# Health Insurance **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [July 19, 2018, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/health-insurance/818223 "2018-07-19T20:46:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2018, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/health-insurance/818223/121 "2018-07-25T18:40:04Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > I see you’re back, and talking out of your sphincter again. > > What insurance? Car insurance? In civilized jurisdictions, auto liability insurance is mandatory because of the potential costs you would impose on others and/or the public if you cause a serious accident. No sane person would consider it optional anyway. Of course, you can always choose not to own a car. Then the whole package is indeed voluntary. > > Exactly the same with health insurance, except I don’t know of any way you can choose not to have a physical body. No real option there, I’m afraid. > > The problem with you fucking libertarians is you don’t understand civilization, or society, or the idea of a literal common wealth. I still say you’d be happiest in pre-2002 Somalia, where _ **everything** _ was optional. In fact there was no government at all to “force” anyone to do anything, and pretty much no laws and no one to enforce them anyway. A libertarian paradise! What damages could you cause to someone if you don’t get healthcare? I could see if a nut didn’t get his medication he might go nutty. Is that what your contrived analogy hangs on? Btw I usually ignore the insults unless they are decent, so don’t waste your scarce brain power coming up with duds like these. ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2018, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/health-insurance/818223/122 "2018-07-25T18:48:08Z")
> [@Red\_Wiggler](#): > > Meh, we citizens agree to pool our money to do all sorts of things, some of which don’t immediately benefit us as individuals. Right before the commonsensical nature and superiority of universal health care systems seems like a strange place to draw a line. We citizens do not agree, apparently, or there would be no need for the government. > [@Voyager](#): > > So, people forced to buy auto insurance who don’t have accidents are getting abused? > And it is nice that you know what your medical bills for a year are going to be before you purchase insurance. The rest of us don’t. Yes they are being abused, though something similar would exist in a free market transportation network, so I do t get too bent out of shape about that. > [@Voyager](#): > > I’ve got my socialized medicine, I love it, and I want UHC for everyone not enjoying it. > I also somehow don’t want to spend every day in the doctor’s office, (which is very nice) despite being retired. I don’t know anyone else who does either. > Wonder why? Yes, the Boomers will benefit greatly because they are such a big voting bloc. They have indebted the government and future generations quite handily. ---
**Author:** ![kambuckta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/53a042/32.png) [@kambuckta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kambuckta)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2018, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/health-insurance/818223/123 "2018-07-25T20:25:21Z")
> [@bump](#): > > Is it conclusive that it would be a lower premium AND no out of pocket? When people say things like that, it gives me a gut feeling that there’s some wishful thinking going on, and/or some kind of hidden catches that are carefully not being mentioned. The ONLY time I have paid for any medical treatment in my adult life was last year when I needed two skin cancers removed, and because of where I live now, there was no public hospital nearby with a derm clinic so I had to go private. I have had four kids, numerous surgeries as in inpatient, outpatient care, and see a GP who ‘bulk-bills’ (does not charge the patient). Not once have I been required to make any payment at all. Nor have I had to wait inordinate times to access care. The longest was app 3 months on a waiting list to have an ear operation at one of the BEST specialist teaching hospitals in the world. Just recently my daughter needed vascular surgery, and our local GP advised her the waiting time at our large, local hospital would be considerable. So he suggested a smaller regional hospital which had her booked in within two weeks. We had ‘extra cost’ going to that hospital, just because we had to drive 1.5hrs each way, and then the same the following day when I went to pick her up. 🙂 But no hospital bill. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2018, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/health-insurance/818223/124 "2018-07-25T22:15:16Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > What damages could you cause to someone if you don’t get healthcare? > > I could see if a nut didn’t get his medication he might go nutty. Is that what your contrived analogy hangs on? > > Btw I usually ignore the insults unless they are decent, so don’t waste your scarce brain power coming up with duds like these. Your empathy for those with mental health issues is duly noted. It’s just what I would expect from an asshole like yourself. But that’s not what I was getting at. The uninsured are a drain on taxpayer money and health care provider incomes – which costs everyone – because ultimately the uninsured need emergency health care, even if it’s too late and they end up dying anyway. Usually they get this in the most expensive and inefficient and disruptive way possible, in emergency rooms, costing a fortune and tying up vital ER resources. This is money that in civilized countries is applied to proper ongoing universal health care for everyone. Specifically, the uninsured create a large array of regulatory costs, direct industry compliance costs, indirect costs due to mortality losses, and many other direct and indirect costs. [The AMA estimated](https://fds.duke.edu/db/attachment/1366) that physicians incurred $4.2 billion in bad debt in 2001, equivalent to $6 billion today, or $17,600 per physician, attributable to ER treatment of the uninsured due to EMTALA regulations alone. There’s also a whole category of [patient dumping abuses and financial settlements](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4899053/) associated with those. Thank you for informing me about your approach to insults, but I don’t give a flying fuck how your respond since my only objective here is to expose your ignorance. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2018, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/health-insurance/818223/125 "2018-07-25T22:22:37Z")
> [@Isamu](#): > > How is that possible? Mama never took him to get shots? Yep - parents never took him for shots, went to a private school that didn’t require vaccination for attendance, never got shots as an adult. Weird, I know - the reason he hasn’t had measles or something is more likely herd immunity due to the rest of us getting jabbed rather than him being super-immune. Just don’t try to tell him that, he’s convinced it’s all Jesus and his own manliness. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2018, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/health-insurance/818223/126 "2018-07-25T22:34:16Z")
Heh. If you ever get wind of a “measles (or chicken pox) party” in your neck of the woods, you should try to manipulate him into showing up at it… ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2018, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/health-insurance/818223/127 "2018-07-26T00:25:35Z")
> [@elbows](#): > > I am seriously heart broken when posters detail the trials they face at their darkest times, facing egregious layers of red tape, and having to fight for their benefits. In a system designed to opaque truly shocking fees, etc. That. Most of the time, when I post about healthcare here, it’s because “someone is wrong on the internet” and I of course must correct him. But, having been on this board for a long time, I’ve read my share of “horror stories” befalling dopers. Their loved one is gravely ill, and on top of that, they have to worry about their finances and spend whatever energy they might have left fighting insurance companies at every turn. Even the terminally ill person, for instance, might be worrying about the terrible financial situation he will leave his family in. Most of us unfortunately have experienced grevious health problems and death in our families, and thinking that you might have to deal with such crap and such worries at the same time is just terrible. And infuriating when you see people supporting the status quo on the basis of generally blatantly false arguments. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2018, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/health-insurance/818223/128 "2018-07-26T00:54:42Z")
> [@davidm](#): > > Thank you. You’re welcome, **davidm**. I don’t know if you feel like sharing, but did you have health insurance before it all happened? If so, are you surprised at the bills you’re getting? I’m just curious about the statement being made by some posters in this thread that most Americans are happy with their insurance. Were you happy with your insurance before? Are you still happy with it? ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2018, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/health-insurance/818223/129 "2018-07-26T01:23:28Z")
Why is he paying at all? He’s where he is, his health under serious threat, due to a medical error ! Shouldn’t all his bills be guaranteed paid? And his lost wages, so he can pay his rent during his lengthy recovery. What kind of nightmarish system is this, that seems to be okay with what’s happening to him. It truly stuns me. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2018, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/health-insurance/818223/130 "2018-07-26T01:45:16Z")
I am annoyed that my pain Doctor is not happy with the amount my insurance pays, and charges me more. The laboratory does the same, $50 over what my insurance pays. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2018, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/health-insurance/818223/131 "2018-07-26T05:06:33Z")
Is that even legal? Get your insurance company to refer you to a doctor and lab in their network. ---
**Author:** ![OttoDaFe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ottodafe/32/356_2.png) [@OttoDaFe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OttoDaFe)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2018, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/health-insurance/818223/132 "2018-07-26T05:44:06Z")
> [@elbows](#): > > Why is he paying at all? He’s where he is, his health under serious threat, due to a medical error ! > > Shouldn’t all his bills be guaranteed paid? And his lost wages, so he can pay his rent during his lengthy recovery. > > What kind of nightmarish system is this, that seems to be okay with what’s happening to him. It truly stuns me. Without knowing anything specific about **davidm** ’s case, the general procedure in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave is to pay up first, then go to court to recover damages (if you can). If he were to try to get the parties to cover his expenses up front it’s likely he’d die from lack of care long before any settlement could be reached. ---
**Author:** ![kambuckta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/53a042/32.png) [@kambuckta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kambuckta)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2018, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/health-insurance/818223/133 "2018-07-26T07:35:19Z")
> [@OttoDaFe](#): > > Without knowing anything specific about **davidm** ’s case, the general procedure in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave is to pay up first, then go to court to recover damages (if you can). If he were to try to get the parties to cover his expenses up front it’s likely he’d die from lack of care long before any settlement could be reached. And that is the crux of the matter isn’t it? With a UHC system, the patient gets the care they need. With the LOTF and the HOTB system, you get care only if you are lucky enough. Bit of a lottery isn’t it! ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2018, 10:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/health-insurance/818223/134 "2018-07-26T10:16:24Z")
> [@bump](#): > > Is it conclusive that it would be a lower premium AND no out of pocket? When people say things like that, it gives me a gut feeling that there’s some wishful thinking going on, and/or some kind of hidden catches that are carefully not being mentioned. For starters, a vast amount of the US healthcare system (both private and Medicare) involves paperwork used to assess eligibility for treatment (and what treatments are permitted or excluded). Some doctor’s offices and hospitals literally have a couple dozen people who do nothing but process insurance claims. If everyone is eligible to receive any treatment deemed medically necessary, all that paperwork, and all the people involved, and all the COSTS involved, go away. The ability to negotiate down drug costs is another big, big savings in UHC systems. No system is perfect, but the US system is appalling. ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2018, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/health-insurance/818223/135 "2018-07-26T16:56:03Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Your empathy for those with mental health issues is duly noted. It’s just what I would expect from an asshole like yourself. But that’s not what I was getting at. The uninsured are a drain on taxpayer money and health care provider incomes – which costs everyone – because ultimately the uninsured need emergency health care, even if it’s too late and they end up dying anyway. Usually they get this in the most expensive and inefficient and disruptive way possible, in emergency rooms, costing a fortune and tying up vital ER resources. This is money that in civilized countries is applied to proper ongoing universal health care for everyone. > > Specifically, the uninsured create a large array of regulatory costs, direct industry compliance costs, indirect costs due to mortality losses, and many other direct and indirect costs. [The AMA estimated](https://fds.duke.edu/db/attachment/1366) that physicians incurred $4.2 billion in bad debt in 2001, equivalent to $6 billion today, or $17,600 per physician, attributable to ER treatment of the uninsured due to EMTALA regulations alone. There’s also a whole category of [patient dumping abuses and financial settlements](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4899053/) associated with those. > > Thank you for informing me about your approach to insults, but I don’t give a flying fuck how your respond since my only objective here is to expose your ignorance. Oh ok, the costs of the uninsured on others is entirely because of other government interventions. I can fix that for you too. ---
**Author:** ![Grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grey)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2018, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/health-insurance/818223/136 "2018-07-26T17:27:16Z")
Social suicide by libertarian bullet - pass. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2018, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/health-insurance/818223/137 "2018-07-26T18:11:39Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > Have there been any surveys done of Americans who have had a major health issue, asking about their satisfaction level? > > Because one of the issues that I keep seeing in articles about US health insurance is that it’s only after people have a major health issue that they find out just how good their insurance is. I’m curious if any research has been done on that more specific question. It’s been a long time since I had insurance in the US, but I can tell you that I found out was shitty after just one doctor’s visit. Americans who think that a system where you: - go to the doctor, - file your insurance claim, - get it rejected, - contest the rejection, - and finally get it accepted and find out how much you still need to pay over what the insurance covers is good believe that because that’s what they’re used to. Sort of like thinking that boiled to death vegetables are good, before you discover that they actually come in more colors than “corpse grey”. > [@kaylasdad99](#): > > Is that even legal? Get your insurance company to refer you to a doctor and lab in their network. Way back when, my US insurers could provide a list of “in network” doctors but I was still supposed to call each of them and ask if they took patients. The list mentioned specialties but did not provide information such as whether an obgyn provided pregnancy-prevention care or not. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2018, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/health-insurance/818223/138 "2018-07-26T19:41:16Z")
> [@kambuckta](#): > > I know you said ‘on the average’ (and I agree btw) but young people are more prone to having _serious_ accidents (MVA’s, sporting etc), women get pregnant and need expensive ante-natal, birthing and post-natal care, and of course mental illnesses are more common in the younger demographic too. ALL of these are going to be very expensive to treat. > > Just hope your hypothetical ‘young person’ who thinks none of these things will happen to him/her has access to a UHC scheme. 😉 That’s why I said on the average. The unlucky ones will get screwed, but even there the cost of sporting accidents is probably less than open heart surgery. The benefit of insurance gets calculated by multiplying the cost of covered care by the probability of needing it. Then there is the factor that getting hit by uncovered costs is relatively worse than not using as much coverage as you’ve paid for. Plus there is the problem that young people in particular don’t think it will ever happen to them. For most young people not buying insurance is a reasonably rational economic decision, which is why the mandate is needed. For some it is an awful decision. But they don’t know which category they fall into until it is too late, which is why the mandate is a good thing. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2018, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/health-insurance/818223/139 "2018-07-26T19:49:09Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > Yes they are being abused, though something similar would exist in a free market transportation network, so I do t get too bent out of shape about that. You must have a dumb shit definition of abused. I don’t know what a free market transportation system is. If some clown causes damage to me, and is uninsured in your free market system, what is my recourse? Take his house? Enslave him? Take his retirement savings? Sell his organs? > [@](#): > > Yes, the Boomers will benefit greatly because they are such a big voting bloc. They have indebted the government and future generations quite handily. You realize that Medicare started when the oldest of the Boomers was around 20, right? When my father in law, not a Boomer, hit about 98 the insurance he had from his teaching job canceled on him since he was the only one in the pool still alive. (He might have been able to sue, but it was hardly worth it.) Luckily he turned on the Medicare. You think free market insurance companies would have been eager to give him coverage at anywhere near the Medicare price? ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2018, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/health-insurance/818223/140 "2018-07-26T20:50:02Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > Is that even legal? Get your insurance company to refer you to a doctor and lab in their network. It’s legal. It’s called balance billing. It may be prohibited for in-network providers pursuant to their contract with the insurer. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/health-insurance/818223.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/health-insurance/818223.md?page=8)