War on sickness
POSTED BY: SergeantX
UPDATED: Thursday, April 27, 2006 20:46
VIEWED: 5120
PAGE 2 of 7
Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
SergeantX
"How about we just quit trying to tell each other what to do?"
I suggest this - up and up socialized medicine. A certain percentage of your tax will go for your cut of 'free' care. If you opt out, you don't get to enjoy the benefits. It's pay as you go for everything from the trivial to the financially devastating. And you don't get government aid like food stamps if medical costs make you poor.
How would that work? You'll end up with people who can afford to do so opting out and those that can't not able to be taxed to an extent to cover their own health costs.
More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity. But I know none, and therefore am no beast.
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Any system of healthcare is an agrigated system. It essentially relies on healthy folks paying towards the care of sick ones in the expectation that other healthy folks will pay when they themselves get sick.
If you never get sick then it's a waste of money, just the same as any form of insurance that you never make a claim on. You only ever see the benefit when something bad happens. Unfortunately for the agrigated systems to work the healthy people have to pay even when a 2 second analysis shows that they wouldnt see much benefit. Likewise every carefull driver on the road pays premiums towards insurance that help to pay for accidents caused by the less carefull.
The reason that everyone pays for car insurance is that if people could opt out -- either to save money or because they dont think they needed it -- then the aggrigation system unfairly punishes the people that choose to take insurance and the victims of accidents. There are a lot of undocumented workers here in Texas. Undocumented means no drivers licence which in turn means no insurance. Since the towns here sprawl you need a car to work. Friend of mine was hit by an undocumented driver who then ran off rather than give insurance details. Result, the cost of the accident was borne exclusively by my friend and his insurance. The next year his premium sky rocketed even though the police report made it clear that the accident was not his fault.
Likewise your taxes and medical insurance premiums are already higher than they should be to pay for those folks that for various reasons don't have insurance. If you dont think you need insurance (being a healthy guy) and some drunk driver puts you in an emergency room do you want to die or would you rather be saved on someone else's dime. I suspect that for all your "screw people telling me to buy insurance" retoric you would still expect to be saved. Personally I would prefer that saving your hide didnt involve dipping into my pocket.
I also find it interesting that folks that cry foul over forced motor insurance and socialised healthcare dont think twice about dropping a few trillion on defence spending. Defence is the ultimate form of "insurance" if things go well you would never use it and it would be an appauling waste of money. The point is that when you do need it is when you are glad you paid the "premium." In any case we all pay for it. We are not given the option to opt out and not pay it. The day that I see folks the same folks who argue against healthcare campaigning to opt out of paying for the Pentagon is the day I take tehm seriously. Until then it's "I dont want the government telling me how to spend my money --- unless it's something I want, at which point I'm ok with it."
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Quote:
Originally posted by Fletch2:
I also find it interesting that folks that cry foul over forced motor insurance and socialised healthcare dont think twice about dropping a few trillion on defence spending. Defence is the ultimate form of "insurance" if things go well you would never use it and it would be an appauling waste of money. The point is that when you do need it is when you are glad you paid the "premium." In any case we all pay for it. We are not given the option to opt out and not pay it. The day that I see folks the same folks who argue against healthcare campaigning to opt out of paying for the Pentagon is the day I take tehm seriously. Until then it's "I dont want the government telling me how to spend my money --- unless it's something I want, at which point I'm ok with it."
Well, ok then. You've found one. In fact, I'd take socialized medicine in a heartbeat if it meant defunding our military empire. I've campaigned against our insane foreign policy longer, and more loudly than I have against any healthcare intiatives. There are actually a lot more of us out here than you might realize. We're the ones still holding on to that whacky idea that freedom is a good thing. Go figure.
SergeantX
"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock
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"How would that work? You'll end up with people who can afford to do so opting out and those that can't not able to be taxed to an extent to cover their own health costs."
It'd be a crap shoot for sure.
The VERY wealthy of course would fund their own health care.
The very poor would have no choice - if they wanted healthcare at all they'd have to opt in. (I was thinking that it would be a percentage of your income tax, so that those who have less money would pay less in absolute dollars, while those who have more money would pay more.)
The middle would have a choice to make. How lucky would they feel?
I also specified that if you don't pay in, you just don't get that government care. That way the cost would not devolve from the non-participants onto the participants.
Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.
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Quote:
The carrot is lower rates for the poor
I realize there are some people who don't want insurance and choose instead to pay full price only when they get ill, but I was also under the impression that a lot of people don't have health insurance because their jobs don't offer it and it's expensive.
How low is low? For some, low is arbitrary when they can barely afford to put food on the table and keep a roof over their head.
I do think it will be interesting to see how this plays out though.
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Quote:
Personally I would prefer that saving your hide didnt involve dipping into my pocket.
lol!! your pocket personally has nothing to do with it, ..do you really think your personal pocket book is being affected when someone who isn't insured gets treatment?
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As someone that tried (unsuccessfully) to help someone chronically ill but without insurance I have to say no.
Unless you can pay out of pocket for things (very unlikely) then any system you set up is an agrigation system which means that the costs of the sick are paid for by the healthy. SargX seems to think that any compulsary system that forces him to pay for healthcare in some way curtails his freedom to spend his money as he sees fit. I actually have no problem with that so long as if he opts out and subsequently something happens he doesnt expect the system I pay into to pay for his care.
The uninsured do cost money when they get sick. The terrible irony of my poor friend was that she got sick, was unable to work lost her job and with it her insurance. She had incidents that put her into a coma twice, and on both occasions got fairly expensive emergency care, but not having insurance once she was no longer in immediate risk she was left to fend for herself. This resulted in more expensive emergency hospitalisation and finally cost her life.
Had the medical folks kept treating her after the very first incident there is a chance that the later ones couyld have been avoided and she would still be alive. As it is tax payers ended up picking up a bill for not saving her....
Tell me how that makes sense?
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Quote:
Originally posted by Fletch2:
...The terrible irony of my poor friend was that she got sick, was unable to work lost her job and with it her insurance. She had incidents that put her into a coma twice, and on both occasions got fairly expensive emergency care, but not having insurance once she was no longer in immediate risk she was left to fend for herself. This resulted in more expensive emergency hospitalisation and finally cost her life.
Had the medical folks kept treating her after the very first incident there is a chance that the later ones couyld have been avoided and she would still be alive. As it is tax payers ended up picking up a bill for not saving her....
Tell me how that makes sense?
It makes no sense at all. This is what we need to be fighting against.
Routine health care is insanely expensive and there's no good reason for it. We're wealthy enough in this country that the majority of the poor would be able to afford everyday drugs and healthcare if the prices weren't artificially inflated. The major factor keeping prices high is the virtual monopoly on healthcare sustained by regulation. In my home town an Indian doctor, not allowed to practice medicine legally, provides low cost health care to those unable to afford cartel prices. He'll go to jail if he's ever caught, but it's good to know that brave people are exploring alternatives to a corrupt system.
Further enriching the current establishment by forcing us to buy their overpriced services will not help.
SergeantX
"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock
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Hi,
I'm just wondering how it works for children in the US. If parents haven't paid for insurance for their children then what happens if they need an operation?
Heb
...................
Well, my sister's a ship... we had a
complicated childhood
.................
I wear the cheese. It does not wear me.
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Hi,
I'm just wondering how it works for children in the US. If parents haven't paid for insurance for their children then what happens if they need an operation?
Heb
...................
Well, my sister's a ship... we had a
complicated childhood
.................
I wear the cheese. It does not wear me.
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