Why, why, why are you incapable of understanding that Medicaid does not cover everyone “living in poverty,” first of all, or that a large portion of the people you keep suggesting “have the money to get insurance” do not because the price of insurance is beyond what is accessible? You keep talking about how they have nice vehicles or big screen televisions or whatever luxury you think they shouldn’t have because they don’t have health insurance while ignoring that those “luxuries” cost less than health insurance.
To offer a bit of perspective: I could buy a 40" HDTV every single month or lease a BMW 650i convertible or spend a night at the George V in Paris every month or go on a Greek Isles cruise every month, every single month of the year, and still spend less than what I was quoted for a dozen different plans in the last year – that was, of course, before I was ultimately rejected for pre-existing conditions.
The cost of insurance is prohibitively high, no matter what sacrifices might be made, for a large number of people, even middle class people, who would never, ever be covered under a program like Medicaid. Not being able to put 30% of your income into health insurance (any economist, financial advisor, planner, banker or anyone with any sense would tell you that nothing should take 1 in 3 of your earned dollars other than a mortgage or rent, ever) doesn’t make someone a deadbeat or impoverished or irresponsible.
Until you’re willing to accept and acknowledge that fact, all of your health insurance arguments are in bad faith.
Perfect, tumbleddown. Your “bit of perspective” exactly illustrates the fallacy of curlcoat’s whole argument-- that uninsured people are merely making a foolish life choice.
Reasonably middle class working families may indeed be able to adjust their personal budgets, even make sacrifices, and thus be able to afford some part of an insurance premium. But the insurance companies aren’t going to sell them some part of a policy. The premium costs X. Any amount of re-directed income, right up to ‘X minus one’, still falls within the definition of “insurance is unaffordable”. Even if that amount would, as you say, be sufficient to pay for some luxury item.
Actually, it looked a lot like he said he can afford to purchase health insurance half the time. And it looks like you are implying that he can afford it all of the time, and only chooses to half the time. I don’t see how you can claim to know that. If you’re not going to take him at his word for not being able to afford it half the time, why bother taking him at his word that he actually buys it when he can afford it?
Oh, I’m sorry, I forget that there are folks in here that are this literal. OK, change that to “most of those folks living in poverty have Medicaid”. Better?
I’d like to know what you consider to be a large number of people, and where these people are. I know a lot of middle class people, and none of them are uninsured. I know a goodly number of below middle class people and none of them are uninsured either. This includes a friend who is self employed and has a pre-existing condition, as well as another friend who lives way below middle class, cheats on her SBA loans and helped her daughter cheat WIC and the other programs when she had her baby - even she buys medical insurance. Just where are all of these middle class people who cannot afford medical insurance, thru no fault of their own? And how many of them are there? Enough to actually justify spending billions of dollars to force a single-payer system on us all?
The first thing he (I thought boytyperanma was a she, but I’ll go with he) said was that there was no reason for him to buy insurance while he was young and healthy because all he was doing was subsidizing the older folks. He said that he only buys medical insurance during the time frame when he was most likely to be injured, whatever that means. He has never said that he cannot afford it half the time - does he only have an income for six months out of the year?
See, this is the thing with these stories of folks that “need” some sort of universal healthcare subsidized by taxes. The claim is made that they cannot afford to buy insurance, yet if I ask why they get huffy and tell me that their finances are none of my business. How can it not be my business when they want to add another tax onto what I already pay? Why is it OK for them to demand that I give up whatever in order to pay for their insurance, but it isn’t OK for me to ask them why it is they can’t pay for it themselves?
He specifically states that he only has sufficient income to afford it for six months of the year. The fact that these six months are co-temporaneous with his highest risk of injury appears to be a coincidence. “Whatever that means”? Just a shot in the dark, but it probably means that his income is seasonal, and is in a field that tends to put him at the highest risk for injury that he will experience during the year. It further suggests that the conditions under which he receives the work are such that he is not eligible for worker’s comp coverage. I’ll happily accept correction on that point, from him.
Let’s look at the first part:
To me, that doesn’t necessarily look like an admission that he behaved that way when he was young; to the best of my knowledge he’s still young. Looks more like an acknowledgement that low-risk youngsters who decline to participate in the general pool under the current system have a point.
boytyperanma, I hope I’ve accurately identified your gender. If not, please accept my apologies.
No, not really, because it’s still not accurate. The qualifications for Medicaid go well beyond merely having a low income. This has been discussed with you, repeatedly, this year. You’ve been provided with links and cites in at least two threads by me, and probably in other threads by others. Yet you refuse to learn.
Goody for you and the people you know. That metric, however, is meaningless. 48 million Americans have no health insurance. That’s approximately 1 in 6 people. Approximately 14,000 people are losing their insurance coverage every day because of the current economy and the continued loss of jobs.
We can argue about middle class versus working class versus flat poor people and who fits in what definition but you know what? The class status of the people who have no insurance, the people who lost their insurance at midnight while we were all cheering the big ball dropping, the 14,000 people who have insurance today who won’t have it tomorrow is irrelevant. The fact that insurance is priced beyond the capacity for most people to purchase on their own is clear on its face. Only 5% of insured Americans purchase their insurance entirely on their own, with no assistance from an employer. Anyone who isn’t willfully ignoring what’s right in front of their faces can draw some fairly simple conclusions about the situation.
I am an independent contractor. I work in the trades. Well water professional mostly and some electrical work. I live in MA. During the colder months there is less work available.
I am 31 now. I do not put myself in the young and healthy crowd but I’m still not that far away from it.
The young and healthy do have a point when they chose not to buy into health insurance. It is not for reasons I always agree with, like Home Depot employees that opted to go uncovered, but if a person in the least likely category to need health care opts not to buy in at full personal cost, they do have a point.
I am male.
Talk of medicare and such simply does not work for a huge percentage of the population. Many like myself who are independent contractors will never be eligible for such programs. My income is assumed to have no upper limit by state programs so programs that are dependent on poverty will not apply.
I work with many guys, middle class, who are in similar positions. What has become the norm for guys working in the trades for their own or other small businesses is they send their wives to work somewhere that offers a family health care plan. Other options include giving up trying to survive in the trades and go work a government based job of for a large private company.
Geezus fuck…GIVE IT UP. Kaylasdad, boytyperanma, any others, give it up. Please.
It doesn’t matter if you bold the parts of the posts in MULTI-COLORED RAINBOWS, she is not going to fucking listen to you! When are you going to realize that?
[QUOTE=DJ Motorbike;11925423As long as I will be forced to buy health insurance under the threat of fines/jail time I will make a doctor’s appointment for every headache, sniffle or boo-boo. Suck on it.[/QUOTE]
Said another way - “Screw you guys, if I can’t have MY cookie, then I’ll make sure NOBODY gets a cookie!”
But hey, it’s your right to do as you wish, so knock yourself out…
It is so very much like you to take one sentence of mine and drill on it, even tho it is way off point. But, whatever.
For one thing, you simply cannot say that the qualifications for Medicaid are any one thing, since it varies from state to state. In California you can get MediCal essentially if you are poor and have children, or are pregnant. Also if you are disabled, which includes chronic booze or drug problems. Plus, you don’t even need to be a citizen to get MediCal. Basically, you just need to be poor and have someone under 21 in the vicinity.
Exactly! The current economy is the reason that right now there are so many people without insurance. If they stay without jobs for any length of time, insurance will probably be the least of their concerns. Shall we also pay for everything else they will need until they find another job?
The current economy will improve, at some point, it always does. Do you really want to force in a UH to deal with a relatively short time issue? Besides, your cite was based on “estimating how many people can expect to lose their insurance when the national unemployment rate goes up” - I’m not sure how accurate that really is.
You think the answer is to add hundreds of millions in costs to that issue? Doesn’t it make far more sense to address the cost of insurance, which is driven by the cost of medical care, which is driven by various things but most seriously by things like malpractice costs, prescription research and the need to base insurance rates on things that people may never use. Such as, if I could buy a policy that didn’t cover pregnancy or any child care, it would be a lot cheaper. But no one writes a group policy like that, and I rather doubt that you could get a private policy like that either. Well, except Medicare.
kaylasdad99 most of what you posted was either misunderstanding what I said, or made moot by boytyperanma’s post after yours. But either way, it doesn’t address the why - why can’t he afford insurance all year? He’s 31 years old and he can’t afford another $3000 a year? If he can’t make enough money during the time when there is enough work available to cover his costs for the whole year, should we be subsidizing that? Since he doesn’t seem to think that healthy people should be subsidizing the insurance industry, why should the taxpayer subsidize him? It still just seems to boil down to choices - if we want to be free to make choices, we also need to take responsibility for that freedom.
Back to that reading comprehension problem of yours. Does your private insurance cover that?
I do think younger people should subsidize the health care system. Our current system really doesn’t give them much motivation to do so. A UHC system would.
And you all accept that. Why is it OK for him to demand that I pay out for his insurance coverage, but I cannot ask him why he can’t pay for it himself? I’m supposed to just accept at face value that no matter what, he will never have money to pay for insurance? If so, then why don’t you all accept at face value that it simply isn’t going to take much more in taxes to sink a lot of people. You know, bad economy, loss of jobs and all of that?
That means that he has never said that he cannot afford to pay for medical insurance for half the year. Once I asked why he couldn’t, he got huffy and said he didn’t need to “justify his finances”. Ya know, he wants another tax added to my bill, I’d say he should justify the need. Simply saying he doesn’t have an extra $3000 a year doesn’t say that he is actually incapable of buying his own insurance.
But he did say that. Why to you keep insisting that he didn’t say it?
Please link to all paperwork you submitted in your successful application for SSDI.
You know, because taking people at their word for things they say is just wrong. Everybody should have to prove every statement they make about their personal lives.
I think we are having a semantics problem here. He says “can’t afford”, I hear “I have this car payment, I like to party on Fridays and Saturdays”, etc. Given the spending habits of most of the people in the US, I tend to disbelieve that anyone honestly can’t afford something. But, I think when you hear “I can’t afford”, you think it actually means that the person only has money for room and board, and maybe some bus fare to get to work. Am I close?
Well, for one thing I don’t have any paperwork, the government has it all. For another, what does it have to do with income?
Oh, you mean this? Since my SSDI isn’t a factor in any of this, it’s kind of immaterial whether or not you take my word for it. However, do note that I haven’t asked for any proof that he cannot afford medical insurance all year, I’ve just asked why.
Well you see we have no laws that require all peoples incomes and expenses are sent to the office of Curcoat for evaluation. So no, I will never disclose enough information for you to make that determination.
I will gladly and do disclose that information to the state agencies that require it to make such determinations.
As I stated earlier in the thread my personal finances are irrelevant unless you are going to argue all Americans are capable of paying the high costs of insurance.
There are plenty of middle class families that do not qualify and will not qualify for and public assistance.
