With all of the proposed regulations, I do! Then who is going to fill the gap? Answer: The Government. Then we'll see how that all pans out (see Social Security).
Discuss!
P.S. I went without health insurance when I was in college with a 20hr class load and working to support a family. There is no way I could have afforded anything. But, when I went to the emergency room I paid for it... Don't force me to have insurance.
I'm going to start heating up the cooking oil. Anybody want to take care of the breading?
I am turning up the propane...sweet lady propane
I prefer grilled flounder.
So I assume this is in reference to the Obama speech? What did I miss?
DustoffDave wrote: Don't force me to have insurance.
did you listen to him?
guess. not.....
ohh well...
I'm going back to internet pr0n.
Yes, I did listen to him. He said that everyone will be required to have some kind of insurance, just like car insurance...
Any push for a public option? Tort reform? Pharmaceutical price reduction? Transparency/honesty in billing? etc...?
I am truly interested, I am between cable providers and didn't get to watch.
this reminds me.. i need to find some health insurance. I got dropped off moms policy on my birthday and they wanted over $15,000 a year to cover me (no pre-existing conditions and no major claims)
any ideas for decent affordable insurance? I am currently a student with an internship, but no real job. (been looking at the schools policy, still looking)
Raise the deductible, raise the copay, put a yearly cap at around what you think you can survive on out of pocket costs and see what you get. Prices go down drastically if you cover the first $1-$2k
DustoffDave wrote: With all of the proposed regulations, I do! Then who is going to fill the gap? Answer: The Government. Then we'll see how that all pans out (see Social Security). Discuss! P.S. I went without health insurance when I was in college with a 20hr class load and working to support a family. There is no way I could have afforded anything. But, when I went to the emergency room I paid for it... Don't force me to have insurance.
How long ago were you in college?
Joey
I went many years without. It can be done, ask SvRex.
honestly, I look forward to affordable insurance. With my Crohnes, I am damn near uninsurable without spending a fortune and not getting it covered as a preexisting condition.. never mind I have not had a flare up in almost 20 years.
Insurance costs will never be affordable, just hidden or moved around.
I think this is hillarious!
I don't wear a seat-belt when I'm driving my car on the streets because I find it far more comfortable, and I'm confident in my ability to predict the idiots around me and avoid any accidents (7 years 250,000 miles successful). When they made it a law that I had to, I was rather pissed that the government was able to tell me how to live my life when it in no way endangered anyone else's life or way of life. It of course didn't change what I did (wooh there's a huge rebel for ya haha). People would always harp on me about "it's the law". And I'd always say that seat-belts are to protect you and only in the event that you have an accident.
And now full circle, the government has now been granted the power to force insurance on people for themselves. This is nothing like insurance for car (as that is mostly to cover someone that you hit than it is for you). Health insurance is to protect you and only you in the event that you have an accident.
Amazing how similar they are, and yet no one seems to be bothered with the seatbelt law........
BTW, I pay over $200 a month for health insurance since I am independently employed. So I'm not just an anti-authority nut.
MrJoshua wrote: Insurance costs will never be affordable, just hidden or moved around.
Unfortunately I live in NJ and can tell you alot about our rather terrible mandatory car insurance system here. I can only imagine the health insurance plan will be similar
blaze86vic wrote: And now full circle, the government has now been granted the power to force insurance on people for themselves. This is nothing like insurance for car (as that is mostly to cover someone that you hit than it is for you). Health insurance is to protect you and only you in the event that you have an accident.
This is false. All those people who choose not to have insurance still can and do get sick or injured, and incur medical expenses. Without insurance many of those people cannot pay those expenses when they come due. Guess who does? It's not exactly the same as car insurance, for many reasons. For one, we don't just total out human beings after their repairs become too costly... but the logic behind requiring everyone to be insured is more similar than you assert. Requiring insurance would reduce the burden that the uninsured place on everyone else when they incur expenses that they can't pay back.
You are taking the same total cost, and adding the cost of insurance on top of it. How does that drive down costs?
Josh wrote: This is false. All those people who choose not to have insurance still can and do get sick or injured, and incur medical expenses. Without insurance many of those people cannot pay those expenses when they come due. Guess who does? It's not exactly the same as car insurance, for many reasons. For one, we don't just total out human beings after their repairs become too costly... but the logic behind requiring everyone to be insured is more similar than you assert. Requiring insurance would reduce the burden that the uninsured place on everyone else when they incur expenses that they can't pay back.
Most people don't "choose" not to get it, they simply can't afford it. And that is what our taxes are for. In the event of an emergency our government will do the basics to keep you alive. However, for the rest of those that can afford it, and like the piece of mind of knowing they can go in for little things, and also have the credit to actually go somewhere in life, they get health insurance. Forcing health insurance won't change anything, because the people that can't afford it already, won't be able to afford it when it's law, and then will be getting financial aid (IE tax dollars) to pay for it anyways.
So it still stands that health insurance for everyone doesn't change anything except for how much the government gets to control your life.
I hope this doesn't get passed. I like being able to make a doctor's appointments for the same day if need be. While I am not nuts about governmental regulation of any system, I wouldn't mind a bit more transparency and less red tape when dealing with health issues. However, a federal government run program would be terrible, and please reference any other federally run "business" that competes in the private sector. USPS works but it is extremely inefficient and fraught with beuracracy and waste. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac...that worked out well. "No Child Left Behind Act," slightly different than the others but a great example of the federal governement ruining something that should be handled at a state level.
Joey48442 said: How long ago were you in college? Joey
I was in college from 2001 to 2008.
Blaze86vic said: So it still stands that health insurance for everyone doesn't change anything except for how much the government gets to control your life.
+1
Since the President's speech broke no new ground or offfered much towards non-partisan compromise, the debate continues.
My opinions are pretty much covered by the posts in the "Dealers are still slime-holes" thread. They apply equally as well to GSE's and insurance companies.
MrJoshua wrote: You are taking the same total cost, and adding the cost of insurance on top of it. How does that drive down costs?
An ambulance ride and an ER visit costs a lot more than a trip to a GP. But I didn't actually say it would drive down costs to have everyone insured. It might, it might not, but there some spirit of fairness in saying that, since everyone gets access to lifesaving and emergency care, everyone should be insured in the system, rather than allowing some people to make a bet that they won't get sick, and then sticking the public and the insured with the bill if they lose the bet.
To more specifically address the defense of reduced insurance costs and taxes, lets look at how much health coverage actually costs. There are three things that drive your health costs.
Currently:
1) Cost of insurance
2) Cost of actual services
3) Taxes to cover actual services to the un-insured and injured.
With the new plan:
1) Cost of insurance (unchanged)
2) Cost of actual services (unchanged)
3) Taxes to cover the non-paying insured, both the injured and the healthy (increased)
And the reason the cost of insurance will not decrease, is that like many consumer services (not consumer goods), insurance isn't any more profitable the more you have. Profit is made by insurance companies because of the healthy people that pay and don't use any of the coverage. So their rates are designed to give them profits based on a ratio of people that use coverage (inured and sick) and those that don't use coverage (healthy). So adding more sick and more healthy people won't lower insurance costs. If you could somehow add only more healthy people, then it would lower costs, but that's not what's happening here.
Why don't we take some of that money that we normally spend on covering the un-insured, and use it to reduce the cost of actual medical services. This will in turn make it cheaper for health insurance companies to cover people, and reduce the cost to those who are un-insured, which will in turn reduce the number of people that have to use tax money to pay for services.
To go back to the OP's question, no I don't think the insurance companies are going out of business. They are well connected, they stand to gain a lot from bringing many more healthy people into the pool, they are still in position to pass on costs, and a lot of the "pre-existing conditions" they turn people down for now are not going to become full blow illness.
I got turned down for coverage once because of an old back injury. It hurts once in a while, I use a combination of exercise and stretching to keep it healthy. I am sure that some underwriter saw that in my record and immediately had visions of expensive back surgery, and physical therapy even though it is really a non-issue in my life.
I have the interesting perspective of working inside a pharmaceutical company and an insurance company in the last 2 years. I think the more fundamental problem we have is that right now, almost everywhere, medical providers don't get paid until some is already ill. Build the payments and incentives around keeping us well and the costs will drop and our well being will go up.
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