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On November 04 2013 10:07 Introvert wrote:Show nested quote +On November 04 2013 10:05 Gorsameth wrote: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.
Let me check....
nope, not an argument against Obamacare either.
If anything your trying to show Obamacare isnt invasive enough. It still gives you a choice not to get insurance which it shouldn't.
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On November 04 2013 10:06 DoubleReed wrote:
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.
Yes, it simplified the system so much it threw millions off of their perfectly good care that they, somehow, someway, managed to decide to buy for THEMSELVES! I'm sure that by adding 2000 pages of law and an innumerable number of regulations, it actually made everything simple. Sure.
Of course when you are dealing with money, there is going to be bureaucracy everywhere. But even more so in the government. Government makes things more expensive when it regulates, always has.
Government does not work to make the best for people. It's naive to think that.
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On November 04 2013 10:08 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On November 04 2013 10:07 Introvert wrote:On November 04 2013 10:05 Gorsameth wrote: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. Let me check.... nope, not an argument against Obamacare either. If anything your trying to show Obamacare isnt invasive enough. It still gives you a choice not to get insurance which it shouldn't.
Sure it is. Obamacare is increasing prices. Therefore, more people will pay the fine. Therefore, there are more people going from ER to ER. It does the exact opposite of what it intended.
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Of course when you are dealing with money, there is going to be bureaucracy everywhere. But even more so in the government. Government makes things more expensive when it regulates, always has.
This is a meme. You think this is a general rule that applies to all industries regardless of anything. This is not true.
Private insurance is more bureaucratic than government insurance. Ask anyone with Medicare.
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On November 04 2013 10:06 DoubleReed wrote: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. Show nested quote +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.
The exchanges do seem like a good move in simplifying things (along with gold / silver / bronze distinctions).
A pity the individual marketplace only touches a minority of insurance buyers.
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On November 04 2013 10:13 Introvert wrote:Show nested quote +On November 04 2013 10:08 Gorsameth wrote:On November 04 2013 10:07 Introvert wrote:On November 04 2013 10:05 Gorsameth wrote: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. Let me check.... nope, not an argument against Obamacare either. If anything your trying to show Obamacare isnt invasive enough. It still gives you a choice not to get insurance which it shouldn't. Sure it is. Obamacare is increasing prices. Therefore, more people will pay the fine. Therefore, there are more people going from ER to ER. It does the exact opposite of what it intended.
People can price things however they like. Remember, whatever the price is, that's how much people are willing to pay!
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On November 04 2013 10:00 Roe wrote:
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.
- The successful countries are all 100% one type of people. Diversity, aka poor black/hispanic people, means it's pointless to even compare the USA to other countries because they don't have a statue of liberty that lets people immigrate.
- Culturally we are like no other country. Americans eat hamburgers, drive Harleys, and shoot animals. This means that we can't have single payer.
- As we all know, life under communist rule was brutal and sad. Capitalism, the foundation of America, is the polar opposite which has given us American exceptionalism. Socialism is a terrible mix of capitalism and communism, a half breed philosophy which will fail ... eventually. Someday Germany and Switzerland and Norway are going to look like Greece, just you wait. Socialism will take its toll.
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On November 04 2013 10:16 ZeaL. wrote:Show nested quote +On November 04 2013 10:00 Roe wrote:
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. - The successful countries are all 100% one type of people. Diversity, aka poor black/hispanic people, means it's pointless to even compare the USA to other countries because they don't have a statue of liberty that lets people immigrate. - Culturally we are like no other country. Americans eat hamburgers, drive Harleys, and shoot animals. This means that we can't have single payer. - As we all know, life under communist rule was brutal and sad. Capitalism, the foundation of America, is the polar opposite which has given us American exceptionalism. Socialism is a terrible mix of capitalism and communism, a half breed philosophy which will fail ... eventually. Someday Germany and Switzerland and Norway are going to look like Greece, just you wait. Socialism will take its toll.
god i actually got to the 3e point before i realized the sarcasm....
On November 04 2013 10:13 Introvert wrote:Show nested quote +On November 04 2013 10:08 Gorsameth wrote:On November 04 2013 10:07 Introvert wrote:On November 04 2013 10:05 Gorsameth wrote: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. Let me check.... nope, not an argument against Obamacare either. If anything your trying to show Obamacare isnt invasive enough. It still gives you a choice not to get insurance which it shouldn't. Sure it is. Obamacare is increasing prices. Therefore, more people will pay the fine. Therefore, there are more people going from ER to ER. It does the exact opposite of what it intended.
Except the part where reports are showing a decrease in prices. But hey dont let facts stand in your way.
Oh and as i said before. If paying the fine is cheaper then insurance the fine isnt high enough.
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United States43966 Posts
On November 04 2013 09:59 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On November 04 2013 09:23 KwarK wrote: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?
I'm sure the plans are simplified to an extent but I'll give you an example of the problem as I see it. You probably won't know your statistically biggest risk, nor the costs of treating it. Given this how are you meant to decide if you want a plan that locks them in if you develop an expensive chronic condition or one that gives you a lot of treatments which would add up to a lot for free or one that limits your expenses in the case of one hugely expensive accident. The plans may not be complicated but the factors that influence which one is right for you certainly are.
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On November 04 2013 10:18 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On November 04 2013 10:16 ZeaL. wrote:On November 04 2013 10:00 Roe wrote:
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. - The successful countries are all 100% one type of people. Diversity, aka poor black/hispanic people, means it's pointless to even compare the USA to other countries because they don't have a statue of liberty that lets people immigrate. - Culturally we are like no other country. Americans eat hamburgers, drive Harleys, and shoot animals. This means that we can't have single payer. - As we all know, life under communist rule was brutal and sad. Capitalism, the foundation of America, is the polar opposite which has given us American exceptionalism. Socialism is a terrible mix of capitalism and communism, a half breed philosophy which will fail ... eventually. Someday Germany and Switzerland and Norway are going to look like Greece, just you wait. Socialism will take its toll. god i actually got to the 3e point before i realized the sarcasm.... Show nested quote +On November 04 2013 10:13 Introvert wrote:On November 04 2013 10:08 Gorsameth wrote:On November 04 2013 10:07 Introvert wrote:On November 04 2013 10:05 Gorsameth wrote: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. Let me check.... nope, not an argument against Obamacare either. If anything your trying to show Obamacare isnt invasive enough. It still gives you a choice not to get insurance which it shouldn't. Sure it is. Obamacare is increasing prices. Therefore, more people will pay the fine. Therefore, there are more people going from ER to ER. It does the exact opposite of what it intended. Except the part where reports are showing a decrease in prices. But hey dont let facts stand in your way. Oh and as i said before. If paying the fine is cheaper then insurance the fine isnt high enough.
Ok, so 7-15 million will have to pay more for being kicked off of what they had. The other stat I heard only said that Obamacare is only "slowing the increase." Maybe it's going down if you count the newly subsidized? Where did you get this new information? Is it more than the 15 million that will see an increase?
Fine not high enough? Man, this really amusing. People advocating government coercion.
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United States43966 Posts
On November 04 2013 10:23 Introvert wrote:Show nested quote +On November 04 2013 10:18 Gorsameth wrote:On November 04 2013 10:16 ZeaL. wrote:On November 04 2013 10:00 Roe wrote:
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. - The successful countries are all 100% one type of people. Diversity, aka poor black/hispanic people, means it's pointless to even compare the USA to other countries because they don't have a statue of liberty that lets people immigrate. - Culturally we are like no other country. Americans eat hamburgers, drive Harleys, and shoot animals. This means that we can't have single payer. - As we all know, life under communist rule was brutal and sad. Capitalism, the foundation of America, is the polar opposite which has given us American exceptionalism. Socialism is a terrible mix of capitalism and communism, a half breed philosophy which will fail ... eventually. Someday Germany and Switzerland and Norway are going to look like Greece, just you wait. Socialism will take its toll. god i actually got to the 3e point before i realized the sarcasm.... On November 04 2013 10:13 Introvert wrote:On November 04 2013 10:08 Gorsameth wrote:On November 04 2013 10:07 Introvert wrote:On November 04 2013 10:05 Gorsameth wrote: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. Let me check.... nope, not an argument against Obamacare either. If anything your trying to show Obamacare isnt invasive enough. It still gives you a choice not to get insurance which it shouldn't. Sure it is. Obamacare is increasing prices. Therefore, more people will pay the fine. Therefore, there are more people going from ER to ER. It does the exact opposite of what it intended. Except the part where reports are showing a decrease in prices. But hey dont let facts stand in your way. Oh and as i said before. If paying the fine is cheaper then insurance the fine isnt high enough. Ok, so 7-15 million will have to pay more for being kicked off of what they had. The other stat I heard only said that Obamacare is only "slowing the increase." Maybe it's going down if you count the newly subsidized? Where did you get this new information? Is it more than the 15 million that will see an increase? Fine not high enough? Man, this really amusing. People advocating government coercion.
As opposed to everything else the government does which isn't coercive? Government is coercion, deal with it or find your own country. The government is trying to get people to pay into healthcare so people who need healthcare can get healthcare. If people are opting out then yeah, you need to disincentivise that. In other news the government disincentivises fraud with the legal system and that's coercion too. That's pretty much how it works and crying coercion as if you're in the middle of a Tea Party rally won't actually score you any points.
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On November 04 2013 10:13 Introvert wrote:Show nested quote +On November 04 2013 10:08 Gorsameth wrote:On November 04 2013 10:07 Introvert wrote:On November 04 2013 10:05 Gorsameth wrote: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. Let me check.... nope, not an argument against Obamacare either. If anything your trying to show Obamacare isnt invasive enough. It still gives you a choice not to get insurance which it shouldn't. Sure it is. Obamacare is increasing prices.
How many times am I going to have to debunk this right-wing talking point in this very thread?
No Widespread Increase in Cost of Individual Health Insurance Policies Under Affordable Care Act
The federal Affordable Care Act will lead to an increase in health insurance coverage and higher enrollment among people who purchase individual policies, according to a new RAND Corporation study.
While there have been some reports that the cost of individual policies may jump sharply under health reform, a RAND analysis of 10 states and the United States overall predicts that there will be no widespread premium increase in the individual health insurance market.
However, researchers caution that the cost of policies in the individual market will vary between states and will be influenced by individual factors such as an individual's age and whether they smoke, as well as whether they qualify for federal tax credits to help cover the cost.
“Our analysis shows that rates for policies in the individual market are likely to vary from state to state, with some experiencing increases and some experiencing decreases in cost,” said Christine Eibner, the study's lead author and a senior economist at RAND, a nonprofit research organization. “But our analysis found no widespread trend toward sharply higher prices in the individual market.”
Source
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On November 04 2013 10:28 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On November 04 2013 10:23 Introvert wrote:On November 04 2013 10:18 Gorsameth wrote:On November 04 2013 10:16 ZeaL. wrote:On November 04 2013 10:00 Roe wrote:
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. - The successful countries are all 100% one type of people. Diversity, aka poor black/hispanic people, means it's pointless to even compare the USA to other countries because they don't have a statue of liberty that lets people immigrate. - Culturally we are like no other country. Americans eat hamburgers, drive Harleys, and shoot animals. This means that we can't have single payer. - As we all know, life under communist rule was brutal and sad. Capitalism, the foundation of America, is the polar opposite which has given us American exceptionalism. Socialism is a terrible mix of capitalism and communism, a half breed philosophy which will fail ... eventually. Someday Germany and Switzerland and Norway are going to look like Greece, just you wait. Socialism will take its toll. god i actually got to the 3e point before i realized the sarcasm.... On November 04 2013 10:13 Introvert wrote:On November 04 2013 10:08 Gorsameth wrote:On November 04 2013 10:07 Introvert wrote:On November 04 2013 10:05 Gorsameth wrote: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. Let me check.... nope, not an argument against Obamacare either. If anything your trying to show Obamacare isnt invasive enough. It still gives you a choice not to get insurance which it shouldn't. Sure it is. Obamacare is increasing prices. Therefore, more people will pay the fine. Therefore, there are more people going from ER to ER. It does the exact opposite of what it intended. Except the part where reports are showing a decrease in prices. But hey dont let facts stand in your way. Oh and as i said before. If paying the fine is cheaper then insurance the fine isnt high enough. Ok, so 7-15 million will have to pay more for being kicked off of what they had. The other stat I heard only said that Obamacare is only "slowing the increase." Maybe it's going down if you count the newly subsidized? Where did you get this new information? Is it more than the 15 million that will see an increase? Fine not high enough? Man, this really amusing. People advocating government coercion. As opposed to everything else the government does which isn't coercive? Government is coercion, deal with it or find your own country. The government is trying to get people to pay into healthcare so people who need healthcare can get healthcare. If people are opting out then yeah, you need to disincentivise that. In other news the government disincentivises fraud with the legal system and that's coercion too. That's pretty much how it works and crying coercion as if you're in the middle of a Tea Party rally won't actually score you any points.
I advocate as little coercion as possible, that's the thing. As for "deal with it or leave." No? Why should I just give up and give in? I'm not the one advocating more government, that's them. THEY want the heavier change, not me. They can leave and go to some other country that already has the system they want. Why change this one when they can just move!
This is the fundamental difference. I don't trust the fallible human beings who are in charge, so I oppose giving them more power, generally speaking.
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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.
Health insurance is quite different from car, homeowner's, or life insurance, specifically in the sense of how much information is required for efficient decision-making. Kenneth Arrow put it best:
+ Show Spoiler +There is a still more subtle consequence of the introduction of risk-bearing considerations. When there is uncertainty, information or knowledge becomes a commodity. Like other commodities, it has a cost of production and a cost of transmission, and so it is naturally not spread out over the entire population but concentrated among those who can profit most from it. (These costs may be measured in time or disutility as well as money.) But the demand for information is difficult to discuss in the rational terms usually employed. The value of information is frequently not known in any meaningful sense to the buyer; if, indeed, he knew enough to measure the value of information, he would know the information itself. But information, in the form of skilled care, is precisely what is being bought from most physicians, and, indeed, from most professionals. The elusive character of information as a commodity suggests that it departs considerably from the usual marketability assumptions about commodities.
That risk and uncertainty are, in fact, significant elements in medical care hardly needs argument. I will hold that virtually all the special features of this industry, in fact, stem from the prevalence of uncertainty.
(...)
The failure of one or more of the competitive preconditions has as its most immediate and obvious consequence a reduction in welfare below that obtainable from existing resources and technology, in the sense of a failure to reach an optimal state in the sense of Pareto. But more can be said. I propose here the view that, when the market fails to achieve an optimal state, society will, to some extent at least, recognize the gap, and nonmarket social institutions will arise attempting to bridge it. Certainly this process is not necessarily conscious; nor is it uniformly successful in approaching more closely to optimality when the entire range of consequences is considered. It has always been a favorite activity of economists to point out that actions which on their face achieve a desirable goal may have less obvious consequences particularly over time, which more than offset the original gains. But it is contended here that the special structural characteristics of the medical-care market are largely attempts to overcome the lack of optimality due to the nonmarketability of the bearing of suitable risks and the imperfect marketability of information.
The article is worth a read if you have some time. Even though it's old, it outlines pretty well the characteristics of the medical industry and medical insurance industry.
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On November 04 2013 10:31 kwizach wrote:Show nested quote +On November 04 2013 10:13 Introvert wrote:On November 04 2013 10:08 Gorsameth wrote:On November 04 2013 10:07 Introvert wrote:On November 04 2013 10:05 Gorsameth wrote: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. Let me check.... nope, not an argument against Obamacare either. If anything your trying to show Obamacare isnt invasive enough. It still gives you a choice not to get insurance which it shouldn't. Sure it is. Obamacare is increasing prices. How many times am I going to have to debunk this right-wing talking point in this very thread? Show nested quote +No Widespread Increase in Cost of Individual Health Insurance Policies Under Affordable Care Act
The federal Affordable Care Act will lead to an increase in health insurance coverage and higher enrollment among people who purchase individual policies, according to a new RAND Corporation study.
While there have been some reports that the cost of individual policies may jump sharply under health reform, a RAND analysis of 10 states and the United States overall predicts that there will be no widespread premium increase in the individual health insurance market.
However, researchers caution that the cost of policies in the individual market will vary between states and will be influenced by individual factors such as an individual's age and whether they smoke, as well as whether they qualify for federal tax credits to help cover the cost.
“Our analysis shows that rates for policies in the individual market are likely to vary from state to state, with some experiencing increases and some experiencing decreases in cost,” said Christine Eibner, the study's lead author and a senior economist at RAND, a nonprofit research organization. “But our analysis found no widespread trend toward sharply higher prices in the individual market.” Source
Much appreciated. But those are predictions. Costs have been going up, and as I said, they will be increasing for at least 7 million people, starting January 1. I didn't see that in there. Never mind that some of the cost is hidden in government subsidizes.
Are not costs still increasing? They are. I'll wait until the first year that they stay flat before I call that one.
Nonetheless, thank you for the source.
EDIT: I might have to be done for now. I much appreciate the back and forth, it was fun. (Which really is the only reason I do this at all!)
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On November 04 2013 10:21 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On November 04 2013 09:59 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On November 04 2013 09:23 KwarK wrote: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? I'm sure the plans are simplified to an extent but I'll give you an example of the problem as I see it. You probably won't know your statistically biggest risk, nor the costs of treating it. Given this how are you meant to decide if you want a plan that locks them in if you develop an expensive chronic condition or one that gives you a lot of treatments which would add up to a lot for free or one that limits your expenses in the case of one hugely expensive accident. The plans may not be complicated but the factors that influence which one is right for you certainly are.
I don't think those factors matter very much. The goal is to limit your risk exposure, not arbitrage various options to turn a profit.
How do you pay taxes to fund the NHS in the UK? Does the government calculate your individual risk profile and tax you accordingly?
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On November 04 2013 10:33 Introvert wrote:Show nested quote +On November 04 2013 10:28 KwarK wrote:On November 04 2013 10:23 Introvert wrote:On November 04 2013 10:18 Gorsameth wrote:On November 04 2013 10:16 ZeaL. wrote:On November 04 2013 10:00 Roe wrote:
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. - The successful countries are all 100% one type of people. Diversity, aka poor black/hispanic people, means it's pointless to even compare the USA to other countries because they don't have a statue of liberty that lets people immigrate. - Culturally we are like no other country. Americans eat hamburgers, drive Harleys, and shoot animals. This means that we can't have single payer. - As we all know, life under communist rule was brutal and sad. Capitalism, the foundation of America, is the polar opposite which has given us American exceptionalism. Socialism is a terrible mix of capitalism and communism, a half breed philosophy which will fail ... eventually. Someday Germany and Switzerland and Norway are going to look like Greece, just you wait. Socialism will take its toll. god i actually got to the 3e point before i realized the sarcasm.... On November 04 2013 10:13 Introvert wrote:On November 04 2013 10:08 Gorsameth wrote:On November 04 2013 10:07 Introvert wrote:On November 04 2013 10:05 Gorsameth wrote: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. Let me check.... nope, not an argument against Obamacare either. If anything your trying to show Obamacare isnt invasive enough. It still gives you a choice not to get insurance which it shouldn't. Sure it is. Obamacare is increasing prices. Therefore, more people will pay the fine. Therefore, there are more people going from ER to ER. It does the exact opposite of what it intended. Except the part where reports are showing a decrease in prices. But hey dont let facts stand in your way. Oh and as i said before. If paying the fine is cheaper then insurance the fine isnt high enough. Ok, so 7-15 million will have to pay more for being kicked off of what they had. The other stat I heard only said that Obamacare is only "slowing the increase." Maybe it's going down if you count the newly subsidized? Where did you get this new information? Is it more than the 15 million that will see an increase? Fine not high enough? Man, this really amusing. People advocating government coercion. As opposed to everything else the government does which isn't coercive? Government is coercion, deal with it or find your own country. The government is trying to get people to pay into healthcare so people who need healthcare can get healthcare. If people are opting out then yeah, you need to disincentivise that. In other news the government disincentivises fraud with the legal system and that's coercion too. That's pretty much how it works and crying coercion as if you're in the middle of a Tea Party rally won't actually score you any points. I advocate as little coercion as possible, that's the thing. As for "deal with it or leave." No? Why should I just give up and give in? I'm not the one advocating more government, that's them. THEY want the heavier change, not me. They can leave and go to some other country that already has the system they want. Why change this one when they can just move! This is the fundamental difference. I don't trust the fallible human beings who are in charge, so I oppose giving them more power, generally speaking.
Right, you care about your theoretical ideology of theoretical coercion. I care about real people in the real world. Pragmatism vs Ideology. "Government is less efficient than the private sector" is ideology. It is empirically wrong in this case, as has been demonstrated numerous times in this thread, yet you keep saying it because ideology does not yield to evidence.
And yes you definitely trust fallible human beings in charge, as long as they're driven by profits. Personally, if the free market kills a bunch of people, I blame the government for letting people die. You just shrug and say "that's the way the cookie crumbles" and people continue to die. That's the difference between you and me. Inaction does not absolve you of responsibility.
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United States43966 Posts
On November 04 2013 10:41 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On November 04 2013 10:21 KwarK wrote:On November 04 2013 09:59 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On November 04 2013 09:23 KwarK wrote: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? I'm sure the plans are simplified to an extent but I'll give you an example of the problem as I see it. You probably won't know your statistically biggest risk, nor the costs of treating it. Given this how are you meant to decide if you want a plan that locks them in if you develop an expensive chronic condition or one that gives you a lot of treatments which would add up to a lot for free or one that limits your expenses in the case of one hugely expensive accident. The plans may not be complicated but the factors that influence which one is right for you certainly are. I don't think those factors matter very much. The goal is to limit your risk exposure, not arbitrage various options to turn a profit. How do you pay taxes to fund the NHS in the UK? Does the government calculate your individual risk profile and tax you accordingly?
Nope. They come up with an amount of money first and then hand it to the experts to spend it as wisely as they can by death panels. They work out the value of a human life, then adjust it for quality and quantity of life and work out which treatments are worth paying for. The current value of a year of high quality human life in the UK is about $45,000.
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On November 04 2013 11:03 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On November 04 2013 10:41 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On November 04 2013 10:21 KwarK wrote:On November 04 2013 09:59 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On November 04 2013 09:23 KwarK wrote: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? I'm sure the plans are simplified to an extent but I'll give you an example of the problem as I see it. You probably won't know your statistically biggest risk, nor the costs of treating it. Given this how are you meant to decide if you want a plan that locks them in if you develop an expensive chronic condition or one that gives you a lot of treatments which would add up to a lot for free or one that limits your expenses in the case of one hugely expensive accident. The plans may not be complicated but the factors that influence which one is right for you certainly are. I don't think those factors matter very much. The goal is to limit your risk exposure, not arbitrage various options to turn a profit. How do you pay taxes to fund the NHS in the UK? Does the government calculate your individual risk profile and tax you accordingly? Nope. They come up with an amount of money first and then hand it to the experts to spend it as wisely as they can by death panels. They work out the value of a human life, then adjust it for quality and quantity of life and work out which treatments are worth paying for. The current value of a year of high quality human life in the UK is about $45,000.
OK, but the $45K average value of a human life, and the taxes you pay to cover it, may differ from your individual situation.
If you are OK with that, I don't see what problem you are having with insurance.
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United States43966 Posts
On November 04 2013 10:33 Introvert wrote:Show nested quote +On November 04 2013 10:28 KwarK wrote:On November 04 2013 10:23 Introvert wrote:On November 04 2013 10:18 Gorsameth wrote:On November 04 2013 10:16 ZeaL. wrote:On November 04 2013 10:00 Roe wrote:
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. - The successful countries are all 100% one type of people. Diversity, aka poor black/hispanic people, means it's pointless to even compare the USA to other countries because they don't have a statue of liberty that lets people immigrate. - Culturally we are like no other country. Americans eat hamburgers, drive Harleys, and shoot animals. This means that we can't have single payer. - As we all know, life under communist rule was brutal and sad. Capitalism, the foundation of America, is the polar opposite which has given us American exceptionalism. Socialism is a terrible mix of capitalism and communism, a half breed philosophy which will fail ... eventually. Someday Germany and Switzerland and Norway are going to look like Greece, just you wait. Socialism will take its toll. god i actually got to the 3e point before i realized the sarcasm.... On November 04 2013 10:13 Introvert wrote:On November 04 2013 10:08 Gorsameth wrote:On November 04 2013 10:07 Introvert wrote:On November 04 2013 10:05 Gorsameth wrote: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. Let me check.... nope, not an argument against Obamacare either. If anything your trying to show Obamacare isnt invasive enough. It still gives you a choice not to get insurance which it shouldn't. Sure it is. Obamacare is increasing prices. Therefore, more people will pay the fine. Therefore, there are more people going from ER to ER. It does the exact opposite of what it intended. Except the part where reports are showing a decrease in prices. But hey dont let facts stand in your way. Oh and as i said before. If paying the fine is cheaper then insurance the fine isnt high enough. Ok, so 7-15 million will have to pay more for being kicked off of what they had. The other stat I heard only said that Obamacare is only "slowing the increase." Maybe it's going down if you count the newly subsidized? Where did you get this new information? Is it more than the 15 million that will see an increase? Fine not high enough? Man, this really amusing. People advocating government coercion. As opposed to everything else the government does which isn't coercive? Government is coercion, deal with it or find your own country. The government is trying to get people to pay into healthcare so people who need healthcare can get healthcare. If people are opting out then yeah, you need to disincentivise that. In other news the government disincentivises fraud with the legal system and that's coercion too. That's pretty much how it works and crying coercion as if you're in the middle of a Tea Party rally won't actually score you any points. I advocate as little coercion as possible, that's the thing. As for "deal with it or leave." No? Why should I just give up and give in? I'm not the one advocating more government, that's them. THEY want the heavier change, not me. They can leave and go to some other country that already has the system they want. Why change this one when they can just move! This is the fundamental difference. I don't trust the fallible human beings who are in charge, so I oppose giving them more power, generally speaking.
My issue with your cry of coercion is that it's utterly meaningless. Coercion is the essence of government, it's fundamental to everything it does and if you have a problem with that then you have a problem with the concept of government in which case you need to go found your own country. Assuming you don't go do that then you're on board with the coercion aspect which you are. The stuff you want is coerced out of people and the stuff you don't want is coerced out of people, crying that Obamacare is coercive is only going to score you points if you're preaching to a choir of morons who don't understand that government is fundamentally coercive and the things that they want are coerced too. It's not an argument, it's a statement of fact, an observation of the nature of the beast and attempting to use it as an argument against an action rather than the beast itself suggests you spend far too much time with people lacking critical faculties who just nod and cry "murca" whenever you say it.
You might as well go all the way and say "but that's socialism". These things don't mean anything unless you're preaching to a choir of people who have all collectively decided to have their own meaning for the words with an internalised argument that defies reality.
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