Your Kidding? So if you have cancer, your just going to step up and write a check? Really?
Insurance is about sharing risk with a larger group and across time to reduce the impact of a major event. An young adult who is just out of school will have no way to pay for cancer treatment out of their own pocket. Probably will get the treatment and have it paid by some government agency or go bankrupt. So we will all pay for it anyhow. Most folks don’t have the resources to handle a major illness.
Here’s an exercise , call around to cardiologist and price out triple bypass operation… so that you don’t get over charged when you need one. Because if you need one, you might not really feel like or have the time to do this. So best to be proactive. Additionally you will get laughed at and not get an answer.
What gets me about this kind of thinking is the “what’s mine is mine.” What many forget, or don’t understand, is that it is the cooperate nature of our society that allows the standard of living that we have. If it was not for this corporate nature, we would all be spending 18 hours a day chasing down enough calories just to stay alive.
As far as profitability goes I refer you to my earlier post concerning economic profits. Is not the issue whether the health insurance industry is competitive and efficient as opposed to the level of profitability.
It doesn’t, isn’t, and won’t be. You’re drinking the Kool-aid. It will either be outrageously expensive or cut-rate, you can’t have both.
I’m okay with cut-rate, I would often choose that for myself. (See my suggestion about the Walmart health clinics earlier in the thread). But government run UHC won’t be cut-rate. Too many opportunities for pork, too many people will complain they aren’t getting the best care, too many people think you’re trying to kill them if you try to save a buck. You can’t deny coverage, so all the big ticket patients will linger for decades, racking up enormous bills and making out like Ida Mae Fuller.
That’s why so many people want UHC, so they can rape the system and get other people to pay.
Sure thing. Thats why over half the foreclosures are very big part due to medical problems ,with people who HAVE insurance. They magically go bankrupt and lose their homes.
Since when is everyone entitled to a taxpayer-paid triple bypass heart operation? Should we give everyone free houses, cars, designer clothing, and oh a pony too? Lots of people want a free pony and would “just die” without one.
What we fail to say is that our health care is very telling about what kind of a people we are. Taiwan went for universal health care. They saw 40 percent of their people were uncovered and were in danger from getting sick. They felt the need to amend such a wrong.
We have 50 million uncovered and many with weak coverage. We have bankruptcies and foreclosures caused by health problems. Even people with coverage are thrown into bankruptcy. Children are homeless and destitute when an illness hits their family. How can that be acceptable in America.?
When people talk about someone potentially taking advantage of the system, they are covering up that they don’t give a shit about other people. Some bitch about how it may possibly cost them a tiny bit of money. They create an excuse . it is weak and simply covers up their selfishness.
That is what we are. We do not care about the poor, the sick or the disadvantaged. They don’t live by us and they are someone else’s problem. Go to church on Sunday and bitch about how these poor people are gaming the system. If you can convince yourself of that, good for you. But, don’t pretend we are kind and generous people. We are not. This health care debate is about selfishness and luck. Luck because you believe it will not happen to you. Stay lucky.
If this is true why is the population of every first world country thoroughly happy with UHC? You’re not one of those people who thinks Steven Hawking would be dead if he were British are you?
You’re the guy who wants parents to do appendectomies, and set bones at home, with a bullet to bite, and a pint of gin for the kid, and the electric turkey knife for the surgery, I presume.
Have your problems crept up in Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, and would you remove those programs? If yes then you’re complexity out of touch with Americans, if no, if they do more good then bad, why would UHC be different? Why wouldn’t a public with private option system like the UK has be good?
Wow, look at all those non-monetary reasons in your cite! Money is useful. It is a desirable thing. But it’s not the only one. I would argue that money is actually a form of status. Security seems to be the a major underlying concern (conflict, political instability, health risks) driving brain drains in your cite, though. And money can buy security. And status perhaps serves security. So let’s modify it. Hominids crave security. A government job can supply that.
Doctors from Taiwan are disallowed from practicing in the United States. Would you change the system to allow them to practice here? Would you be okay with a Taiwanese doctor operating on you and your loved ones?
I’m sure there are a lot of hard working people who would love the opportunity to earn a doctor’s salary.
I don’t have a medical degree, but can I operate on you? I’m smart, hard working and I’ve watched many MacGuyver episodes.
Also, what dollar amount are you personally willing to pay into the system? What percentage of your income is that? Does this dollar amount change if you don’t get to use US trained doctors?
What the hell does that have to do with anything. I do not know how good their doctors are. Neither do you. But they now offer health care to all their citizens. We do not.
We have doctors from all over the world working here. I can not go to a clinic without running into one from India. The argument you make about taiwanese doctors was the same one they made when they started to import Indian doctors. It was a bad argument then and has not improved…
Ok, then I agree with this solution. Allow any doctor certified from anywhere in the world to work in the US for the UHC program and I’ll go along with the plan. We can pay them a lot less since they didn’t have to pay for expensive US medical schools, and there’s a huge pool of people to draw from. So, I agree this would solve the health care affordability problem.
Everybody happy now?
p.s. 37 out of 190 is in the 80th percentile, which isn’t too bad. Is it okay if we use doctors from a few places below us? If not, I’m fine with importing only Costa Rican or better doctors.
Swell that you live a healthy lifestyle and minimize some risk to yourself. Certainly a good thing. But if you think you are immune to cancer and illness and other maladies you are sorely mistaken. Even if we assume you are a health juggernaut you can slip on ice and whack your head, fall off your bike and so on. You are perfect in that realm? Fine, some yo-yo can t-bone your car. Hell, you could get struck by lightning (happens) or have a plane crash through your house (also happens).
God help your kids if you have them. Just ONE slipup (as kids are wont to do) you can kiss tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars away in a blink.
Small risk? Perhaps. Know what is not a small risk? You getting old. You might be a picture of health well into your 90’s but you would be a statistical freak. Humans age and humans have problems from that. My dad, a beacon of health, burned through a bit more than $1 million in hospital bills in the last two years of his life. If you can pay that out of pocket bully for you but the vast majority of people in the US could not.
What a load of bull.
Please point out how you personally, under any UHC proposal, would be paying through the nose.
Not kidding. Spell it out. Put your money where your mouth is.
I see the wall street for profit model of insurance as a failure if the goal is to provide quality health care. In any model of that type the way to increase profit is to start denying care.
I see a single payer plan as the best way to go. Everybody pays in and when you go to the hospital you present your medical card and that’s it.
IN other countries they negotiate with doctors and hospitals for costs of services. Instead of an operation costing $5,000 in NC and $15,000 in CA. Prescription drugs as well.
There are issues about personal responsibility. Do we pay for alcohol and drug rehab? How many times?
BTW; I work for a smallish middle TN company and I have decent insurance through them. This year rates for the company went up 20%. When we tried to negotiate and look around to other companies we got 19%. That’s a lot of expense for a small company to try and absorb.
So, while people are claiming that Obama care will force small businesses to close the current system is already working on it.
You seem to have anger issues, maybe you’d be healthier if you chilled out? I pay my own way, please don’t make me pay yours. There’s no way UHC can lower everyone’s costs and be free to taxpayers.
I live on Planet Earth, thank you. I’m not against helping the poor, but the balance sheet must balance here on Planet Earth. If anyone can be Ida Mae Fuller, then everyone will be Ida Mae Fuller. Please explain to me how that can be anything other than a tremendous expense on future generations.
I asked you to spell out how it is you’d be paying more money under a UHC system.
You dodged with baseless assertions and zero explanation which I’ll take to mean you’ve got nothing.
Health care in the US is close to twice as expensive as the next most expensive country in the world (and guess what, they are a UHC country). For that we have far worse health outcomes overall than all other industrialized countries (and guess what, they all have UHC).
