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To those against Obamacare -

Would you approve of the individual mandate if it were passed as an amendment?


  • Total voters
    36
I would much rather have a UHC system than mandated health insurance. At least with a UHC, I know which doctors I can go to and should know pretty quickly how much it will cost me to get treatment from them.

Oh, so would I. No argument from me on that.
 
The government has no right to tell me what I must buy.
 
If we are going to talk numbers, then we at least have to admit that UHC has a huge advantage over any private scheme - and that's law of large numbers. With UHC, anyone who has an income would be paying in. That, in and of itself, should reduce uncertainty drastically, which lowers the premium that is required to insure each individual. So we can blame this or that, but UHC is inherently cheaper because of its ability to reduce uncertainty. Then, after that, you can start discussing prevention vs treatment, since more people would be able to visit family doctors and search for early warning signs. This, too, makes health care cheaper.
UHC is only an advantage for government. The fact is that government gets to dictate what your care is under a UHC system and you have no recourse, you can't sue government and you become less than a number, you become a "unit". Doctors lose options under UHC. UHC countries are a generation behind the U.S. in equipment and are having to step back care and delay surgeries do to monetary strain, this means a leg gets amputated instead of operated on, a tooth gets pulled instead of repaired, a person dies waiting to get a chest pain checked out instead of triaged. The best part, post-op care under many UHC systems is weighted, meaning you can be denied for any factor the governmnet chooses, and you have no recourse. Frankly I think UHC is the absolute worst system imagineable, it is so bad that many countries are starting to pare back the regulations banning private supplementals because their systems are in the beginning stages of bankruptcy.
Anyway, I felt that was worthy of being pointed out - just by a quick look at numbers UHC should work out cheaper in the long run. And, according to cost of health care per person world wide, statistics do show that countries with UHC pay roughly half of what we pay.
I've never seen a truly comprehensive comparison, in other words it is compared dollar for dollar, it should be compared as coverage for coverage. UHC will seem cheaper because you don't get comprehensive care so less money is spent, if coverage was a factor and you weighted the operations not budgeted for and upgrades in the UHC systems there would be no appreciable savings.
 
The government has no right to tell me what I must buy.

i will agree with that. i think people should be able to opt out of an individual mandate, as long as they legally agree to cover any debts they rack up with no gov't assistance and no bankruptcy.
 
i will agree with that. i think people should be able to opt out of an individual mandate, as long as they legally agree to cover any debts they rack up with no gov't assistance and no bankruptcy.

And no having the providers passing on the costs.
 
UHC is only an advantage for government. The fact is that government gets to dictate what your care is under a UHC system and you have no recourse, you can't sue government and you become less than a number, you become a "unit". Doctors lose options under UHC. UHC countries are a generation behind the U.S. in equipment and are having to step back care and delay surgeries do to monetary strain, this means a leg gets amputated instead of operated on, a tooth gets pulled instead of repaired, a person dies waiting to get a chest pain checked out instead of triaged. The best part, post-op care under many UHC systems is weighted, meaning you can be denied for any factor the governmnet chooses, and you have no recourse. Frankly I think UHC is the absolute worst system imagineable, it is so bad that many countries are starting to pare back the regulations banning private supplementals because their systems are in the beginning stages of bankruptcy.

No, I don't think there is any evidence of that. Those places operate on a triage basis, just as our hospitals do. Also, as in many countries that operate with UHC, you can still buy privatized insurance. So hell, if you want to make sure you are getting A1 care and you can afford it, go ahead. No one is stopping you. But this idea that we're all going to get horrible care is unfounded and has no basis - in fact, these countries have higher life expectancies than we do! And again, none of this even has to do with cost or law of large numbers. There is literally no arguing that law of large numbers reduces uncertainty, which makes something like health care cheaper. That is what is called a fact.

I've never seen a truly comprehensive comparison, in other words it is compared dollar for dollar, it should be compared as coverage for coverage. UHC will seem cheaper because you don't get comprehensive care so less money is spent, if coverage was a factor and you weighted the operations not budgeted for and upgrades in the UHC systems there would be no appreciable savings.

Ohhh, ok, so the only reason it appears to be cheaper is because they are doing the comparison wrong, at least according to LaMidRighter. Whatever. Ok ok, let me change the phrasing so it is easier for you to understand:

Fact: The more people insured, the cheaper the insurance because of less uncertainty.

Better?
 
No, I don't think there is any evidence of that. Those places operate on a triage basis, just as our hospitals do. Also, as in many countries that operate with UHC, you can still buy privatized insurance. So hell, if you want to make sure you are getting A1 care and you can afford it, go ahead. No one is stopping you. But this idea that we're all going to get horrible care is unfounded and has no basis - in fact, these countries have higher life expectancies than we do! And again, none of this even has to do with cost or law of large numbers. There is literally no arguing that law of large numbers reduces uncertainty, which makes something like health care cheaper. That is what is called a fact.



Ohhh, ok, so the only reason it appears to be cheaper is because they are doing the comparison wrong, at least according to LaMidRighter. Whatever. Ok ok, let me change the phrasing so it is easier for you to understand:

Fact: The more people insured, the cheaper the insurance because of less uncertainty.

Better?
You are speaking to a guy with years of insurance experience. Let's go over risk tables shall we? The more risk in the data sample the more expense, which means that if the overall risk table is healthy they will absorb the cost of shocking the system with too many unhealthy or otherwise high risk candidates all being forced in within a short period of time, that is economic fact. UHC countries do not provide as much or as quickly, that is also fact. You are more likely to lose body parts or even your life if your personal data isn't deemed "worthwhile" in UHC countries. This is all fact.
 
If we are going to talk numbers, then we at least have to admit that UHC has a huge advantage over any private scheme - and that's law of large numbers. With UHC, anyone who has an income would be paying in. That, in and of itself, should reduce uncertainty drastically, which lowers the premium that is required to insure each individual. So we can blame this or that, but UHC is inherently cheaper because of its ability to reduce uncertainty.

if it werent' for the fact that it was non-competitive and run by government, you would be correct. unfortunately, socialized industry has an atrocious track record for those two reasons.

there is no incentive not to overconsume, and so instead instead government has to impose a top-down, clumsy, one-size-fits-all set of rationing decisions to allocate the fewer resources that must now go to meet higher demand with no price mechanism.

Then, after that, you can start discussing prevention vs treatment, since more people would be able to visit family doctors and search for early warning signs. This, too, makes health care cheaper.

yes. unfortunately, since you now live in an UHC, it doesnt' matter if you want preventative care. because it you will be much less likely to actually get it.

Anyway, I felt that was worthy of being pointed out - just by a quick look at numbers UHC should work out cheaper in the long run

yes. you spend less money when you deny people care. we could cut our food bill to nothing by simply starving everyone to death, as well. hooray, think of the savings!

And, according to cost of health care per person world wide, statistics do show that countries with UHC pay roughly half of what we pay.

*Edit:

****, and then if you were to provide some sort of amnesty to illegal workers, getting documentation for taxation - my God. We might actually have a workable system.

not really - they don't earn nearly enough.
 
You are speaking to a guy with years of insurance experience. Let's go over risk tables shall we? The more risk in the data sample the more expense, which means that if the overall risk table is healthy they will absorb the cost of shocking the system with too many unhealthy or otherwise high risk candidates all being forced in within a short period of time, that is economic fact. UHC countries do not provide as much or as quickly, that is also fact. You are more likely to lose body parts or even your life if your personal data isn't deemed "worthwhile" in UHC countries. This is all fact.

Yeah, and you're talking to a student of actuarial science. I have the life tables in the same room as me right now. Those risks you are talking about exist no matter what - you just want to shove them in a dark corner and forget about them. But that doesn't mean we don't pay for them, and by trying to ignore the problem we actually make it more expensive. Guess what? High risk candidates still go to the hospital. Guess what? High risk candidates still have surgery. Guess what? High risk candidates take medication. They just don't pay for them.

All UHC does is take the risk, shine a light on it, and use law of large numbers to minimize overall exposure. You can hide it all day if you want, but unless you want to start turning people away from hospitals, those "high-risk candidates" are going to **** you either way.
 
You are speaking to a guy with years of insurance experience. Let's go over risk tables shall we? The more risk in the data sample the more expense, which means that if the overall risk table is healthy they will absorb the cost of shocking the system with too many unhealthy or otherwise high risk candidates all being forced in within a short period of time, that is economic fact. UHC countries do not provide as much or as quickly, that is also fact. You are more likely to lose body parts or even your life if your personal data isn't deemed "worthwhile" in UHC countries. This is all fact.

The difference in speed isn't all that different. We wait quite a bit here. This has been linked many times showing that the difference is minimal. Also, it depends on which particular type of system we're talking about. They are not all the same. There are many types. And even if you pick one, say a single payer system, there are several different single payer systems.

And here, we would ahve different teirs. At a minimum, it would be two tiered.

Of course to examine these, we would have to have an honest discussion. And this topic has not lent itself to honest discussions.
 
No, I don't think there is any evidence of that. Those places operate on a triage basis, just as our hospitals do. Also, as in many countries that operate with UHC, you can still buy privatized insurance. So hell, if you want to make sure you are getting A1 care and you can afford it, go ahead. No one is stopping you. But this idea that we're all going to get horrible care is unfounded and has no basis - in fact

GAO: Children on Medicaid have worse Physician Access than Children with no Insurance whatsoever


A 2010 study of 1,231 patients with cancer of the throat, published in the medical journal Cancer, found that Medicaid patients and people lacking any health insurance were both 50% more likely to die when compared with privately insured patients—even after adjusting for factors that influence cancer outcomes. Medicaid patients were 80% more likely than those with private insurance to have tumors that spread to at least one lymph node. Recent studies show similar outcomes for breast and colon cancer...

A 2010 study of 893,658 major surgical operations performed between 2003 to 2007, published in the Annals of Surgery, found that being on Medicaid was associated with the longest length of stay, the most total hospital costs, and the highest risk of death. Medicaid patients were almost twice as likely to die in the hospital than those with private insurance. By comparison, uninsured patients were about 25% less likely than those with Medicaid to have an "in-hospital death."..

A 2011 study of 13,573 patients, published in the American Journal of Cardiology, found that people with Medicaid who underwent coronary angioplasty (a procedure to open clogged heart arteries) were 59% more likely to have "major adverse cardiac events," such as strokes and heart attacks, compared with privately insured patients. Medicaid patients were also more than twice as likely to have a major, subsequent heart attack after angioplasty as were patients who didn't have any health insurance at all...

A 2011 study of 11,385 patients undergoing lung transplants for pulmonary diseases, published in the Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation, found that Medicaid patients were 8.1% less likely to survive 10 years after the surgery than their privately insured and uninsured counterparts. Medicaid insurance status was a significant, independent predictor of death after three years—even after controlling for other clinical factors that could increase someone's risk of poor outcomes.

In all of these studies, the researchers controlled for the socioeconomic and cultural factors that can negatively influence the health of poorer patients on Medicaid...


these countries have higher life expectancies than we do

yes. until, of course, you start actually doing apples to apples comparisons, in which case not so much.

And again, none of this even has to do with cost or law of large numbers. There is literally no arguing that law of large numbers reduces uncertainty, which makes something like health care cheaper. That is what is called a fact.

Ohhh, ok, so the only reason it appears to be cheaper is because they are doing the comparison wrong, at least according to LaMidRighter. Whatever. Ok ok, let me change the phrasing so it is easier for you to understand:

Fact: The more people insured, the cheaper the insurance because of less uncertainty.

really. so if I took a pool of 100,000 average Americans, and added in 50,000 smokers, many of whom were obese, and half of whom were on drugs, the price of insurance would go down due to the fact that 150,000 people were now "in the pool"?

I think you are assuming "uncertainty" only travels in one direction.
 
The difference in speed isn't all that different. We wait quite a bit here. This has been linked many times showing that the difference is minimal. Also, it depends on which particular type of system we're talking about. They are not all the same. There are many types. And even if you pick one, say a single payer system, there are several different single payer systems.

And here, we would ahve different teirs. At a minimum, it would be two tiered.

Of course to examine these, we would have to have an honest discussion. And this topic has not lent itself to honest discussions.

Ya, and they are all B.S. We only have a handful of cities (11) with wait times over 2 weeks. Canada, on the other hand, has an average wait time of 18 weeks.

Wait times to see doctor are getting longer - USATODAY.com
Doctors' group reports 'spotty progress' in easing patient wait times - Canada - CBC News
 
here's a question. if the theory is that by putting everyone in the same program we can reduce the growth of costs, is that what we are seeing with Medicare? or are costs growing by leaps and bounds?
 
Yeah, and you're talking to a student of actuarial science. I have the life tables in the same room as me right now. Those risks you are talking about exist no matter what - you just want to shove them in a dark corner and forget about them. But that doesn't mean we don't pay for them, and by trying to ignore the problem we actually make it more expensive. Guess what? High risk candidates still go to the hospital. Guess what? High risk candidates still have surgery. Guess what? High risk candidates take medication. They just don't pay for them.
Actuarial science is cool, not for everyone to be sure and you guys impress the hell out of me with the accuracy, especially morbidity predicitions. Here is the kicker, yes the risk exists no matter what and that is undeniable fact, the difference is that when all risk is included in the same economic table it skews towards the risk averse end. The idea that many companies have is to split off the risk into different coverage models and adjust prices accordingly. However you cannot do that in a tax subsidized system as the models simply provide a universal coverage, this means the most critical care falls under arbitrary numbers tabulations which can be less beneficial to those in the most need.

The other problem is that rationing is has no appeals process, in other words if surgery quota is filled and you are in need at that point you are screwed, with insurance company models or even a first party payor system the monetary decisions are on an individual basis, i.e., not every company has to fulfill every surgery so it is easier to make the payments in smaller bites, thus the system allows for more costs to be absorbed rather than a collective pool having to absorb the sum total of all surgeries or procedures. The reason we spend more as a collective figure is because more services and better technologies are provided faster. I will also tell you that in my years I have seen some competitive high risk policies for individuals that looked pretty good, the biggest "problem" with high risk is that people tend to give up on being accepted for coverage, in a competitive market there are options.

All UHC does is take the risk, shine a light on it, and use law of large numbers to minimize overall exposure. You can hide it all day if you want, but unless you want to start turning people away from hospitals, those "high-risk candidates" are going to **** you either way.
Well, it does more than that. If anything UHC consolidates sum total cost to the taxpayers which causes grievous expense rather than individual companies or payers taking smaller bites of the total cost. What happens is that UHC doesn't "hide" the risk any more or less than a decentralized system but rather it prolonges problems until they matasticize into something worse and treats symptoms rather than problems which is the path of least expense, so yes, both systems show the risk but UHC actually hides the problems of cost and provides less advanced treatment. Let's not forget that end of life discussions are mandated in this latest D.C. turkey rather than treatment options.
 
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Not likely. The slippery slope is often called a fallacy for a reason. You would have to show that you not eating your weaties harms soeone else. We can show that with lack of insurance. You don't have it, get hurt, treated and the cost is passed on to all of us. We pay for you. This is a fact.
Choosing not to carry insurance doesn't hurt other people. The government forcing institutions to provide goods and services to people who cannot afford it is what passes on the costs to those who already pay. The problem isn't a lack of insurance, it's a lack of accountability. What Obamacare does is blame the shifting of healthcare costs onto others for a program that shifts the cost of healthcare onto others.
 
here's a question. if the theory is that by putting everyone in the same program we can reduce the growth of costs, is that what we are seeing with Medicare? or are costs growing by leaps and bounds?
A cursory glance at public education can answer this question for you. One-size-fits-all government solutions decrease quality and increase costs. That's just the way intervention in the marketplace works whether we're talking about health care, education or what-have-you.
 
Choosing not to carry insurance doesn't hurt other people. The government forcing institutions to provide goods and services to people who cannot afford it is what passes on the costs to those who already pay. The problem isn't a lack of insurance, it's a lack of accountability. What Obamacare does is blame the shifting of healthcare costs onto others for a program that shifts the cost of healthcare onto others.

They go hand in hand. We the people pushed for the law that people be cared for. There was a time when that was the law. People died and suffered. We must remember history if we're going to tackle these problems.

And others pay for this before reform. It is important to realize this.

As for accountability, having insurance is being accountable. It is about personal responsibility. If you are running around without insurance and don't have the ability to pay, you are the definition of irresponsibility.
 
Ya, and they are all B.S. We only have a handful of cities (11) with wait times over 2 weeks. Canada, on the other hand, has an average wait time of 18 weeks.

Wait times to see doctor are getting longer - USATODAY.com
Doctors' group reports 'spotty progress' in easing patient wait times - Canada - CBC News

Yeah, we could do dueling sources:

* Canada had the highest percentage of patients (36%) who had to wait six days or more for an appointment with a doctor, but the United States had the second highest percentage (23%) who reported that they had to wait at least this long. New Zealand, Australia, Germany, and the U.K. all had substantially smaller numbers of people reporting waits of 6 days or longer. Canada and the United States, in that order, also had the lowest percentage of persons who said they could get an appointment with a doctor the same or next day.

* The United States had the largest percentage of persons (61%) who said that getting care on nights, weekends, or holidays, without going to the emergency room, was “very” or “somewhat” difficult. In Canada, it was 54%, and in the U.K, 38%. Germany did the best, with only 22% saying that it was difficult to get after-hours care.

Wait Times For Medical Care: How The US Actually Measures Up - Better Health

Footnote: In the ad, Dr. Day correctly refers to a 2005 Canadian Supreme Court case, Chaoulli v. Quebec, in which the court found that "delays in the public health care system are widespread, and that, in some serious cases, patients die as a result of waiting lists for public health care." The United States also has preventable health-care-related deaths, though not necessarily from delays. A Commonwealth Fund study found the U.S. leading 19 industrialized countries in the number of deaths that could have been prevented by better health care – 110 deaths per 100,000 people, versus 103 in the U.K. and 77 in Canada. For more on U.S. versus Canadian health care speed and quality, see our Ask FactCheck on the subject.

FactCheck.org : Government-Run Health Care?

But you complwetely missed part of my post.. Let me repeat:

Boo said:
Also, it depends on which particular type of system we're talking about. They are not all the same. There are many types. And even if you pick one, say a single payer system, there are several different single payer systems.

And here, we would ahve different teirs. At a minimum, it would be two tiered.

Of course to examine these, we would have to have an honest discussion. And this topic has not lent itself to honest discussions.
 
here's a question. if the theory is that by putting everyone in the same program we can reduce the growth of costs, is that what we are seeing with Medicare? or are costs growing by leaps and bounds?

No it isn't. Everyone isn't in the same program. Only those most likely to need care. This is a significant difference. Also, no one is proposing we put everyone in the same program. Mostly we're talking about a two teired single payer system in which basic needs and adequated care is covered by a government insurance policy. You are free to pay for more, either more care or more inusance. I think not understanding this leads to a lot of misinformation being posted.
 
In all of these studies, the researchers controlled for the socioeconomic and cultural factors that can negatively influence the health of poorer patients on Medicaid...

Yes, that's horrible, but I know you aren't suggesting that UHC is comparable to Medicaid, right? Mr. Gottlieb summed up each study, but he didn't post the researchers findings or conclusions. For instance, can we assume that a big reason why there was an 80% greater chance for the spreading of cancer was because those with Medicaid caught the symptoms much later? Can we assume they did not receive good treatment because doctors are paid next to nothing for Medicaid treatment?

You do realize that comparing Medicaid to UHC in general is a faux pas, right?

yes. until, of course, you start actually doing apples to apples comparisons, in which case not so much.

You mean apples to apples like how you just unfairly compared medicaid to medicare? In the end, if the birthing rate and life expectancy in those countries is as good and better than ours, obviously they must be received decent health care, yes?

really. so if I took a pool of 100,000 average Americans, and added in 50,000 smokers, many of whom were obese, and half of whom were on drugs, the price of insurance would go down due to the fact that 150,000 people were now "in the pool"?

I think you are assuming "uncertainty" only travels in one direction.

You mean risk? Exposure is better if you are aware of it. That's why law of large numbers is so crucial in these calculations. First of all, let's be clear that those 50,000 Americans are going to get treatment. It may not be good treatment, it may not be for long, but they will receive treatment and it will be expensive. Those people will have paid $0 into the system as well. Also, since they are not part of any insurance plan and do not visit any sort of medical establishment on regular basis, they are not accounted for. No one is aware that they smoke or do drugs, that they may or may not have this disease, or really any thing about them. That's difficult to budget for and significantly raises uncertainty. I think were people get confused is that they assume these people are not going to get treatment. You're still paying for them! So here are your options:

1) Every American can get treatment, regardless of payment, except some will have to wait until zero hour and suffering great symptoms before treatment is begun.
2) Every American can get treatment, and all have access to family practitioners who can identify negative trends, spot early warning signs, and practice prevention rather than treatment if possible.

I choose #2, because I think it will be beneficial to the general will of Americans, because I do think it will be cheaper per capita, and I think the ability for every man, woman and child to see a general practitioner on a regular basis is a good thing.
 
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Actuarial science is cool, not for everyone to be sure and you guys impress the hell out of me with the accuracy, especially morbidity predicitions. Here is the kicker, yes the risk exists no matter what and that is undeniable fact, the difference is that when all risk is included in the same economic table it skews towards the risk averse end. The idea that many companies have is to split off the risk into different coverage models and adjust prices accordingly. However you cannot do that in a tax subsidized system as the models simply provide a universal coverage, this means the most critical care falls under arbitrary numbers tabulations which can be less beneficial to those in the most need.

It's hard to use a private entity as an example, because if the risk is too high, they'll just opt out (ie they make the government insure against flood planes, hurricanes in some states, terrorist attacks). And as an insurance employee, I am sure you are aware of this. These people are a pit. No one buys wind insurance unless they live in a hurricane zone - which makes it virtually insurable. Same with flood planes. And how do you budget for a terrorist attack? So they opt out. Meanwhile, for all of the other tough insurable risks, as I am sure you know, they switch over to pooling. Wind pools being a classic example. If they have to take on this risk, they know that it is at least best to share the risk with everyone! And that's how I feel about UHC. UHC spreads the risk around to the entire tax paying country helps remove uncertainty.

The other problem is that rationing is has no appeals process, in other words if surgery quota is filled and you are in need at that point you are screwed, with insurance company models or even a first party payor system the monetary decisions are on an individual basis, i.e., not every company has to fulfill every surgery so it is easier to make the payments in smaller bites, thus the system allows for more costs to be absorbed rather than a collective pool having to absorb the sum total of all surgeries or procedures. The reason we spend more as a collective figure is because more services and better technologies are provided faster. I will also tell you that in my years I have seen some competitive high risk policies for individuals that looked pretty good, the biggest "problem" with high risk is that people tend to give up on being accepted for coverage, in a competitive market there are options.

See, I don't know that I agree there. Is there any evidence of that? As I recall, these places work less on a first-come first-serve basis, and more of a triage basis. If you need the surgery right then, you'll get it. And of course, there is still choice for private insurance, so for anyone well off enough to afford it, you still have that freedom. I do honestly understand what you are saying, and that would be a concern for sure, but I am not convinced that the waiting times, say, in London, are any worse than the waiting times in NYC.

Well, it does more than that. If anything UHC consolidates sum total cost to the taxpayers which causes grievous expense rather than individual companies or payers taking smaller bites of the total cost. What happens is that UHC doesn't "hide" the risk any more or less than a decentralized system but rather it prolonges problems until they matasticize into something worse and treats symptoms rather than problems which is the path of least expense, so yes, both systems show the risk but UHC actually hides the problems of cost and provides less advanced treatment. Let's not forget that end of life discussions are mandated in this latest D.C. turkey rather than treatment options.

I think I see what you are saying here, but I am not sure. But I will respond by clarifying how I feel a bit better. Since I deal with math a lot, I'll just look at some numbers:

------------------------

Let's just say the average single-payer health plan is like $400 a month. However, there is a $100 surcharge to everyone's insurance because of all of the abusers of the system who don't pay for their health care. So the average person pays $500 a month - $100 of which is due to non-payment of treatment.

It's my assertion that UHC would help this problem in two ways:

1) Under UHC, you are combining the clients of all of the current companies. That can only lower prices because, again, as law of large numbers states, uncertainty is lowered and reserves can be smaller. The bigger the sample pool, the better. But we still have those bastards who don't pay ****. Which leads to #2.
2) Those non-payers now have health coverage and can have a regular practitioner who will examine them on a yearly or bi-yearly basis. This would drastically reduce uncertainty in this crowd, and lower health insurance costs because of prevention rather than treatment.

Of course, this means our government needs to know how to manage money effectively because, unlike with Medicaid, they will actually need to pay the doctors. But I just generally try to have a positive outlook on this issue and I cannot see any negative side to universal coverage.
 
It's hard to use a private entity as an example, because if the risk is too high, they'll just opt out (ie they make the government insure against flood planes, hurricanes in some states, terrorist attacks). And as an insurance employee, I am sure you are aware of this. These people are a pit. No one buys wind insurance unless they live in a hurricane zone - which makes it virtually insurable. Same with flood planes. And how do you budget for a terrorist attack? So they opt out. Meanwhile, for all of the other tough insurable risks, as I am sure you know, they switch over to pooling. Wind pools being a classic example. If they have to take on this risk, they know that it is at least best to share the risk with everyone! And that's how I feel about UHC. UHC spreads the risk around to the entire tax paying country helps remove uncertainty.
Except for the fact that even if you were allowed to opt out of UHC you still would have to pay for it along with your own insurance, and even after that with many people in the system don't pay taxes, so you essentially are providing people yet another useless program that they aren't paying for themselves. The quality of the system goes down compared to the cost so everyone loses value while only a portion of people will be paying for it and none of the root problems get solved.


See, I don't know that I agree there. Is there any evidence of that? As I recall, these places work less on a first-come first-serve basis, and more of a triage basis. If you need the surgery right then, you'll get it. And of course, there is still choice for private insurance, so for anyone well off enough to afford it, you still have that freedom. I do honestly understand what you are saying, and that would be a concern for sure, but I am not convinced that the waiting times, say, in London, are any worse than the waiting times in NYC.
I've seen hundreds of articles about people dying waiting for cancer treatment, people dying in emergency room waiting areas because they couldn't get seen during heart attacks, people in Cuba dying of sepsis because they were in the second tier.

Let's just say the average single-payer health plan is like $400 a month. However, there is a $100 surcharge to everyone's insurance because of all of the abusers of the system who don't pay for their health care. So the average person pays $500 a month - $100 of which is due to non-payment of treatment.
People don't pay because care is outside of what they can afford at the time, this happens because of costs associated with compliance with overreaching federal and sometimes state regulations.

1) Under UHC, you are combining the clients of all of the current companies. That can only lower prices because, again, as law of large numbers states, uncertainty is lowered and reserves can be smaller. The bigger the sample pool, the better. But we still have those bastards who don't pay ****. Which leads to
Incorrect, what does happen is the government usually bans private insurance which puts people out of work, millions of people to be exact. So we solve people not paying their bills by ruining 1/6th of the U.S. economy with yet another stupid governmnent entitlement program? #2.
2) Those non-payers now have health coverage and can have a regular practitioner who will examine them on a yearly or bi-yearly basis. This would drastically reduce uncertainty in this crowd, and lower health insurance costs because of prevention rather than treatment.
So they still get by not paying and my taxes go up, then on top of that if they DO have a condition that requires more costs then of course they suck up even more resources taking away from people who actually have to pick up the tab on tax day. Not only do I say "no thanks" to that but I say **** that.
Of course, this means our government needs to know how to manage money effectively because, unlike with Medicaid, they will actually need to pay the doctors. But I just generally try to have a positive outlook on this issue and I cannot see any negative side to universal coverage.
When is the last time the dumbasses in governmnet showed any ability to manage money?
 
And no having the providers passing on the costs.

so, no having the average citizen be deadbeat, like the government.

I'm down. A mandate that doesn't really mandate isn't a mandate in the first place. Allow anyone who wishes to opt out of Obamacare.
 
i will agree with that. i think people should be able to opt out of an individual mandate, as long as they legally agree to cover any debts they rack up with no gov't assistance and no bankruptcy.

The CaptainCourtesy Healthcare Plan... that I have posted here several times over the past couple of years, takes this exact issue into account.
 
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