In what way are they opposite? Feel free to elaborate with as much detail as possible.
If that was an option, then why use HRP, which requires taxpayer funds?
If that was an option, then why use HRP, which requires taxpayer funds?
Then why did you take advantage of HRP, which requires taxpayer funds?
Which of the above reasons applied in your case? None, correct?
Everyone but you, apparently.
Finally, were you the insurance provider who referred your wife to MHIP?
Except you really didn’t have to demonstrate that. You claim that had the choice not been available it would have been “no big deal” but in reality you used taxpayer money to pay for your child’s birth, admit that you chose to set things up that way, and then complain because other people want coverage who didn’t choose their circumstances.
How is that not hypocritical, seriously?
weirddave: wow. You’re digging yourself a deeper hole…
I don’t understand, so please explain. You “elected to omit” maternity coverage, you “set things up that way” on purpose, and paying yourself would be “no big deal”… So… the big question is, if you made all those choices willingly, why should the taxpayer foot your bill? Outrageous!!! I bet there are many other people out there who can’t get insurance or pay for care themselves who would be much more deserving of your wife’s spot in MHIP.
And you never addressed this question:
So? Was your $400 quote an exaggeration for dramatic effect or what?
Oh and a HRP is like UHC in that they are both state-sponsored and taxpayer funded. So why do you have no problem with utilizing the former, but criticize the latter?
There was absolutely nothing hypocritical about using MHIP. It’s a state run program that’s available for people in our situation. I have never spoken out against the program, in fact I’ve advised many others that it is the best program available for their circumstances. It was the best program available to us in our situation. I was asked what I would have done if it hadn’t been available, and I answered. The fact is that MHIP was available, as I said, it was the best option open to us, so we used it. I think that Social Security should be privatized too. Are you saying that if it isn’t, I should refrain from taking my SS payments when I retire? That’s a really dumb line of reasoning.
A car is like a bicycle in that they both have wheels and are used to get people around. This does not mean that they are equivalent modes of transportation. There is a world of difference between MHIP, a state sponsored program intended for people in specific circumstances (Matthew and I weren’t eligible, for example, and we had to maintain separate coverage on the two of us), one which they have to pay a premium for while UHC which provides coverage for everybody and nobody pays anything for (except though increased taxes). The only reason to pretend that they are the same is to distort your argument.
Since you seem fixated on this point, I’ll point out the mistake you’re making. The “over $400/month” figure was the cost for mother and child, as I said in my earlier post. Before the birth, our premiums for Gingy alone were about $350/month (348 IIRC), they were lowered to $279 during the final months of Gingy’s pregnancy.
OK, this is the strangest post I have ever come across on the SDMB. How do you know whether or not I am a smoker, or for that matter, how much I drink, what I eat, or how angry I get?
I don’t think I know you at all, so where are all these assumptions coming from? I’m not pissed about it, just curious where you came up with all that???
Probably not, largely because of the problems griffen2 describes. And believe me, as inefficient as Britain’s NHS might be, any bureaucracy cooked up by the American govt would be worse, by a large magnitude.
If that’s the strangest post you’ve come across, you’re not doing much reading here (of course, that would also explain a lot).
I know you’re a smoker because you have let us know that you are one. Not that that matters that much to me, unless of course you are insured by the same insurance company as I am, in which case I fully expect you to clean up your act so you won’t be leaching off of me when the health starts to erode. So, are you planning on reimbursing your co-insured for any other bad habits that might have a negative impact on your health?
I’m sure I have posted that information in one thread or another, but the question is, why do you even remember it? I am in no way a high profile, or even high volume, poster by any stretch o f the imagination. So why would you pay attention to me at all? Nobody else does! 
Personally, I think you’re being creepy, like a stalker. Please stop. Thank you.
The only thing I remember about you is that you are a drive-by asshole. I’m pretty sure that about 95% of the board is aware of that fact, although you’re free to take a poll to prove me wrong (there’s even a forum just for that, but I’m guessing you know that you’d lose). In fact, if I don’t read another message of your’s in the next year, I’ll still know that you’re a drive-by asshole. On the other hand, let me introduce you to the search feature, where one can easily do a search on something such as “smoker” with your user name, and determine in about 30 seconds that you are one.
The reason for looking it up?
You asked for a reason, I used the search function to give you on. You’re a smoker, so you should pay more than a non-smoker. That’s your reasoning, of course, as I happen to disagree. So, once again, since you keep avoiding the question, are you planning on reimbursing your co-insured for any medical problems resulting from your smoking habit?
You also stated:
Then start doing so. Right now, you’re paying for insurance, not for your own healthcare.
Was that an accusation? Seems to me, if you think I’m stalking you, you might want to advance some compelling evidence, rather than name-calling. Shrug.
Maybe I didn’t phrase that question well. What I’d like to know (and I’m genuinely curious here, not (right now) in a “trying to score debating points” mode, is:
Do you oppose universial health care primarily for the sake of principle (it’s wrong), or primarily for pragmatic reasons (it’ll work worse/be more expensive than the current US system), or both reasons equally? I’d like answers to that from anyone who care to answer. I see a tendency in debates like these that arguments based on principle tend to be answered with pragmatic counter-arguments, and vice versa. That makes it hard to see where people stand.
You’re not that anonymous I don’t pay all that much attention to user names, but I’ve no problem remembering you. I see you as someone who’s frequently so far to the right of me that I’d need Hubble to see your point of view, whose debating tactics are sometimes among the most annoying I’ve seen here (and there’s fierce competition!), and who occasionally post something showing a sense of humor which makes me really like you, despite you being an alien from the planet Right. Oh, and for a while, I confused you and miller with each other, which made for some confusing reading
Perhaps I should answer my own question: I’m in favour of UHC for the sake of principle, first and foremost. In other words: Even if it could be shown that UHC would cost more or give me personally worse health care than an alternative which left some people uncovered, I’d prefer UHC.
I happen to believe that it also wins on the pragmatic arena, though.
My point was, you said you could have easily afforded to pay for health care yourself, but instead you passed the buck to the taxpayer, just because it was available. That strikes me as hypocritical when you have spent a lot of time in this thread saying people should be responsible for paying for their own health care. These two things do not jive, you see?
How does increased taxes = nobody paying anything??? And where the hell did anyone say that nobody would pay for anything under UHC??? Shit, even Medicaid recipients have to at least pay copays!
Do you realize that through MHIP, you got super-cheap coverage for something that presumably, no other insurers would insure your wife for (I’m guessing because she had the preexisting condition of being pregnant), or that no one would cover affordably - courtesy of the taxpayers. So therefore, since you “chose” to forego maternity (why on earth I don’t know - if you’re having sex, you should always be covered, because we all know “oopsie babies” happen all the time) the taxpayer had to foot the bill.
I don’t mind if tax dollars go to a HRP to cover someone with a chronic condition that they have through no fault of their own. But you made choices: choosing not to be covered for a very common and easy-to-get condition, and engaging in the behavior that causes the condition. And because of those choices, the taxpayers had to pay. That would be like a smoker choosing not to be covered for emphysema or lung cancer, and continuing to smoke, and then when they get sick, asking the taxpayer to pay for them. That seems like misuse of the system to me.
Are you saying that she was paying $350 for MHIP? I didn’t know she was over 40 years old.
One last thought: you know what I find is the height of irony here? That the insurance company you work for does not/will not provide your family with affordable health insurance. Therefore you have to buy individual policies “a la carte” with limited coverage, then resort to state-sponsored programs for things you chose not to be covered for.
Picked this up on another board: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/04/21/60minutes/main689998.shtml
Quite interesting, in a number of ways.
Now, let me add some more detail on what socialised healthcare is. This is, after all, not the all-tax commie weirdo sh*t stuff you make it out to be, but might actually be a lot closer to the U.S. system than you perhaps think.
First of all, health insurance is … shock … provided by private insurance companies. The Dutch system mixes public funding and private funding. Public funding is taken as income tax, and is paid when you work, and a percentage of your income (income-dependent). This basically your social insurance. Any private insurance company in the Netherlands will have to offer basic coverage for a certain price agreed between the government and the insurance company, paid for from these taxes. You are free to add insurance coverage for additional costs outside of the basic package.
Above 32.600 euro, you have to take a private insurance. You are free to choose here what kind of coverage you want, but there is again a basic level that insurance companies are required to provide and for which they cannot refuse customers, so as to prevent people with known illnesses to fall out of the system.
Currently, state hospitals are funded with tax money, and managed from the department of health. But they operate more and more independently, with budgets that have to be sustained by selling their services to the insurance companies. You can see these hospitals more and more as companies in which the government holds all the stock. Privately built hospitals are now free to compete with these on the consumer market.
Not only are health care customers free to choose what careprovider they want, but with the new agreements in the European Union, they are free to do so within Europe. This means that if a private or public hospital in Belgium or Portugal can provide the required care faster, then if the customer desires to go there, the insurance companies will be required to cover this. The insurance companies are not unhappy with this situation - in fact, our insurance companies use health brokerage as a service to win customers with. Certain healthcare is, like the examples in the CBS news article above, often better and cheaper and more available in other countries, and the customer is often willing to make the trade-off between having to travel further from home and having a certain procedure taken place faster. Such a private insurance company could even choose to cover the procedures in Thailand or India as described above, should the patient desire to use it.
I’m just giving a small outline of a much more multi-faceted and complex system (there’s a special provision for people with long term afflictions and disabilities, for instance) but I hope you by now understand that socialised insurance is not the same as the NHS, but much more like private insurance. It is, in fact, private insurance, but with guaranteed minimal standards of care. That’s the socialised part.
It works. And it is also noteworthy that the European Union has contributed to that.
I’ll be glad to answer any questions. A lot of material is available, but so far it’s mostly in Dutch.
Thanks – that’s what I was referring to in an earlier post. Unfortunately, it hadn’t been posted online yet, so I couldn’t provide a link. Again, according to the story, cost is ~10-15% of that in the US, with better facilities and care.
I think UHC is a worthy goal. But to answer your question, I oppose proposals like “hillary-care” for pragmatic reasons. I admit, I have pretty good health benefits through my employer. Even so, there’s an awful lot of bureaucratic red tape involved. There are limits on which doctors you can see, what prescription drugs are covered, what medical procedures are covered, and the like.
Now, my insurance is provided by a very large US insurance company that probably covers several hundred thousand people. If said insurance were extended to all 300 million of us, though, there’s no doubt in my mind that the level of care would have to go down, to accomodate everybody. And for as much as I pay, I don’t support any reduction in care.
I’ve been paying a princely sum for health insurance for more than 15 years, and have only been drawing any benefits for the last 4 months. I honestly don’t want my benefits cut, which is what I think would happen under UHC. If that makes me stupid, or greedy, or an asshole, than so be it, I guess, because I don’t know what else to do.
Read my post above, for an idea of how it could work, and how you could get the same or better health insurance for half the money, with the added benefit of covering everyone, including those unhappy enough to be unemployed or less fortunately employed than you are.
Well, since the system was set up to cover exactly what we used it for, it’s hardly misuse, is it?
Do you have any reading comprehension abilities at all? I clearly said in my last post that the rate for her coverage was almost $350/month when we started with the plan, but partway through the pregnancy, MHIP lowered it’s rates, and our premium went down to $279. That’s the second time you’ve demonstrated a clear inability to read what I’ve written. Why are you so obsessed with MHIP rates anyway?
What I find ironic is that you puff indignantly into this thread, navigating by the seat of your own arrogance, making pronouncements like “Goddamn it, I do research for a DC lobbying firm, I know how evil insurance companies are!”, and yet you seem repeatedly unable to comprehend the meaning of a simple sentence and finally come out with a denouement like the above, reaching a conclusion that is almost the exact opposite of reality. My God, if it wasn’t so pathetic, it would be amusing!
Arwin, You didn’t answer my question earlier, but it’s several pages ago buried in a post, so it’s quite likely that you missed it. Is it true or not that your socialist system in Holland ( and I realize this is not all health care costs, a lot of things are “socialized” to a degree that we in the US would find disturbing ) requires you to pay higher taxes than we pay here in the US? Specifically, I have been told by a Dutch citizen ( and not a rich one either, I’d call him solid middle class-at least I would over here, I’m not sure how you guys (Europeans) use those terms ) that his taxes run about 45% of his income. That’s just a bit higher than the 30% or so that we here n America.
Weirddave, I’m not Arwin, but I answered that question a few pages back:
Another krugman column on this issue:
I personally have health insurance through my husband’s employer. I hate it. There isn’t a single month that goes by where I’m not on the phone for at least an hour or two dealing with some health care functionary who trying to stick me with a bill I’m not responsible for so he can pad his unearned profit.
I don’t understand how some people could possibly argue that the UHC would be worse. At least then I’d have the satisfaction of knowing that the system covered everyone. At least then losing your job wouldn’t endanger your life.
I understand the “private insurance, but with guaranteed minimal standards of care” part. But how does that translate into the “same or better health insurance for half the money”?