Mandatory Health Insurance part 3

[financeguy]

I think this excerpt from an essay about the presidential election explains it well:

Our runaway health care costs can be traced by our failure to nationalize health care when the rest of the developed did so in the late 1940’s, enabling them to keep their medical expenses to two thirds of ours, with better results. Social security and Medicare were financially flawed from the day they were launched, and modern day politicians were loath to touch them once they became sacred cows. None of these intractable problems are amenable to a quick fix.

Diary of a Mad Hedge Fund Trader

[financeguy]

Originally Posted by Cactus Annie

How so? This all sounds very complicated. Why can't it all be straightforward? They are many countries that use health insurance but if you can't afford it, it's still provided for free by the tax payer. Take Germany as an example. Why can't the US have the same system as Germany? Is it because The US is a larger country? Why can't the UK adopt the German health system as well?

Because poor people in America are immoral, and cannot be allowed to exploit the tax system to steal from richer, and therefore, morally better, citizens. If they are given free healthcare, where will it end? They need to remember that the tax system exists solely for the benefit of large corporations.

[Irvine511]

Originally Posted by financeguy

Because poor people in America are immoral.

not necessarily immoral, it's just their fault that they're poor.

although this attitude is much more common among the not-quite-poor rather than the upper classes, i'd argue.

[Cactus Annie]

That's simply not true. So just because I'm poor richer people think they're better than me? How is it that my mum has been made redundant after working at her former employer for 10 years and she's told she has to live off her redundancy payout until she is allowed to sign on? That money should be her nest egg after she's been made jobless through no thought of her own. How comes David Cameron is no wanting to force people out of their council flats and make them pay extortionate higher rates in the private sector? This is total exploitation. If we could afford over £500 for a scanky little 2 bedroom flat in a town with high unemployment, why wouldn't we just take out a mortgage. I thought renting was for those who can't afford a mortgage.

They are only paying a third of our rent for a scant £200 pcm and we've got up to make up the rest out of the redundancy payout.

[Canadiens1131]

Early Supreme Court Review Of Health Care Law Could Impact 2012 Race : It's All Politics : NPR

The plot thickens: The Obama administration has asked the SCOTUS to review the Affordable Care Act (what our conservative friends on the forum call Obamacare) early, essentially doubling-down for the 2012 election.

Very interesting move in a more and more complex chess game.

[Irvine511]

fwiw, my premiums somehow just went down $20 a month.

also, over a million more people in their early 20s are now insured because they can remain on their parent's insurance until the age of 26, which is something i really wish i had had back then.

[deep]

mine is still $840 a month

with a $3600 deductible and then a 20% co-pay until $5000. per year.

[Irvine511]

that's capitalism for you.

[PhilsFan]

My father's job situation changed recently, so we had to change insurance companies. My brother has a medical condition that calls for regular care, and his costs have not only skyrocketed, but the company's bullshit policy does not allow him to get care at his normal doctor, so he literally has to change everything he's learned in the past few years about caring for himself because this insurance company blows.

I'm angry. My instincts tell me to find someone to blame. If I followed these instincts, I'd make a great Republican voter.

[Irvine511]

Originally Posted by PhilsFan

I'm angry. My instincts tell me to find someone to blame. If I followed these instincts, I'd make a great Republican voter.

but they would boo you at a Republican debate for daring to mention something like this, hippie.

[kramwest1]

Originally Posted by deep

mine is still $840 a month

with a $3600 deductible and then a 20% co-pay until $5000. per year.

Makes me feel slightly better about mine.
~$325/month (half of a custom, couples' plan), $1000 deductible each, 25% co-pay to $5000.

[deep]

Originally Posted by PhilsFan

My father's job situation changed recently, so we had to change insurance companies. My brother has a medical condition that calls for regular care, and his costs have not only skyrocketed, but the company's bullshit policy does not allow him to get care at his normal doctor, so he literally has to change everything he's learned in the past few years about caring for himself because this insurance company blows.

I'm angry. My instincts tell me to find someone to blame. If I followed these instincts, I'd make a great Republican voter.

in a GOP perfect world, the private sector would just cancel you and your loser family

the for profit company wants to collect about 300-400 a month, that is $4000 to $5000 a year in premiums, if you use between $500 and $1500 a year in costs, you are safe to renew and keep paying


If you start to costs $3000 or more per year, you would not have your policy renewed. free market, no one should be forced to provide a product of service to a segment of the public if they do not choose.

[Canadiens1131]

How far (to the right) we've come as a nation, huh?

National Health Insurance Debate Under Nixon - YouTube

I wonder if anyone mentioned death panels?

[INDY500]

Yes, they called it a Health Security board. And if it worked as well to control health care costs as Nixon's Wage And Price controls worked to lower inflation we would have been screwed.

Nice seeing Ted Kennedy and Wilbur Mills together. The two biggest horn dogs in D.C. post JFK and pre-Clinton.

That was interesting, thanks for posting.

[Canadiens1131]

Originally Posted by INDY500

Yes, they called it a Health Security board. And if it worked as well to control health care costs as Nixon's Wage And Price controls worked to lower inflation we would have been screwed.

Nice seeing Ted Kennedy and Wilbur Mills together. The two biggest horn dogs in D.C. post JFK and pre-Clinton.

That was interesting, thanks for posting.

I always find it's interesting to dig into the past when looking at the current vitriol flying around in Washington.

I wonder how the 2000s are going to be framed in history textbooks 50 years from now.

It shows you how good you have to be at framing the debate in Washington to be able to lead aptly, though. Obama, even coming from a reluctant supporter as myself, has completely failed to transfer the rhetoric from the campaign trail to the White House. I'm not even talking about real political gumption; he's just failed at the PR game miserably.

The post 1980 GOP doesn't get many compliments from me, but I will bow down to their public relations prowess any day.

[Cactus Annie]

Originally Posted by Irvine511

that's capitalism for you.

Germany is a capitalist country and their health insurance doesn't cost that much. If you took out private health insurance in the UK, such as Bupa, AXA or SimplyHealth, it would not cost as much as you guys are proclaiming.

[financeguy]

Originally Posted by Cactus Annie

Germany is a capitalist country and their health insurance doesn't cost that much. If you took out private health insurance in the UK, such as Bupa, AXA or SimplyHealth, it would not cost as much as you guys are proclaiming.

Yes, but there are people in America, particularly the type that vote GOP, that think Europe is composed entirely of socialist countries, so they are not interested in learning anything from the study of a European country's health system, even when it's objectively better than the US's, as in Germany or France.

As you mentioned Germany specifically, I reckon part of the problem is that medical consultants are vastly overpaid in America, whereas in Germany they are paid at a level that is certainly above the average salary, but not excessively so.

US medical consultants enjoy the highest salaries in the world, but the US is at this point far from being the wealthiest country in the world.

[Cactus Annie]

Originally Posted by financeguy

Yes, but there are people in America, particularly the type that vote GOP, that think Europe is composed entirely of socialist countries, so they are not interested in learning anything from the study of a European country's health system, even when it's objectively better than the US's, as in Germany or France.

Well these people must be more stupid than a woodlouse. Someone needs to give them basic information on the modern western European country. I can't believe that Glenn Beck got into Yale. How can this be? He must have a severe personality disorder.

As you mentioned Germany specifically, I reckon part of the problem is that medical consultants are vastly overpaid in America, whereas in Germany they are paid at a level that is certainly above the average salary, but not excessively so.

US medical consultants enjoy the highest salaries in the world, but the US is at this point far from being the wealthiest country in the world.

I'm all for highly gifted doctors being well paid, but I do believe that most doctors do not get into medicine for the money. They are far easier ways to earn megabucks than 8 years of studying.

[Irvine511]

Originally Posted by Cactus Annie

Someone needs to give them basic information on the modern western European country. I can't believe that Glenn Beck got into Yale.

Glenn Beck did not go to Yale in any sort of meaningful sense.

he went to Yale for once semester in 1996 as a non-degree special student while working at a radio station in nearby Hamden, CT before dropping out.

George W. Bush, however, did go to Yale.

[INDY500]

White House kills insurance program for long-term care - The Washington Post

White House eliminates insurance program for long-term care

The Obama administration cut a major planned benefit from the 2010 health-care law on Friday, announcing that a program to offer Americans insurance for long-term care was simply unworkable.

Known as the Community Living Assistance Services (CLASS) Act, the program was intended to be purely voluntary and open to all working Americans. The program was to be entirely self-financed with the premiums participants paid. Obama officials said that presented them with a problem: If they designed a benefits package generous enough to meet the law’s requirements, they would have had to set premiums so high that few healthy people would enroll. And without a large share of healthy people in the pool, the CLASS plan would have become even more expensive, forcing the government to raise premiums even higher, to the point of the program’s collapse.

The smartest administration in history just now figured out what critics have been saying for 2 years. By the way, economic principles apply to the entire healthcare act but they'll never admit that.