Sick People and the Innocent Insurance Companies they Defraud

Xcalibur254
If socialized healthcare is such a terrible thing, why do countries that have it not only benefit from a higher life expectancy but from a greater quality of life and are generally happier? Are some people really saying that not only would they rather live a shorter, less fulfilling life, but deny others the same benefit, all because of their political ideology?

In the case of the USA it's not socialized healthcare.

It's a case of legislating a requirement to purchase a service, and then pricing that service out of reach.

A case of taxing ALL GROSS INCOME in the US at a flat rate before deductions to pay for healthcare to provide equal services for everyone from the guy on the street corner to the guy in the oval office would make sense.
It would be a part of the cost of doing business with the US economy.

In this case, it's once again targeting the little guy and beating him over the head with the cost while exempting the very people who enacted the law and the ones who profit from it.

The fact that the commercial entities who have pushed the cost of healthcare into the stratosphere are the benificiaries of the current legislation shows how backwards and corrupt this situation is.

iRoyalty
reply to post by Phoenix

 

But what part of my rights are being breeched by having the NHS? It doesn't empower the government, in fact they want to get rid of it because they pay for it! I feel like I have more rights because even if I'm a bum on the streets I have the right to healthcare

You are correct for where you are as its an entirely different political system - over here we have a Constitution which is being trampled by the way this was tackled. The precedent set is one that in future could be used for anything at all.

There were and are many other ways to resolve the issue of medical care besides what was done.

badgerprints

The fact that the commercial entities who have pushed the cost of healthcare into the stratosphere are the benificiaries of the current legislation shows how backwards and corrupt this situation is.

I totally agree, on a financial blog I've seen a very logical case made where cost could be 40% of what they are if truly free market conditions were in effect.

Through lobbying our greedy politicians there is no exposure to anti-trust laws. Interstate competition is illegal as a consumer choice and these items are but tip of the iceberg.

The government itself has done much to inflate costs via payola and regulations that allow racketeering on a massive scale and now the government wants in on the action too except its going for the power not the money.

beezzer
I don't see anything wrong with the analogy.

Healthcare is a service. You pay for that service. Insurance is a hedge against that payment.

People now expect healthcare for free.

And for those that see healthcare as a right, wouldn't food also be considered a "right"?

I can't go to a restaurant for free simply because I am hungry.

But im guessing no one starves to death in the usa like the rest of the devopled world?

There is a huge diffrence between say giving someone basic food to survive and a 3 course resterant meal?

Same with health care, no you should not get IVF, abortions and plastic surgery as a right but in a civilised country no one should be denied cancer treatment or heart sugery cause they cant fork 500k out.
Now theres plenty of ways to provide that sort of service, some like in singapore and hong hong which are pretty goverment hands off but the service is there.

reply to post by TheWrightWing


I dont rember the bit in the bible were jesus charged bloated healthcare costs to people he cured and gave preferential treatment to the rich?

Maybe im missing a page?

beezzer

And for those that see healthcare as a right, wouldn't food also be considered a "right"?
I can't go to a restaurant for free simply because I am hungry.

Yes... and no. Of course food and healthcare is our right, whether we look at it from a Constitutional, religious or natural law perspective. We have a right to life. Food and healthcare are necessary for life, therefore we have a right to food and healthcare. We do not have a right to demand someone else provides our food and our healthcare; but at the same time, no one should have the power to deny anyone their right to obtain their own food or healthcare as they deem appropriate... and yet, that is exactly what is happening. Due to government regulation, we are restricted to who and where and how we can obtain health care, including at the point of a gun, creating a hyper-inflated crony capitalist market priced out of reach of too many people. If the government has the power to deny us healthcare, then they have the power to give us healthcare. If they have no power to give us healthcare, then they have no power to control our healthcare in any way.

beezzer

In order to pay for it, you would have to raise taxes, impose levies, restructure financing...

I'm not so sure about raising taxes... Taxpayers already pay a fortune for healthcare costs in many ways, from government grants for research and development, to student loans for doctors and other medical personnel, and care for the indigent, elderly, and disabled. We subsidize 75% of Congress and their staff's healthcare costs. Yes, all of this could and should be re-allocated. Part of restructuring financing could include an end to these sweetheart deals for Big Pharma, saving additional considerable savings. Tort reform might also help. We pay dearly already for healthcare that too many of us cannot benefit from. That's not right.

beezzer

that would infringe on my right to self-determine.
It would infringe on my first amendment rights if I had religious differences to the aspect of care.
It would impose restrictions on my rights to privacy, since government would have access to my medical records.
If I choose not to have health insurance, I would still have to be forced to pay into a national healthcare model.
It's being attempted with Obamacare, and is turning into a train wreck of epic proportions.

All excellent points; many of which are already being violated (taxpayer funds for abortion anyone?), and need to be addressed in any healthcare reform we adopt.

beezzer

We keep adding law after law after law to supplement the high cost infrastructure, and never look at what is driving those costs.

Again, excellent point. And, I would add, Obamacare has only exacerbated all of the issues that sent healthcare costs skyrocketing to begin with. It was never about the health of the many; it was all about the greed of the few.

reply to post by crazyewok


Before Obamacare was enacted and even after, it is the law that everyone who walked into an ER got treated.

Regardless of ability to pay.

When I was young, very young, I accidently took an over-dose of Bayers Orange flavoured chewable aspirin.

The nearest hospital was of a religious affiliation.

They took my mother (who is English) and a comatose child and turned us away.

She actually had to get back into the car with my lifeless body, and drive to another hospital.

That was in the 60's. Before the law was enacted.

And just to add, two years ago my uncle (who lived in London) died from liver cancer because he was identified as too old to receive a transplant.

reply to post by beezzer


Im not going to argue that obamacare is crap cause it is. You replaced one bit of crap with another.

But if your healthcare is so great nation wide then why does the usa rank low in the developed world for healthcare? And yes ER treatment may be free but what of those denief follow up care or treatment for conditions like cancer?
There was something rotton in the system,

Sorry about your uncle. I think the refuseal was more to do with the organ shortage. From what i hear from doctor freinds the usa has some pretty hardcore transplant rules too as there is just not enough organs and the list needs to be wittled down. Horrible and tragic and i hope they speed up deveopment or clonable transplant organs.

beezzer
reply to post by ChaoticOrder

 

The problem is the mandate.

Americans are being told that they have to pay into the system and that they have to get health insurance.

If it was a voluntary system, I wouldn't have a problem with it. My issue is that I am being forced into it or else I get punished.

I agree, but our best interests were never the goal, and coercion is not a new complaint. I don't like the various ways people are coerced now with regards to our healthcare. It's one of many ways we need real reform, not just worrying about who pays for it. Letting people suffer and die is not an option, so we have to figure out something.

I've looked at some of the healthcare models used by other countries, and I'm leaning toward a private/public combo of some kind, and we can probably learn much from other nations and the problems they've encountered implementing their system. But I'm not stuck on any one plan or model. I think there are probably various ways to go that would both ensure healthcare for everyone, and still provide choices and options for everyone.

Do you have any preferences?

Boadicea

beezzer
reply to post by ChaoticOrder

 

The problem is the mandate.

Americans are being told that they have to pay into the system and that they have to get health insurance.

If it was a voluntary system, I wouldn't have a problem with it. My issue is that I am being forced into it or else I get punished.

I agree, but our best interests were never the goal, and coercion is not a new complaint. I don't like the various ways people are coerced now with regards to our healthcare. It's one of many ways we need real reform, not just worrying about who pays for it. Letting people suffer and die is not an option, so we have to figure out something.

I've looked at some of the healthcare models used by other countries, and I'm leaning toward a private/public combo of some kind, and we can probably learn much from other nations and the problems they've encountered implementing their system. But I'm not stuck on any one plan or model. I think there are probably various ways to go that would both ensure healthcare for everyone, and still provide choices and options for everyone.

Do you have any preferences?


Do you

Yes. A free market plan where healthcare is treated like any other service provided. Insurance for catastrophic illness, open borders for insurance companies, tort reform, health saving accounts.

Anything but government involvement.

beezzer

Anything but government involvement.

Awwww... you're a dreamer

Alas, if only we'd kept their grubby little paws out of it in the first place. Definitely our greatest challenge at this point. I believe in miracles -- but I won't hold my breath.

TheWrightWing

Perhaps you can reveal the instances where the Christ insisted that people have the right to other peoples resources (time, property) by force and penalty of law?

If you are referring to the taxes, Jesus made it pretty clear: "Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's." Money was made by man for man (at least in theory). If you want to play their game, you have to play by their rules. Of course, they made the rules and they can change the rules at will.

I do agree with you in theory; my greatest concern is for the growing number of hard-working people who cannot afford their own insurance, but do pay plenty in taxes and other ways for the healthcare for others they cannot benefit from themselves. Obviously, payroll taxes and federal taxes that directly supply healthcare for our poor, our elderly, our disabled, as well as government employees, etc. But also in indirect ways, from student loans to research grants, and government agencies like the FDA to protect the safety of people from drugs they'll never be able to afford -- others will, those who can still afford healthcare, but not everyone. There's something very very wrong when people with so little are forced to sacrifice for people who have so much more. And it's very very disturbing to me when those people with so much more (access to affordable quality healthcare, made possible in large part by tax dollars) are willing to take the sacrifice of those with so much less, but deny them the same thing (access to affordable quality healthcare). This is literally health redistribution -- taking from some for the benefit of others.

It seems to me we have two choices: We re-think how we deliver healthcare in a way that provides everyone healthcare with the most freedom of choice possible; or we take ALL tax dollars off the table, and allow healthcare to function on a free-market level. If that means people dying in the streets because they can't get healthcare, so be it. I guess we'll deal with it. If that means people dying on the side of the road because we no longer send ambulances, so be it. We'll find a way to deal with it. If that means no more drugs researched and developed because pharmaceutical companies can't afford it, so be it. We'll deal with it.

Is that better for anyone, including you and your loved ones?

Of course we could do better by finding a way to serve the common and best interests of all, and understanding that money is a tool... not a weapon. And should be our servant, not our master.

reply to post by jrod


It is a valid comparison. Why would a young healthy person want to pay for expensive health insurance? They could save a lot of money by just paying the fine for not having it, and when they do get sick or hurt they can get insurance because they can not be denied for a pre-existing condition. Of course this is no accident... this is by design. It is the best way to bankrupt the "private" health insurance industry and force a single payer system, which has been the progressive Utopian goal all along.

beezzer
I don't see anything wrong with the analogy.

Healthcare is a service. You pay for that service. Insurance is a hedge against that payment.

People now expect healthcare for free.

And for those that see healthcare as a right, wouldn't food also be considered a "right"?

I can't go to a restaurant for free simply because I am hungry.

Thye real problem is and always will be that real insurance is (as you put it) a hedge against something actually happening that will end up costing a lot of money - or any money at all. Car insurance and homeowners insurance is a bet that you make with an insurance company that your car and/or home will get robbed or damaged. That's not what healthcare insurance is. Healthcare insurance is a community funding pool that millions contribute into each month, with the notion that if they do, the money will be there for them if/when they need it for healthcare. That money is designed to be distributed from that pool to the people who contributed into it. It's not a "bet" being made between the insurance company and each policy holder because the healthcare is supposed to be granted - even if only for things like check-ups and preventative care (like dental cleaning and colonoscopies).

The US started this foolishness under Nixon, and generations have grown up not realizing that "healthcare insurance" is privately managed socialized medicine, with the sick twist of "for-profit" added in. That was a really big bone that Nixon tossed to one of his biggest campaign donors (an insurance company owner) when the system was established and tied to the employee-employer relationship with a big wet kiss to corporations and their (at the time) desire to find a way to retain workers who could otherwise shop for a better job with no downside for doing so. It worked, since losing healthcare coverage - especially as age presented workers with "preexisting conditions" - literally roped them down to whatever job they had when the condition showed up. Funny that now days companies are quick to kick older and more experienced workers to the curb as soon as they get the chance, but no one expected that to be the case when the employee-employer nanny state was established.

You kids haven't been around long enough to even know the facts behind the system that you're working so hard to defend. Just a lot of talking points and nothing else. No wonder you people are such a small minority.

OptimusSubprime
reply to post by jrod

 

It is a valid comparison. Why would a young healthy person want to pay for expensive health insurance? They could save a lot of money by just paying the fine for not having it, and when they do get sick or hurt they can get insurance because they can not be denied for a pre-existing condition. Of course this is no accident... this is by design. It is the best way to bankrupt the "private" health insurance industry and force a single payer system, which has been the progressive Utopian goal all along.

Privately managed socialized medicine versus publicly managed socialized medicine? I don't know which would be better run, but I do know that if you take the stock market out of the equation, you end up with many billions each year that aren't siphoned off for marketing, buying football stadiums, lobbyists, multimillion dollar salaries, and increasingly required double digit stock profits. Yeah, government employees get good benefits and some get 6 figure salaries, but none of them get private jets and million dollar bonuses each quarter for screwing people out of collecting on what their policies promised them.

As for the young people...they'll live with a percentage taken out of their wages, just like the rest of us do. And if they can't, then screw 'em. No free rides here, pal. Pay up like everyone else or get the f*ck out and stay out. I spent 3 decades in the entertainment industry and watched way too many jack*sses suck the private healthcare system dry with emergency room Primary Care Physician health plans. And they all skated on the bills because they were just roadies that didn't actually live anywhere that the bills could be mailed to. And they'd laugh about it. Screw them. I'm tired of paying for those people, and there's no way that this society will ever allow hospitals to let someone bleed to death on their doorstep.