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Senate Bill Fines People More Than $1,000 for Refusing Health Care Coverage

It can't. That's why it will pass the cost on to everybody else- whether they are privately insured or not. It won't be long before the bill comes along imposing a fine upon everybody that declines government coverage, even those under a private policy.

I don't know about that. Do you really think the losses in tax revenue would be worth it? The system needs money to function....
 
Hey Mr. Libertarian, if your house catches fire, do you deserve to have the Fire Dept. put it out? If you are being beaten for holding such asshat opinions, do you deserve to have a policeman intervene? If you want to drive to town to attend a Tea Party, do you deserve a paved road? i could go on, and on and on, but Libertarians will continue to deny the need for infrastructure as they continue to use it.



Libertarians are for small government, not no government.


I see we have your morning *FAIL* already..... :lol:
 
If the college student breaks their leg, or does anything similar, then they will get emergency treatment and the hospital can just write off any expenses. And before you say it I know the bill then gets sent to the tax payers because a hospital is non-profit (which is what allows them to write it off in the first place), but that is what universal health care is. A college student can get the treatment and not have to pay for the services.

And generally a healthy college student will not suffer any serious injuries, GENERALLY, so why pay 12 thousand dollars over the course of a four year college for something that chances are you will not use, and do not need. I think a 40,000 dollar tuition is enough.




Plus most all college sports players as well as most adult leagues have catostrpohic coverage for $40 a year.
 
Libertarians are for small government, not no government.


I see we have your morning *FAIL* already..... :lol:

Call it what you will, eliminating government programs like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the Departments of Education, Energy, Commerce, NASA, and many more, all of which is urged by Libertarians, may to you be "small government". To most of us, especially those who rely on these programs, they more resemble "no government".
 
Call it what you will, eliminating government programs like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the Departments of Education, Energy, Commerce, NASA, and many more, all of which is urged by Libertarians, may to you be "small government". To most of us, especially those who rely on these programs, they more resemble "no government".



:lol: you rely on NASA?
 
I do. They are trying to find a way to get me back home. :(



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:shrug:
 
Has anyone claimed that having a, "brown line", is racist?
 
So why are you opposed to UHC? What is so special that only college students get free health care, and not say...single parents? If a portion of my taxes are going to pay for the college students health care while they are in college, shouldn't I expect the college student to then pay something towards the next generation of college students health care, once they get a job?

This is what happens. And any single parent that knows the meaning of non-profit can get medical care with out paying a dime. The hospitals will write if off and those college students will return the favor and pay it back.
 
Uhm there are three "blue ones" that jut out in opposite directions. :lol:

There are is only one blue line (O'Hare to forest park) It goes through the loop (look in the bottom left corner) in a "U" and juts out the other side.

The one's that you might also be calling blue are the Purple and Pink lines. (Stop ****in' with the color-blind guy!). The Pink line USED to be part of the blue line and it actually split off at the medical center stop in a "Y" but they changed it to the pink line for some reason and extended it into the loop.

The Purple line extends north from the loop into Evanston.

The reason I know all this is actually because I'm color-blind and they color coded that **** just to **** with people like me so I need to memorize all the routes if I want to use the "L".

To give you an idea of where I live, I'm only a few blocks from the Cumberland exit on the blue line. (Third stop in the Northwest branch)
 
Ahh gotcha.....


whats up with that "loop" anyway?

It's actually great for getting around the city without having to make a crapload of connections. And you can zoom from one side of the downtown area to the other without making any connections.

If I want to go from O'Hare to Evanston I only need one connection (blue to purple). If I want to go form O'Hare to Comiskullar field, only one connection (blue to red). If I want to go from O'Hare to The world's largest Gay bar (Wrigley Field) I make only one connection (blue to red again). etc. etc.
 
This is what happens. And any single parent that knows the meaning of non-profit can get medical care with out paying a dime. The hospitals will write if off and those college students will return the favor and pay it back.

Sure they will.....in their taxes, but they will be subsidized by other taxpayers who have insurance and don't expect a free ride just because they are in college and are the "future of America".

Each generation should have it better than the last, but not at the expense of the next.
 
Here's the way I see it - What are they going to do, throw us all in jail for refusing to pay our fines? The jails are already overcrowded from all those they have convicted in their failed phony drug war. They don't have room for all of us, so let's give them the finger. :mrgreen:

Well come on Dana, the answer to this is easy.

They'd fine us $1,000 for refusing to pay the fines.

Ok, so just so we all understand...

Is the conservative solution to health care to allow everyone to simply choose to buy health coverage, or not as the case may be? And then, if a person shows up at an emergency room or doctor's office with no insurance or cash in hand, refuse to treat them? This is the purely free market solution, isn't it? Let them die if they don't have a way to pay?

Alright, well come on then, what IS your solution? You're partly just pointing out the some flaws to the moderate/liberal solution. The rest of your post is hyperbolic drama. Put yourself out there, let us see what you've got.

I love how you're knocking constantly on the conservatives not giving a plan, but when someone does the same thing to the liberals you start criticizing them for "just showing the flaws".

First, what is this notion that doing SOMETHING is always better than doing nothing? Its an idiotic notion that has infested our culture it seems that it doesn't matter if what you're doing is GOOD, it just matters that you're doing SOMETHING.

Second, gotta love you complaining about other people using hyperbolic drama when you use things like "Let them die if they don't have a way to pay?" You make yourself look like nothing but a hypocrite with idiotic crap like taht.

Third, not at all. Here's a few thoughts, and mind you I am by no means an expert on this so its slightly vague ideas. Push through tort reform so that people who bring forth frivilous law suits against insurance companies and lose can potentially be liable themselves thus reducing the amount of cases brought and thus reducing the cost of insurance.

Yes, remove any mandates upon ER's to HAVE to work on someone no matter whether they can pay for it or not. I still believe you'd see a number of doctors and offices helping these people, but no it shouldn't be a mandatory requirement. Is that cruel? Perhaps, but sometimes reality is.

Give people a decent tax break if they purchase their own insurance policy and offer tax incentives or perhaps the ability to opt into looser restrictions on top end plans for insurance companies that will offer a more affordable, general preventive care insurance-lite type program that simply helps covers with routine check ups but does little for further treatement.

Now, if you want more of a compromise position in regards to health care. None of them I'm particularly fond of but all would be better than the this fine crap or the full on UHC.

1. IF you're wanting to do the fine, assess it only in years in which someone without insurance used "free" medical services.

2. IF health care is so damn important, cut money from other "less important" programs and create clinics around the country that will do basic physicals and check ups for relatively low prices on none insured people. Likely standard of care is going to be low though as thet doctors/nurse practioners there would be on government salary making less than a normal one. This will at least help with the "preventive care" which we keep being told is so important.

2a. IF you do number 2, perhaps a program that if they get "X" amount of routine check ups per year then they will be allowed coverage by the government for advanced treatment of life threatening or potentially crippling injuries for the following year, up to $20,000 at 80% gov / 20% individual. This is not culmulative (so if you don't use it one year that doesn't add on to the following).

2b. If 2a happened, perhaps a 1 to 2% payroll tax (preferably 1), could be enacted to cover it IF and only if the bill stated that money was not part of the general budget but was put spefically into a medical fund, with extra monies at the end of the year transfering to the following year, and is untouchable by the rest of government.

3. Again, IF health care is so important get the funding by cutting stuff less important, though again would possibly accept what's stated in 2b. Set up a baseline government insurance, able to be opted into by any citizen, that costs a 3% tax on income. This coverage would cover the cost, with small co-pay, of general checkups and physicals and up to a certain amount of additional dollars of coverage that could be used for things like perscriptions, advanced procedures, etc. This # should be very small, something like $2000-$5000. Failure to have routine checkups would result in a deduction to the amount of additional dollars you'd have the following year.

None of these am I particularly a fan of, but in general would be better...if they were not expanded....than some of the things I've heard talked about by the left. Ultimately, I think working on ways to encourage the free market to offer more competitively priced plans by reducing restrictions on that market and tort reform would be the far better option.
 
So, we just let them die in the streets? That's your position?

How would you go about implementing this insane policy? Should medical professionals delay treatment until the patient's insurance status is verified?

"Well, we COULD have saved Mr. Smith's life, but we had to wait until his insurance status was verified. Sadly, by the time we realized he did indeed have health insurance, he had already expired during the confirmation period."

Yea, that sounds like a brilliant plan...:roll:

More than likely under such a system people would always carry around their health insurance information quite like they always carry around their drivers licenses.
 
Ideology does not equal reality, no matter what side of the spectrum you claim to represent....

That's wrong. Ideology does not NECESSARILY represent reality.

Call it what you will, eliminating government programs like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the Departments of Education, Energy, Commerce, NASA, and many more, all of which is urged by Libertarians, may to you be "small government". To most of us, especially those who rely on these programs, they more resemble "no government".

:rofl, I noticed you didn't include the military, police, or courts, the things that most libertarians want the state for. That's certainly government to me.
 
You are a risk to others if you do not have health insurance, and something happens to you. Reason be, the hospital will have to either work on you pro bono, or, your lack of payment will force prices to increase.

This is a straw man. I don't support our current system. Under a free system, a hospital would most likely kick me out if I had no way to pay.

I am not speaking in those regards. Would you drive (continuously)in a car without insurance if only yourself was at risk? If your answer is yes, than i question your rationality; as there is a difference between a man and a boy. A man takes care of himself, and would not put his family (or himself) at risk. A boy on the other hand is concerned about "doing what i want".

I myself would have insurance, but if someone doesn't want it then that's their choice.

It's fools who refuse to take government medical coverage, or get their own coverage, and end up getting hurt all while unable to pay thousands of dollars in bills, who drive up the costs, or cost other people their lives. There are only so many pro bono medical cases available to a single medical facility. Taking up the coverage when you could have been financially covered is completely irresponsible.

The problem is forcing hospitals to work on them, not the people choosing to not have insurance.
 
More than likely under such a system people would always carry around their health insurance information quite like they always carry around their drivers licenses.

You haven't answered my question, not directly at least.

Under your plan are you going to refuse immediate, life-saving treatment to people who lack health insurance; in effect, are you going to let them expire in the streets? Yes or no?

Moreover, in order for your premise to work it must presuppose that everyone will always be in possession of the their health insurance info. This is an absurd expectation. Of the millions of scenarios in which a person could lose their card and wind up in the emergency room, how would you go about mitigating such potentialities? Also, how do children factor into this plan of yours?
 
I still see so much misconception in this thread. So far we have talked over and over about people needing emergency medical assistance but dont have the money to pay cash at the time. This is not how it works! Granted a person can pay cash at the time most do not. The hospitals dont ask you if you can pay and if you say no *shrug* and say "ok we will just write it off". They send you a bill just like most other services. A person unable to pay in a lump sum can make payment arrangments.

So stop saying that all people that do not have medical insurance and do not have the cash in hand means the tax payer pays. Its just not true alot of the time.

Also people have said that just because you are young this does not protect you from injury or illness and should be required to carry insurance reguardless. I also disagree. I am a person that will not go due to a illness. I have broken 2 bones (nurmerous other injuries) in my body and did not go for treatment either time (were found at a later time when a serious injury happened). When I did have a serious injury and no insurace and no cash guess what? I made payments untill the bill was paid. *gasp!*

Some people such as myself and some of my family will not go for illnesses. Its just how we do things. Its not a matter of bravado but how we think. If I had cancer today (or any other illness) I would not seek treatment, its just how I am. So why should I be required to purchase a service I would not need.
 
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You haven't answered my question, not directly at least.

Under your plan are you going to refuse immediate, life-saving treatment to people who lack health insurance; in effect, are you going to let them expire in the streets? Yes or no?

I'm not going to, hospitals will. But the problem will be much rarer than you think it because:
1. People would probably carry proof of insurance with them all of the time.
2. There will probably be charitable hospitals that will do the work anyway.

Moreover, in order for your premise to work it must presuppose that everyone will always be in possession of the their health insurance info. This is an absurd expectation. Of the millions of scenarios in which a person could lose their card and wind up in the emergency room, how would you go about mitigating such potentialities? Also, how do children factor into this plan of yours?

1. Most people have their drivers' licenses with them all of the time. It's not absurd when police demand to see it when you're pulled over.
2. Children would probably have copies of proof of insurance in their schools, in their backpack, and in their home.

Again, I think you're making a mountain of a molehill of an issue.
 
Sure they will.....in their taxes, but they will be subsidized by other taxpayers who have insurance and don't expect a free ride just because they are in college and are the "future of America".

Each generation should have it better than the last, but not at the expense of the next.

They are not getting a free ride though. We got off the point. A college student does not need health insurance because chances are they will not need it.:doh Sure there will be some people that get hurt but they have options.

Plus most all college sports players as well as most adult leagues have catostrpohic coverage for $40 a year.--- Reverend_Hellh0und

There is the solution. College students have enough expenses, and so does everyone else, they don't to add another three grand onto them, especially if they are not necessary. You should get health insurance between the ages of 25-30.
 
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