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On November 04 2013 08:24 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On November 04 2013 08:20 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On November 04 2013 07:55 KwarK wrote:
Of course the average person has no fucking clue how to pick insurance. He doesn't know the likelihood of a given affliction hitting him, nor how much it costs to treat, nor how it will impact his life. This is a lot of actuarial information that an average person has no access to and wouldn't know what to do with even if he had and yet he is supposed to work out which insurance plan best suits his situation? Insurance isn't a loaf of bread and treating it like one helps no-one. Healthcare costing is where complex statistics, actuarial calculations, public health policy, specialised knowledge about pretty much every ailment and their treatments and cutting edge pharmacology all meet. You get bureaucrats working for the state or for the insurance companies but it's basically the same group of people trying to work out what is going to go wrong and how much it'd cost to keep you working in a giant equation that you couldn't begin to understand. Only in a private insurance system it pads their bottom line to mislead you about costs, deny you unprofitable care you need, sell you shit you don't and drop you the moment you need them to do anything.
Public healthcare in my country is decided by bureaucracy and I wouldn't want it any other way. If you really think you're qualified to judge your own healthcare needs then yeah, you are so stupid that you need the government to hold your hand. That's why it's the American public, pretty much uniquely in the world, who actually believe they're qualified it in spite of their constant catastrophic failures. No other nation has such incredibly unqualified self belief in their own exceptionalism. Buying insurance isn't really complicated. You aren't figuring your odds of getting sick, or the cost of getting sick - that's built into the price of the insurance. What you're figuring for the most part is what fits into your budget - co-pays, max out of pocket, etc. Insurance is, at its most basic level, a bet. You're betting that something will happen and they pay out if it does and you lose your stake if it does not. The issue with health insurance is that you don't know what you're betting will happen beyond bad stuff, you don't know anything about how likely it is too happen and you don't know what the payout is if you "win". And yet you're meant to distinguish between the different bets on offer. If you think you have a grasp on it you don't know what it is.
It's similar to buying car, homeowner's, or life insurance. You just look at the plan, what's covered, what your exposure is, and decide between them.
You don't have to do the actuarial work, that's built into the price of the plan. All you have to do is figure out the costs / risks between the different iterations and decide between those. Ex. max out of pocket $10K vs $5K. Can you afford paying out $10K in a year? If so you may want to take that, if not, or if that sounds too scary, than don't.
Inevitably some people will "over insure" and others will "under insure" - but that's always the case. A national plan would be sub-'optimal' at individual levels too.
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On November 04 2013 08:44 KwarK wrote:
Because death panels are the logical result of rationing healthcare to provide for people whereas people dying on the street is the logical result of refusing to ration healthcare. Death panels and letting people die are polar opposites.
But it has the same effect. "Useless" people die. Once they are dead, what does it matter? I'd rather try to find a system that is like the one I described, most coverage with least number of taxpayer dollars. But I guess we just disagree in terms of perspective. In one case, people die due to inaction- in the other, people die because of an affirmative decision by a panel of unaccountable individuals. I guess if that's the trade off for "universal" care, I don't accept it. I (and I think justifiably) don't trust bureaucrats, nor do I want my choices made by them. If you want that, then fine. But only one system is going to win.
I don't even think the system you want can work in the long run, but that's a separate issue.
And that's far different than discussing the failings of Obamacare, which as I said, is a much preferred discussion topic.
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On November 04 2013 08:25 Introvert wrote:Show nested quote +On November 04 2013 08:19 KwarK wrote:Obamacare is a shitty idea. A comprehensive nationalised system along with death panels and a tax to fund it is the right idea. You can have a private insurance running parallel with it if you like, most countries do, those who can afford it still get to pay extra to have extra if they want but it provides a simple minimum standard of healthcare for everyone. Suggesting that healthcare decisions are somewhat comparable to buying a car is really, really dumb. Buying a car is pretty fucking simple, you have a few basic parameters (where you wanna go, how cool you wanna look, how much money you wanna spend etc) and you measure it against those. Assessing health insurance is mind boggling complicated. You can know your life intimately but you don't know what your statistically biggest health risks are, nor what the biggest financial risks (risk of incident multiplied by cost of it is), you don't know if your co-pay is a lot compared to your likely costs or not much, you don't know if you're overpaying or underpaying, you don't know if there is a bunch of other shit that could happen that isn't covered because it'd be too expensive and a billion other variables. Healthcare is really fucking complicated, which phone you want isn't. My point is that as things get more and more complex, then the average person will be less and less able to make the right decisions, on your view. You know what else is complicated? Investing. Maybe we should nationalize that too! Complexity doesn't mean a thing should be handed over to a bloated government.
Alternatively, you could always fund education so that average people can actually afford to understand "complicated" and be able to make informed decisions.
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Um, what? Of course you can have insurance and personal responsibility. In the free market system, you enter a contract and agree to pay ON YOUR OWN to for a plan and to share risk. You make a mutually beneficial agreement with a private company for a service. No government money or coercion. Personal responsibility doesn't mean you go out and live into the woods.
I'm sorry, but wtf does that even mean? Pay on your own for a plan to share risk? What? You're simply not thinking about what happens with the money from insurance.
Healthy people pool their money together, and it gets distributed to sick people.
That's what insurance is, at its most basic level. The only reason it works is because there are significantly more healthy people than sick people.
Where's the personal responsibility if you're sharing risk? How does that make sense to you?
Insurance is socialism, through and through, regardless of whether there is a free-market company involved. It's no less socialist. It's just more shitty because the motives become profit-focused rather than people-focused. Which means insurance companies will try their damned hardest to not do their fucking job. Which is exactly what we've been seeing.
Obamacare doesn't solve the underlying problem, but it ensures that companies can't fuck around as much as they could before. As far as "government screwing things up," people seem to really like Veteran's Insurance and Medicare, so you're just empirically wrong.
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On November 04 2013 09:03 DoubleReed wrote:Show nested quote +Um, what? Of course you can have insurance and personal responsibility. In the free market system, you enter a contract and agree to pay ON YOUR OWN to for a plan and to share risk. You make a mutually beneficial agreement with a private company for a service. No government money or coercion. Personal responsibility doesn't mean you go out and live into the woods. I'm sorry, but wtf does that even mean? Pay on your own for a plan to share risk? What? You're simply not thinking about what happens with the money from insurance. Healthy people pool their money together, and it gets distributed to sick people. That's what insurance is, at its most basic level. The only reason it works is because there are significantly more healthy people than sick people. Where's the personal responsibility if you're sharing risk? How does that make sense to you? Insurance is socialism, through and through, regardless of whether there is a free-market company involved. It's no less socialist. It's just more shitty because the motives become profit-focused rather than people-focused. Which means insurance companies will try their damned hardest to not do their fucking job. Which is exactly what we've been seeing. Obamacare doesn't solve the underlying problem, but it ensures that companies can't fuck around as much as they could before. As far as "government screwing things up," people seem to really like Veteran's Insurance and Medicare, so you're just empirically wrong.
I mean you privately agree to pay for a service. Like all of society, you make an agreement. Most importantly, you can go elsewhere if need be, or you can have no insurance, if you so desire (like millions of young people). It's an agreement between private entities, not large, blundering government officials.
It's not socialist. Working together/contracts =/= socialism. it is about personal responsibility because YOU pay for it. Not the taxpayer. It's not promised to you, you have to buy it.
And those veteran programs are run horribly. Once again, thanks for making my point.
And Medicare is, to quote the people in charge of it, "unsustainable" without substantial changes. (That are sure to involve taking yet more money from private citizens.) Some success!
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United States43275 Posts
On November 04 2013 08:52 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On November 04 2013 08:24 KwarK wrote:On November 04 2013 08:20 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On November 04 2013 07:55 KwarK wrote:
Of course the average person has no fucking clue how to pick insurance. He doesn't know the likelihood of a given affliction hitting him, nor how much it costs to treat, nor how it will impact his life. This is a lot of actuarial information that an average person has no access to and wouldn't know what to do with even if he had and yet he is supposed to work out which insurance plan best suits his situation? Insurance isn't a loaf of bread and treating it like one helps no-one. Healthcare costing is where complex statistics, actuarial calculations, public health policy, specialised knowledge about pretty much every ailment and their treatments and cutting edge pharmacology all meet. You get bureaucrats working for the state or for the insurance companies but it's basically the same group of people trying to work out what is going to go wrong and how much it'd cost to keep you working in a giant equation that you couldn't begin to understand. Only in a private insurance system it pads their bottom line to mislead you about costs, deny you unprofitable care you need, sell you shit you don't and drop you the moment you need them to do anything.
Public healthcare in my country is decided by bureaucracy and I wouldn't want it any other way. If you really think you're qualified to judge your own healthcare needs then yeah, you are so stupid that you need the government to hold your hand. That's why it's the American public, pretty much uniquely in the world, who actually believe they're qualified it in spite of their constant catastrophic failures. No other nation has such incredibly unqualified self belief in their own exceptionalism. Buying insurance isn't really complicated. You aren't figuring your odds of getting sick, or the cost of getting sick - that's built into the price of the insurance. What you're figuring for the most part is what fits into your budget - co-pays, max out of pocket, etc. Insurance is, at its most basic level, a bet. You're betting that something will happen and they pay out if it does and you lose your stake if it does not. The issue with health insurance is that you don't know what you're betting will happen beyond bad stuff, you don't know anything about how likely it is too happen and you don't know what the payout is if you "win". And yet you're meant to distinguish between the different bets on offer. If you think you have a grasp on it you don't know what it is. It's similar to buying car, homeowner's, or life insurance. You just look at the plan, what's covered, what your exposure is, and decide between them. You don't have to do the actuarial work, that's built into the price of the plan. All you have to do is figure out the costs / risks between the different iterations and decide between those. Ex. max out of pocket $10K vs $5K. Can you afford paying out $10K in a year? If so you may want to take that, if not, or if that sounds too scary, than don't. Inevitably some people will "over insure" and others will "under insure" - but that's always the case. A national plan would be sub-'optimal' at individual levels too.
Actuarial work is built into the price of the plan but this is a plan devised by a for profit company that serves its shareholders, it is not out there to provide you with the most comprehensive care possible for the lowest cost possible (incidentally that is what public provision is for). There are endless sad stories about insurance letting people down. Oddly enough creating a minimum standard of insurance to be comprehensive and not fuck people over was included in Obamacare as far as I recall.
The idea that you can just compare the financials and ignore the healthcare side assumes all insurance always pays out (rather than fucking you over cause for profit company), never tries to sell you anything you don't actually need (cause for profit company), never doesn't include anything you do actually need that'd cost it money (cause for profit company) and that how much you can afford to pay out of pocket at any given time is a meaningful factor in which insurance you need for your personal situation. Also that your judgement of which risks are worth taking is good judgement (regular checkups are a good investment because if you find shit early it is way cheaper to fix but if you have to pay out of pocket for those you might skip them and rely on the insurance to bail you out if shit goes wrong). Also insurance is shitty at dealing with macro health problems and at preventative care.
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On November 04 2013 09:16 Introvert wrote:Show nested quote +On November 04 2013 09:03 DoubleReed wrote:Um, what? Of course you can have insurance and personal responsibility. In the free market system, you enter a contract and agree to pay ON YOUR OWN to for a plan and to share risk. You make a mutually beneficial agreement with a private company for a service. No government money or coercion. Personal responsibility doesn't mean you go out and live into the woods. I'm sorry, but wtf does that even mean? Pay on your own for a plan to share risk? What? You're simply not thinking about what happens with the money from insurance. Healthy people pool their money together, and it gets distributed to sick people. That's what insurance is, at its most basic level. The only reason it works is because there are significantly more healthy people than sick people. Where's the personal responsibility if you're sharing risk? How does that make sense to you? Insurance is socialism, through and through, regardless of whether there is a free-market company involved. It's no less socialist. It's just more shitty because the motives become profit-focused rather than people-focused. Which means insurance companies will try their damned hardest to not do their fucking job. Which is exactly what we've been seeing. Obamacare doesn't solve the underlying problem, but it ensures that companies can't fuck around as much as they could before. As far as "government screwing things up," people seem to really like Veteran's Insurance and Medicare, so you're just empirically wrong. I mean you privately agree to pay for a service. Like all of society, you make an agreement. Most importantly, you can go elsewhere if need be, or you can have no insurance, if you so desire (like millions of young people). It's an agreement between private entities, not large, blundering government officials. It's not socialist. Working together/contracts =/= socialism. it is about personal responsibility because YOU pay for it. Not the taxpayer. It's not promised to you, you have to buy it. And those veteran programs are run horribly. Once again, thanks for making my point. And Medicare is, to quote the people in charge of it, "unsustainable" without substantial changes. (That are sure to involve taking yet more money from private citizens.) Some success!
What do you pay for? What happens with your money? What is a health insurance company's job?
Paying sick people.
It's not a personal contract. You are affected by other people's health. There's no personal responsibility. Everyone with the same company is pooling their risk together. If you get sick, everyone else is paying for it. They take your money and pay for other people's illnesses. You are paying for other people's illnesses. That's their job.
You cannot be without healthcare. At the very least you go to the emergency room and are a freeloader. You just have really shitty healthcare that puts you and hospitals in debt.
Medicare is growing at much slower rate than private insurance. You do realize that private insurance is far more unsustainable, right? Look I have pictures:
+ Show Spoiler +
Source
Edit: I know a couple veterans and they're pretty happy with the extra support of insurance. Where did you get that they're run horribly? That's completely out of left field.
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United States43275 Posts
On November 04 2013 08:55 Introvert wrote:Show nested quote +On November 04 2013 08:44 KwarK wrote:
Because death panels are the logical result of rationing healthcare to provide for people whereas people dying on the street is the logical result of refusing to ration healthcare. Death panels and letting people die are polar opposites. But it has the same effect. "Useless" people die. Once they are dead, what does it matter? I'd rather try to find a system that is like the one I described, most coverage with least number of taxpayer dollars. But I guess we just disagree in terms of perspective. In one case, people die due to inaction- in the other, people die because of an affirmative decision by a panel of unaccountable individuals. I guess if that's the trade off for "universal" care, I don't accept it. I (and I think justifiably) don't trust bureaucrats, nor do I want my choices made by them. If you want that, then fine. But only one system is going to win. I don't even think the system you want can work in the long run, but that's a separate issue. And that's far different than discussing the failings of Obamacare, which as I said, is a much preferred discussion topic.
I don't think you have any clue what death panels are.
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On November 04 2013 08:55 Introvert wrote:Show nested quote +On November 04 2013 08:44 KwarK wrote:
Because death panels are the logical result of rationing healthcare to provide for people whereas people dying on the street is the logical result of refusing to ration healthcare. Death panels and letting people die are polar opposites. But it has the same effect. "Useless" people die. Once they are dead, what does it matter? I'd rather try to find a system that is like the one I described, most coverage with least number of taxpayer dollars. But I guess we just disagree in terms of perspective. In one case, people die due to inaction- in the other, people die because of an affirmative decision by a panel of unaccountable individuals. I guess if that's the trade off for "universal" care, I don't accept it. I (and I think justifiably) don't trust bureaucrats, nor do I want my choices made by them. If you want that, then fine. But only one system is going to win. I don't even think the system you want can work in the long run, but that's a separate issue. And that's far different than discussing the failings of Obamacare, which as I said, is a much preferred discussion topic.
The system that gives the most coverage with the least number of taxpayer dollar is actually single-payer! And we already entrust bureaucrats to decided whether we live or die, only they work for insurance companies. As much as you distrust government, don't you think that it's probably best to put these decisions into the hands of people who won't actively profit from your death?
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On November 04 2013 09:16 Introvert wrote:Show nested quote +On November 04 2013 09:03 DoubleReed wrote:Um, what? Of course you can have insurance and personal responsibility. In the free market system, you enter a contract and agree to pay ON YOUR OWN to for a plan and to share risk. You make a mutually beneficial agreement with a private company for a service. No government money or coercion. Personal responsibility doesn't mean you go out and live into the woods. I'm sorry, but wtf does that even mean? Pay on your own for a plan to share risk? What? You're simply not thinking about what happens with the money from insurance. Healthy people pool their money together, and it gets distributed to sick people. That's what insurance is, at its most basic level. The only reason it works is because there are significantly more healthy people than sick people. Where's the personal responsibility if you're sharing risk? How does that make sense to you? Insurance is socialism, through and through, regardless of whether there is a free-market company involved. It's no less socialist. It's just more shitty because the motives become profit-focused rather than people-focused. Which means insurance companies will try their damned hardest to not do their fucking job. Which is exactly what we've been seeing. Obamacare doesn't solve the underlying problem, but it ensures that companies can't fuck around as much as they could before. As far as "government screwing things up," people seem to really like Veteran's Insurance and Medicare, so you're just empirically wrong. I mean you privately agree to pay for a service. Like all of society, you make an agreement. Most importantly, you can go elsewhere if need be, or you can have no insurance, if you so desire (like millions of young people).
You can't go elsewhere if it's too late. We're not talking about an ISP here. By the time you work out that you made a poor choice or the insurance company found some way out of paying for your care, you could already be as good as dead!
As for people people who have no insurance, they still have to be taken care of somehow if they get sick. Taking care of them properly ends up costing more taxpayer money anyway, and it accomplishes less in terms of actually keeping them healthy.
The idea of universal healthcare is that everybody should have access to it because it is not socially acceptable to stand aside and let people suffer and die without receiving any treatment. Health is not a choice, and no amount of fake freedom-mongering will make it one.
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On November 04 2013 09:24 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On November 04 2013 08:55 Introvert wrote:On November 04 2013 08:44 KwarK wrote:
Because death panels are the logical result of rationing healthcare to provide for people whereas people dying on the street is the logical result of refusing to ration healthcare. Death panels and letting people die are polar opposites. But it has the same effect. "Useless" people die. Once they are dead, what does it matter? I'd rather try to find a system that is like the one I described, most coverage with least number of taxpayer dollars. But I guess we just disagree in terms of perspective. In one case, people die due to inaction- in the other, people die because of an affirmative decision by a panel of unaccountable individuals. I guess if that's the trade off for "universal" care, I don't accept it. I (and I think justifiably) don't trust bureaucrats, nor do I want my choices made by them. If you want that, then fine. But only one system is going to win. I don't even think the system you want can work in the long run, but that's a separate issue. And that's far different than discussing the failings of Obamacare, which as I said, is a much preferred discussion topic. I don't think you have any clue what death panels are.
I think what end of life care is provided should be determined by the free market because the price of healthcare is perfectly elastic. Also, the dying and their families are able to be perfectly rational actors when it comes to choosing the price of grandma's life.
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On November 04 2013 09:24 DoubleReed wrote:Show nested quote +On November 04 2013 09:16 Introvert wrote:On November 04 2013 09:03 DoubleReed wrote:Um, what? Of course you can have insurance and personal responsibility. In the free market system, you enter a contract and agree to pay ON YOUR OWN to for a plan and to share risk. You make a mutually beneficial agreement with a private company for a service. No government money or coercion. Personal responsibility doesn't mean you go out and live into the woods. I'm sorry, but wtf does that even mean? Pay on your own for a plan to share risk? What? You're simply not thinking about what happens with the money from insurance. Healthy people pool their money together, and it gets distributed to sick people. That's what insurance is, at its most basic level. The only reason it works is because there are significantly more healthy people than sick people. Where's the personal responsibility if you're sharing risk? How does that make sense to you? Insurance is socialism, through and through, regardless of whether there is a free-market company involved. It's no less socialist. It's just more shitty because the motives become profit-focused rather than people-focused. Which means insurance companies will try their damned hardest to not do their fucking job. Which is exactly what we've been seeing. Obamacare doesn't solve the underlying problem, but it ensures that companies can't fuck around as much as they could before. As far as "government screwing things up," people seem to really like Veteran's Insurance and Medicare, so you're just empirically wrong. I mean you privately agree to pay for a service. Like all of society, you make an agreement. Most importantly, you can go elsewhere if need be, or you can have no insurance, if you so desire (like millions of young people). It's an agreement between private entities, not large, blundering government officials. It's not socialist. Working together/contracts =/= socialism. it is about personal responsibility because YOU pay for it. Not the taxpayer. It's not promised to you, you have to buy it. And those veteran programs are run horribly. Once again, thanks for making my point. And Medicare is, to quote the people in charge of it, "unsustainable" without substantial changes. (That are sure to involve taking yet more money from private citizens.) Some success! What do you pay for? What happens with your money? What is a health insurance company's job? Paying sick people.It's not a personal contract. You are affected by other people's health. There's no personal responsibility. Everyone with the same company is pooling their risk together. If you get sick, everyone else is paying for it. They take your money and pay for other people's illnesses. You are paying for other people's illnesses. That's their job.You cannot be without healthcare. At the very least you go to the emergency room and are a freeloader. You just have really shitty healthcare that puts you and hospitals in debt. Medicare is growing at much slower rate than private insurance. You do realize that private insurance is far more unsustainable, right? Look I have pictures: + Show Spoiler +Source
It IS a personal contract. You PRIVATELY agree to enter a pool where, essentially, people end up paying for each other when you need it. But you pay into out of your own pocket. No government.
"You can't go without healthcare." Millions of young people do, of their own choice. And I would hope to discourage being a freeloader, unfortunately with Ocare's rates, it's going to make MORE freeloaders who would rather pay the "tax" then pay extreme prices for care.
Private healthcare is sinking because the government has about a gazillon different rules it has to follow. What do you think is going to happen when the government FORCES them to cover preexisting conditions? The only real question is who pays for it. I don't mind them being in it for profit, I trust them more than the government who is no more noble or caring than those companies, but is far less efficient. To say that the "private system" is failing is a little misleading, the market is hardly free, it suffers under the same government burden that more and more industries do nowadays. Interestingly enough, it also follows the same trend that regulation=increased cost. You can argue that regulation is important( as some is), but it does not make things cheaper.
Medicare is still unsustainable, so what is your point? It's going to fail after the heavily regulated private system? Do you also know that its failure is going to be much, much worse than the collapse of the private system? The only reason it's not dead already is because it has the power of government to kick the can down the road. Never mind the fraud, etc that does not really get discussed.
I am trying to find the name of the mostly-private Medicare program. It had the highest customer satisfaction rating and the most efficient cash spending. I think Obama took money from it for Obamacare. I'll have to see if I can find it.
Edit: I think I kind of addressed the other comments made later in this thread, Hunter, et al.
Edit #2: The plan I was thinking of might have been Medicare Advantage.
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United States43275 Posts
Introvert your theory seems to ignore the reality of very effective public healthcare systems existing all over the world. Maybe put down the ideology for a bit.
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On November 04 2013 09:23 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On November 04 2013 08:52 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On November 04 2013 08:24 KwarK wrote:On November 04 2013 08:20 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On November 04 2013 07:55 KwarK wrote:
Of course the average person has no fucking clue how to pick insurance. He doesn't know the likelihood of a given affliction hitting him, nor how much it costs to treat, nor how it will impact his life. This is a lot of actuarial information that an average person has no access to and wouldn't know what to do with even if he had and yet he is supposed to work out which insurance plan best suits his situation? Insurance isn't a loaf of bread and treating it like one helps no-one. Healthcare costing is where complex statistics, actuarial calculations, public health policy, specialised knowledge about pretty much every ailment and their treatments and cutting edge pharmacology all meet. You get bureaucrats working for the state or for the insurance companies but it's basically the same group of people trying to work out what is going to go wrong and how much it'd cost to keep you working in a giant equation that you couldn't begin to understand. Only in a private insurance system it pads their bottom line to mislead you about costs, deny you unprofitable care you need, sell you shit you don't and drop you the moment you need them to do anything.
Public healthcare in my country is decided by bureaucracy and I wouldn't want it any other way. If you really think you're qualified to judge your own healthcare needs then yeah, you are so stupid that you need the government to hold your hand. That's why it's the American public, pretty much uniquely in the world, who actually believe they're qualified it in spite of their constant catastrophic failures. No other nation has such incredibly unqualified self belief in their own exceptionalism. Buying insurance isn't really complicated. You aren't figuring your odds of getting sick, or the cost of getting sick - that's built into the price of the insurance. What you're figuring for the most part is what fits into your budget - co-pays, max out of pocket, etc. Insurance is, at its most basic level, a bet. You're betting that something will happen and they pay out if it does and you lose your stake if it does not. The issue with health insurance is that you don't know what you're betting will happen beyond bad stuff, you don't know anything about how likely it is too happen and you don't know what the payout is if you "win". And yet you're meant to distinguish between the different bets on offer. If you think you have a grasp on it you don't know what it is. It's similar to buying car, homeowner's, or life insurance. You just look at the plan, what's covered, what your exposure is, and decide between them. You don't have to do the actuarial work, that's built into the price of the plan. All you have to do is figure out the costs / risks between the different iterations and decide between those. Ex. max out of pocket $10K vs $5K. Can you afford paying out $10K in a year? If so you may want to take that, if not, or if that sounds too scary, than don't. Inevitably some people will "over insure" and others will "under insure" - but that's always the case. A national plan would be sub-'optimal' at individual levels too. Actuarial work is built into the price of the plan but this is a plan devised by a for profit company that serves its shareholders, it is not out there to provide you with the most comprehensive care possible for the lowest cost possible (incidentally that is what public provision is for). There are endless sad stories about insurance letting people down. Oddly enough creating a minimum standard of insurance to be comprehensive and not fuck people over was included in Obamacare as far as I recall. The idea that you can just compare the financials and ignore the healthcare side assumes all insurance always pays out (rather than fucking you over cause for profit company), never tries to sell you anything you don't actually need (cause for profit company), never doesn't include anything you do actually need that'd cost it money (cause for profit company) and that how much you can afford to pay out of pocket at any given time is a meaningful factor in which insurance you need for your personal situation. Also that your judgement of which risks are worth taking is good judgement (regular checkups are a good investment because if you find shit early it is way cheaper to fix but if you have to pay out of pocket for those you might skip them and rely on the insurance to bail you out if shit goes wrong). Also insurance is shitty at dealing with macro health problems and at preventative care.
You're being an irrational lefty, the tea party in reverse. Instead of "of course it's bad it's the government" you crack out the "of course it's bad it's for profit".
To some of your individual points, for profit companies don't only serve their shareholders and they do have competition, regardless. The government isn't out there to provide the most comprehensive coverage at the lowest cost either (governments do ration healthcare and do overpay in instances), and stories of government letting people down do exist as well. Also, the ACA is also not the first instance of government regulation in health insurance. Plans have to be approved by regulators before they can be sold with or without the ACA.
I still don't see why you think deciding on health insurance is so hard. Have you ever bought health insurance?
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I always find it odd when conservatives in the US attribute the reason for its decline to its communism and socialism, when the countries that have something like universal healthcare are doing much better than the US. Maybe your system isn't working? You can't keep pinning your problems on flaws that don't exist.
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On November 04 2013 09:44 Introvert wrote:
I don't mind them being in it for profit, I trust them more than the government who is no more noble or caring than those companies, but is far less efficient.
You have very poor judgement if you're willing to trust an entity with a clear financial incentive to work against you, rather than an entity with infinitesimal incentive to work in your best interest.
Being "efficient" in any kind of insurance business is hardly the best recommendation. How do you think that efficiency is attained? By denying service to unsuitable clients and making it as difficult as possible to collect insurance for actual clients. It's their job to take your money and try their hardest to screw you over.
And again - once your health or your life is endangered, there's no running over to the "competition". Your legal options are usually pretty limited as well.
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On November 04 2013 09:49 KwarK wrote:
Introvert your theory seems to ignore the reality of very effective public healthcare systems existing all over the world. Maybe put down the ideology for a bit.
I am basing this on what is happening here. The ideology here is from DR who argues that insurance companies are evil and that big government is compassionate and should be trusted. All the failures I've discussed are not hypothetical.
I don't want to discuss those systems, which have their problems and, considering the costs they are racking up for other entitlements, may not be permanent. Who knows? If they want more and more taxes, good on them. I also have to assume that there is a good reason that most of the best doctors, hospitals, innovators, etc are in this country. There is a profit incentive. But I admit to being less educated on the Euro system, everything I'm saying is based on what is happening here, where things are not the same as over the pond.
If the care was 2% worse (by some random metric) but got the government out of the way, I would prefer the latter. I'd rather not be heavily regulated just so that I can be comfy. I don't value ease.
The healthcare system here never really has been "free." That is part of my point. They all talk about how the market system has failed, when it hasn't actually been tried!
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On November 04 2013 09:44 Introvert wrote:
"You can't go without healthcare." Millions of young people do, of their own choice. And I would hope to discourage being a freeloader, unfortunately with Ocare's rates, it's going to make MORE freeloaders who would rather pay the "tax" then pay extreme prices for care.
Yes and all those millions of young people are utterly and permanently ruined if they actually catch something bad, and yet the rest of the people will stay be pay for them to be dragged from ER to ER to let them live another day in there financially ruined world because there medicine costs more then they make which means there so sick they cant even work.
Wonderful system.
The stupidity of millions because they gamble with there lives and other peoples money (to pay for the ER they use) is not an argument against universal healthcare.....
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Yes, we have an over-regulated market, because we're trying to force a socialist scheme into the free market where it does not work. Obamacare throws more regulation in, but actually simplifies most of the system. It's obviously less complicated than the massive fragmented mess of a system than we had before. People can actually compare prices and deals and such at the exchanges (at least the ones that have managed through the crap website).
Obamacare isn't making things more complicated. The system we had before was arduous to navigate at best.
The regulations that we keep having to impose on the healthcare industry is because they keep finding new and fancier ways to fuck their customers over. It's a mess. Obamacare cuts out a lot of that bullshit. Obviously, it would be simpler and less regulated with government healthcare, but we're trying really really really hard to make it work "in the market."
The fact is, and always has been, that the bureaucratic side of healthcare is on the private side, not the government side. The only reason people like you think otherwise is because you're constantly fed a meme of "government is bureaucratic" but when it comes to healthcare, private insurance is absurdly bureaucratic to the point of nonsense. Far more than the government.
I am basing this on what is happening here. The ideology here is from DR who argues that insurance companies are evil and that big government is compassionate and should be trusted. All the failures I've discussed are not hypothetical.
And you apparently think government is evil and insurance companies are sweet little angels that would never do anything to hurt their customers. It's adorable, really.
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On November 04 2013 10:05 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On November 04 2013 09:44 Introvert wrote:
"You can't go without healthcare." Millions of young people do, of their own choice. And I would hope to discourage being a freeloader, unfortunately with Ocare's rates, it's going to make MORE freeloaders who would rather pay the "tax" then pay extreme prices for care.
Yes and all those millions of young people are utterly and permanently ruined if they actually catch something bad, and yet the rest of the people will stay be pay for them to be dragged from ER to ER to let them live another day in there financially ruined world because there medicine costs more then they make which means there so sick they cant even work. Wonderful system. The stupidity of millions because they gamble with there lives and other peoples money (to pay for the ER they use) is not an argument against universal healthcare.....
I didn't say it was, it's an argument against Obamacare.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://static1.firedoglake.com/37/files/2012/08/8-9-12health-251x300.jpg)
