’s unfair that I make use of the childbirth benefit that I pay for, it stands to reason that you think it would be more fair if I pay for it and don’t make use of it. And that’s fucking stupid.
Or, looked at a different way, you only have yourself to blame if you’re paying into a policy that covers things you never intend to take advantage of, because you are, by definition, willingly subsidizing people who do, perfectly reasonably, take advantage of that benefit. Oh, and you’re whining about it. Why don’t you listen to your own advice and take some personal responsibility?
Yes, I did. Some of us are quite good at reading for comprehension.
You feel that it’s selfish to use insurance to cover childbirth. So, what are people supposed to do? If routine childbirth really costs $20,000 in the USA and you want people to wait and save up for that, you’re going to get mostly older mothers with the problems (and extra expense) that brings. Or, perhaps you’re suggesting that nobody should have any kids at all? Surely even a halfwit such as yourself can see that that is a stupid plan for your country.
Look, people do lots of stupid things to incur health insurance costs. Smoking, drinking, driving, extreme sports, sexual activity, fighting, etc. The nature of insurance (private OR universal) is that all kinds of health costs are covered, not just the ones you personally approve of. Just because you sit at home wrapped in bubble wrap and carefully never having any fun doesn’t mean you’re going to get a discount.
I think this is a very good point. No one is forcing CC to buy a policy that covers childbirth. If she doesn’t want to subsidize people who choose to have children, then all she has to do is buy insurance that dosn’t have that benefit. She is not being coerced into anything; she has just chosen poorly, and now regrets it. Boo-fucking-hoo.
Give it up people. You’re dealing with the Curlinator. It can’t be reasoned with. It is impervious to logic. It can’t be bargained with. It is relentless and remorseless. It will never give up until the sun goes nova in 6 billion years.
I know. I’m just amazed it has stooped to blaming me and others for its own poor choices in life.
And yet anothe thread goes down to curlcoat’s obsession to demanding the rest of the world agree with her opinions.
Never mind who else may need health care, and the reasonable precautions they may have taken to get it – what’s important is one SSDI-drawing childless woman in Orange County. California’s views of how the world should be run.
She’s got a right to her opinion, sure. She doesn’t have the right to make every thread all bout curlcoat.
And even at that point, it will demand an extension.
Or else first-class passage (preferably in its very onliest starship) to the nearest habitable extrasolar planet. Furnished by the government, of course, because it paid into the system, dammit, unlike the lazy slackers it’s leaving behind.
Anyone else drawing stark similarities between the tenor, if not the specific language, of the Curlinator in this thread and the extreme examples from the Childfree forums in the two current threads about that movement?
And if that is what I’d said, it would be stupid. However, what I said was I am paying to cover childbirth benefits for all of the people on the same group policy that I am on, and have been doing so for the last 27+ years. The expense of those childbirth benefits drives up the cost of the premiums for everyone. Therefore, it doesn’t seem fair that I am paying to cover some of the expense for other folks’ choice to have children. And now you want me to pay even more to cover even more people’s health care.
I don’t have a problem if you want to use insurance to pay for childbirth. I’d just prefer that I didn’t have to pay higher premiums because I’m on the same policy as those who are having children.
Obviously, you don’t know much about group health insurance policies. I have never seen one that didn’t cover childbirth, nor one that didn’t charge less (per kid) for more children in a family. And even if such group policies exist, we’ve never been offered one. Group policy premiums are still cheaper than a private policy, but it sure would be nice if you all would quit expecting people like me to help you pay for your desire to have kids.
Heh, here I could say that using that argument, we shouldn’t allow older mothers to have babies on other people’s dimes, but I won’t. Instead, I’ll just say see my response to ntucker.
Smoking is stupid but doesn’t automatically lead to large costs for the insurance company currently covering the smoker. Extreme sports and fighting - injuries from those things can be considered self inflicted and may not be covered under many policies. Drinking, driving, sex? Unless you are doing them all at once, I can’t see that they frequently lead to high insurance costs. And for all of them? None are guaranteed to lead to high dollar bills right away, a pregnancy is. And none result from someone planning to need medical care. And the reality of it? It’s far more common that there will be babies born to people covered on a group policy than there will be someone with lung cancer or into extreme sports.
Childfree is not a “movement”, it is simply a designation. I haven’t seen the two threads you are talking about, but I wouldn’t be surprised if someone else over there is saying they are tired of paying for other people’s decisions to have kids.