• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Health Insurance

How much should a person pay for Health Insurance to protect $5,000 in assets?

  • $1-$99 per month

    Votes: 5 45.5%

  • $100-$199 per month

    Votes: 1 9.1%

  • $200-$299 per month

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • $300-$499 per month

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • $500 or more (whatever the cost they should buy it.)

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • $0 No financial planner would recommend insuring $5,000

    Votes: 5 45.5%
  • Total voters
    11
  • Poll closed .
vasuderatorrent

vasuderatorrent

Banned
DP Veteran
Joined
Oct 12, 2013
Messages
6,112
Reaction score
987
Location
(none)
Gender
Undisclosed
Political Leaning
Communist
The purpose of Health Insurance is to protect a person from financial catastrophe. Most young people have very little net worth and very good health. These realities makes the health insurance product very undesireable to young people. Old people have had several decades to accumulate a large net worth. Old age also takes a toll on the body and a major medical event is very likely if not inevitable. These realities make the health insurance product very desireable to older people. The older you are and/or the sicker you are the more likely you are to desire to purchase health insurance. (Anybody see why health insurance continues to skyrocket?) It is very odd that the government thinks they can incentivize young people to want health insurance. The only effective method is to force young people to get health insurance via government force. The Affordable Care Act is not overreaching enough to encourage young people to make a poor financial decision. Many will chose to pay the fine even if the fine exceeds the cost of purchasing health insurance. That's just how much sense health insurance makes to many young and/or healthy individuals.

My question is about an average individual between the age of 14-39 and how much you think they should pay for health insurance in order for it to be a good financial situation.

If an individual has a net worth of $5,000 and is vulnerable to losing that $5,000 in the event of a major medical emergency, how much should that person invest per month to protect those assets?
 
There is more to protect than assets since a bad debt can ruin your credit, preventing the possible later purchase of a house or car. One of the worst blunders of PPAC was the ridiculous notion that the highest risk medical insurance premium rate can be no more than 3X the lowest.
 
ttwtt78640 said:
There is more to protect than assets since a bad debt can ruin your credit, preventing the possible later purchase of a house or car. One of the worst blunders of PPAC was the ridiculous notion that the highest risk medical insurance premium rate can be no more than 3X the lowest.
Click to expand...

So those $6,000 deductibles won't be much help, will they?

Anybody with just $5K in assets likely has little or no credit. So, the issue is as much moral as financial. If you run up a bill at a hospital - shouldn't you pay it? If you don't pay it - are you a thief?




(I don't know where I'm going with this, just musing)
 
vasuderatorrent said:
If an individual has a net worth of $5,000 and is vulnerable to losing that $5,000 in the event of a major medical emergency, how much should that person invest per month to protect those assets?
Click to expand...
If you only have $5,000 in assets, chances are that in the case of a major medical emergency, you may be filing for bankruptcy whether or not you have insurance.
 
specklebang said:
So those $6,000 deductibles won't be much help, will they?

Anybody with just $5K in assets likely has little or no credit. So, the issue is as much moral as financial. If you run up a bill at a hospital - shouldn't you pay it? If you don't pay it - are you a thief?




(I don't know where I'm going with this, just musing)
Click to expand...

That is reason for health savings accounts and catastrophic medical care insurance. At least then the most you need be concerned with is the deductible.
 
Taylor said:
If you only have $5,000 in assets, chances are that in the case of a major medical emergency, you may be filing for bankruptcy whether or not you have insurance.
Click to expand...

What if the person has already filed bankruptcy multiple times throughout their life? Does that change the equation any?
 
specklebang said:
So those $6,000 deductibles won't be much help, will they?
Click to expand...

This changes the dynamic completely. How much money should a person pay to insure $0 in assets? Perhaps I will make another poll that adds a $6,000 deductible to the scenario I just described. I guess I was being simplistic and unrealistic by implying a $0 deductible.

What was I thinking? :slapme:
 
specklebang said:
If you run up a bill at a hospital - shouldn't you pay it? If you don't pay it - are you a thief?
Click to expand...

Another moral question arises. Should a hospital treat a patient that is unwilling to pay for services? Should a person be treated against their will? Can a person that is unconscious or in duress due to intense pain make major financial decisions?

I think socialized medicine can solve all these moral issues. The few outliers that refuse to pay for the health care of others probably won't make any waves once the decision is final. These people are probably just rapid conservatives that are full of s*** or dummies that love to make simplistic arguments while avoiding the thought of reality at all cost. I don't think these voices that oppose socialized medicine are sincere with their words. Maybe I have too much faith in mankind but I don't really believe very many people exist that would say, "Take that man out of the hospital and go take a coffee break. We have plenty of time and doctors but the surgery cost too much. We'll never get our money back." They might say it in this thread. They might even say it in front of the hospital board. I doubt they would say it if they were looking at the dying man. This type of behavior just doesn't represent any American that I have ever met.

Note: Health care is the work the doctors do that saves your life. Health insurance is purely a financial product. I did not use these terms interchangeably because I am not an idiot. Health care is a completely different thing than health insurance. Please keep that in mind when you read the above post.
 
Last edited:
vasuderatorrent said:
Another moral question arises. Should a hospital treat a patient that is unwilling to pay for services? Should a person be treated against their will? Can a person that is unconscious or in duress due to intense pain make major financial decisions?

I think socialized medicine can solve all these moral issues. The few outliers that refuse to pay for the health care of others probably won't make any waves once the decision is final. These people are probably just rapid conservatives that are full of s*** or dummies that love to make simplistic arguments while avoiding the thought of reality at all cost. I don't think these voices that oppose socialized medicine are sincere with their words. Maybe I have too much faith in mankind but I don't really believe very many people exist that would say, "Take that man out of the hospital and go take a coffee break. We have plenty of time and doctors but the surgery cost too much. We'll never get our money back." They might say it in this thread. They might even say it in front of the hospital board. I doubt they would say it if they were looking at the dying man. This type of behavior just doesn't represent any American that I have ever met.

Note: Health care is the work the doctors do that saves your life. Health insurance is purely a financial product. I did not use these terms interchangeably because I am not an idiot. Health care is a completely different thing than health insurance. Please keep that in mind when you read the above post.
Click to expand...

Anytime we show the milk of kindness, it is much easier to do so if we don't have a cat in the race.

So your uninsured, uncooperative patient will get treated because hey, it's not your money. Now, if you had to pay the other guy's bill yourself, I don't know how enthused an individual would be about that. I'll guess most "Americans" would say "let the mother****er die - I'm not paying" but that's just my guess.

As of now, health care is always provided with or without insurance. I don't see any real change. Is that good or bad? IDK.
 
Health insurance does not protect assets. It protects your health. Now I don't know about you but I place my health and by extension my life at a greater value than $5K. If you're talking about a mail order bride's life, then yes $5k is about right, although I probably wouldn't pay that much.
 
reinoe said:
Health insurance does not protect assets. It protects your health.
Click to expand...

No. This would be health care. :beatdeadhorse

Sometimes I think I should just give up on trying to explain the difference between a doctor and an insurance salesman.

The doctor performs surgery, prescribes medicine, advises on healthy habits and generally cares for the health of the patient. In our country these services are paid for with cash. Sometimes the patient pays the cash. Sometimes the insurance company sends the hospital cash. Sometimes the government pays the hospital with cash. Sometimes the patient doesn't pay for these services at all. The unpaid bills get rolled into the cost of the cash paying entities that I just described. News Flash: Nobody is denied treatment in the United States because they don't have an insurance card. This has been going on for several decades.

Health insurance is a risk transfer. You give the insurance company a small amount (he he) of money every month. In exchange for your steady cash flow, the insurance company will pay for your medical expenses. The goal of the insurance company is not to save your life. The goal of the insurance company is to pay less in medical expenses for their customers than they take in through health insurance premiums.

This can't be that hard to understand. Please stop trying to disappoint me and prove that Americans are intellectually bankrupt. Our nation can't have this many morons. Surely you guys are just pretending that you don't understand the difference between a doctor and an insurance agent. Please??? Please??? Please tell me it ain't so. You really know the difference. Right? Your just joking around. Right?
 
specklebang said:
Now, if you had to pay the other guy's bill yourself, I don't know how enthused an individual would be about that. I'll guess most "Americans" would say "let the mother****er die - I'm not paying" but that's just my guess.
Click to expand...

:shock: That is a fair observation. I guess I didn't think it out. They probably wouldn't say it that way but actions do speak louder than words. You may very well be right. I have seen Americans with passionate hearts without passionate hands to correspond by reaching into their own pocket. :damn
 
vasuderatorrent said:
No. This would be health care. :beatdeadhorse
Click to expand...

Well being that in most cases hospitals cannot garnish your wages or take any of your assets due to unpaid medical bills, Health Insurance doesn't really protect your assets. Arguably it does help protect your health as the quality of care you will get, if you have good insurance and thus an ability to pay for medical services as you receive them, is much better than what it will be if you are uninsured and have no ability to pay for those services. This is especially true with any type of chronic disease treatment, or any injury that requires extended care.

Moreover, it's a quality of life issue. If you are uninsured and are taken to the hospital having just suffered a heart attack, then you are going to recieve life saving treatment regardless of your ability to pay. Even without a law mandating this, this would almost certainly still be the case because unless you had a sociopath in charge of admitting, few people would just let you die in the street because you were uninsured.

However, if you needed something like knee surgery, you are not going to get that done without some form of medical insurance. It is not life saving thus no one is under any obligation to perform it if you don't have the ability to pay. Thus health insurance in that case provides you with an ability to pay for that surgery and thus improve your quality of life.
 
SouthernDemocrat said:
However, if you needed something like knee surgery, you are not going to get that done without some form of medical insurance.
Click to expand...

Have you ever heard of cash? You know, that stuff that you give to the Health Insurance salesman.
 
vasuderatorrent said:
Have you ever heard of cash? You know, that stuff that you give to the Health Insurance salesman.
Click to expand...

A basic arthroscopic knee surgery runs over $10,000 in most cities. The average cost of a knee replacement is $49,500. Do you think its realistic to assume that most people have that kind of money just laying around?

I find the premise to your original argument in the opening post to be flawed because in almost all cases you hospitals and other providers cannot garnish your wages or seize any of your assets to recoup unpaid medical bills. At most its going to hurt your credit because your assets are safe. Health issues result in bankruptcies due to the lost work / income related to being sick, not the medical bills by themselves. The purpose of health insurance is to pay for health care should you need it, not to protect your assets. Its more like an extended protection plan you purchase for your car to help pay for repair bills rather than the insurance you purchase for it in the event of an accident.

Umbrella policies and disability policies are what protect your assets.
 
vasuderatorrent said:
:shock: That is a fair observation. I guess I didn't think it out. They probably wouldn't say it that way but actions do speak louder than words. You may very well be right. I have seen Americans with passionate hearts without passionate hands to correspond by reaching into their own pocket. :damn
Click to expand...

Being compassionate with tax dollars is very popular. You paid them already, so compassion is cheap and sounds noble. But that is total bull**** because if you actually had to pay directly - your compassion would quickly evaporate.

So it goes........:)
 
SouthernDemocrat said:
Well being that in most cases hospitals cannot garnish your wages or take any of your assets due to unpaid medical bills, Health Insurance doesn't really protect your assets. Arguably it does help protect your health as the quality of care you will get, if you have good insurance and thus an ability to pay for medical services as you receive them, is much better than what it will be if you are uninsured and have no ability to pay for those services. This is especially true with any type of chronic disease treatment, or any injury that requires extended care.

Moreover, it's a quality of life issue. If you are uninsured and are taken to the hospital having just suffered a heart attack, then you are going to recieve life saving treatment regardless of your ability to pay. Even without a law mandating this, this would almost certainly still be the case because unless you had a sociopath in charge of admitting, few people would just let you die in the street because you were uninsured.

However, if you needed something like knee surgery, you are not going to get that done without some form of medical insurance. It is not life saving thus no one is under any obligation to perform it if you don't have the ability to pay. Thus health insurance in that case provides you with an ability to pay for that surgery and thus improve your quality of life.
Click to expand...

I pretty much agree with you but what do you mean by "in most cases hospitals can not...". Why not? They can't sue for unpaid bills like any other business? Not being snarky -0 just trying to understand that part of your post to enlarge my knowledge.
 
specklebang said:
I pretty much agree with you but what do you mean by "in most cases hospitals can not...". Why not? They can't sue for unpaid bills like any other business? Not being snarky -0 just trying to understand that part of your post to enlarge my knowledge.
Click to expand...

The vast majority of states do not allow garnishment of wages or asset seizure for unpaid medical bills.
 
SouthernDemocrat said:
The vast majority of states do not allow garnishment of wages or asset seizure for unpaid medical bills.
Click to expand...

Interesting. I learn something new. I wonder why? Do you know?










NOTE TO SELF: Do NOT open a hospital....
 
specklebang said:
Interesting. I learn something new. I wonder why? Do you know?










NOTE TO SELF: Do NOT open a hospital....
Click to expand...

I think its because health care bills are considered something not willingly incurred unlike unpaid credit card bills, buying a car you cannot afford, and so on.
 
SouthernDemocrat said:
I think its because health care bills are considered something not willingly incurred unlike unpaid credit card bills, buying a car you cannot afford, and so on.
Click to expand...

Makes perfect sense. Thanks.

Probably explains why hospital charges are so high since their collection rates must be very low. So, in a way, we already cost share wit the uninsured and there isn't much reason to get insurance. I wonder if that will affect the Obamacare plan concept of the middle paying for the lower.
 
vasuderatorrent said:
No. This would be health care. :beatdeadhorse

Sometimes I think I should just give up on trying to explain the difference between a doctor and an insurance salesman.

The doctor performs surgery, prescribes medicine, advises on healthy habits and generally cares for the health of the patient. In our country these services are paid for with cash. Sometimes the patient pays the cash. Sometimes the insurance company sends the hospital cash. Sometimes the government pays the hospital with cash. Sometimes the patient doesn't pay for these services at all. The unpaid bills get rolled into the cost of the cash paying entities that I just described. News Flash: Nobody is denied treatment in the United States because they don't have an insurance card. This has been going on for several decades.

Health insurance is a risk transfer. You give the insurance company a small amount (he he) of money every month. In exchange for your steady cash flow, the insurance company will pay for your medical expenses. The goal of the insurance company is not to save your life. The goal of the insurance company is to pay less in medical expenses for their customers than they take in through health insurance premiums.

This can't be that hard to understand. Please stop trying to disappoint me and prove that Americans are intellectually bankrupt. Our nation can't have this many morons. Surely you guys are just pretending that you don't understand the difference between a doctor and an insurance agent. Please??? Please??? Please tell me it ain't so. You really know the difference. Right? Your just joking around. Right?
Click to expand...

Actually I think a good portion of Americans really ARE that stupid. But there are empty who know better but pretend they don't get it because they benefit from it and are morally bankrupt enough to know they are stealing from others but don't care.

Earlier you asked if people can be treated against their will. The answer is YES although the provider does not always get the chance. I'm a first responder, not a licensed doctor, and for us there are two levels of consent. There is verbal consent, and then there is implied consent.

Verbal consent:

"I'm a first responder. That's a nasty gash on your forehead, would you like me to stop the bleeding?"

"Yes, thank you." Or a nod. Or a grunt that sounds affirmative.

Implied consent is for when that guy says no. Or throws a punch (it has happened) or some other negative response. Then you simply wait for him to pass out. At that point you are working off of implied consent. That means that any reasonable person in that condition would, if able, ask for help.

Now, as a first responder and not a licensed doctor, I am under no obligation to help anyone, and the first thing we learn is that our first responsibility is to our own safety, and that includes financial safety. So if the moron tells me he doesn't want help, well, I might just let him die rather than risk being sued. If he is obviously a lawyer he's probably screwed. If there is an Obama sticker on his car he may die while I try to decide whether or not I have more important things to do. :lol:
 
SouthernDemocrat said:
A basic arthroscopic knee surgery runs over $10,000 in most cities. The average cost of a knee replacement is $49,500. Do you think its realistic to assume that most people have that kind of money just laying around?
Click to expand...

Is it morally correct to demand the insurance company pay for your medical bills when you only gave them $400 a month for 20 years which adds up to $96,000 in premiums?
 
SouthernDemocrat said:
in almost all cases you hospitals and other providers cannot garnish your wages or seize any of your assets to recoup unpaid medical bills. At most its going to hurt your credit because your assets are safe.
Click to expand...

Replace the $5,000 in the scenario with $0. It seems you would be paying to protect $0 in assets. It still doesn't sound like a good deal for the young person who is broke and healthy. The scenario doesn't change much whether you protect $0 in assets or $5,000 in assets.

This new information does alter my vote. I voted for the first option but with this new information I would probably choose the 6th option.
 
vasuderatorrent said:
Is it morally correct to demand the insurance company pay for your medical bills when you only gave them $400 a month for 20 years which adds up to $96,000 in premiums?
Click to expand...

It's an agreement. In exchange for you giving them 400 dollars a month, they agree to pay a percentage of your medical bills per conditions of the policy. How is that unfair? After all, you are purchasing a product they sell. By having a large risk pool they mitigate their risks (also with reinsurance).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom