MANDATORY health insurance, part 2

[maycocksean]

So... the government can now tell insurers and providers WHO they must cover, WHAT they must cover or provide and HOW MUCH they may charge for it.

If I must have some bureaucrat deciding who gets covered, what they cover, and how much they charge for it, let it be a private bureaucrat from the insurance companies and not a government-employed one. . . amiright?

 

[BVS]

If you're a single male is there a way to opt out of this coverage? There used to be. A free market would provide such a policy.

You're still pretending this is how free market insurance is ran, eh?

 

[KhanadaRhodes]

If you're a single male is there a way to opt out of this coverage? There used to be. A free market would provide such a policy.

what on earth really works like that? can i go to mcdonald's and opt out of the calories in the big mac?

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

Newsflash-insurance companies are already deciding on their own who they must cover, what they must cover or provide and how much they may charge for it. Even for fully paying customers who think they are covered then they find out..not.

Colonoscopies are also mandated to be covered too with no out of pocket costs. But of course those have nothing to do with sex and unwanted pregnancy and "abortifacients". Where's the outrage about colonoscopies?

I actually saw some woman on Fox this morning who suggested that we should have to pay for manis and pedis for women too. I couldn't believe it, that she would equate the two. Yes it's about those sluts who just want to have sex with every guy on the planet and get free birth control in order to do so, not women's health-that's basically what she was suggesting. I don't know if it's on their web site, I'll have to check.

http://video.foxnews.com/v/1091316303001/insurers-to-pay-for-birth-control/

Who is suggesting that people, men and women, should not take personal responsibility when it comes to this issue? Of course they should-but if they can't afford it financially all the responsibility in the world won't matter. Unless that's some sort of code for stop being a slut.

 

[anitram]

If you're a single male is there a way to opt out of this coverage? There used to be. A free market would provide such a policy.

‪Kyl: I Don't Need Maternity Care In My Health Insurance - Stabenow: Your Mom Probably Did!‬‏ - YouTube

 

[INDY500]

what on earth really works like that? can i go to mcdonald's and opt out of the calories in the big mac?

Actually you can, by either buying something else on their menu or going to another restaurant. Isn't choice wonderful?

 

[yolland]

If you buy a drink and fries, you're effectively covering ingredient costs for other customers' Big Macs. That's how they turn a profit, huge markups on sides. Not that this has much of anything to do with contraception, people don't choose to be fertile...

 

[kramwest1]

If you buy a drink and fries, you're effectively covering ingredient costs for other customers' Big Macs. That's how they turn a profit, huge markups on sides.

Popcorn and soda at the movies is my standard example.


Lost in this argument is the fact that doctors will prescribe "birth control" pills to regulate a woman's menstruation. A number of women I know take the pill to limit their bleeding or to even-out their cycles without needing to worry about getting pregnant.
More male-dominated crap I guess.

 

[INDY500]

Lost in this argument is the fact that doctors will prescribe "birth control" pills to regulate a woman's menstruation. A number of women I know take the pill to limit their bleeding or to even-out their cycles without needing to worry about getting pregnant.
More male-dominated crap I guess.

Nothing to do with that. It could be mandated free Viagra and my point would be the same.

With no copay who is going to want a cheaper generic birth control pill when drug companies start marketing (to doctors and on TV) newer and "better" (and more profitable) contraceptives? Third party payment introduces perverse incentives into the market. The way to lower prices is to introduce market forces and consumer choice and empowerment.

The prices of drugs fall dramatically when they go from being paid for on prescription by third parties to being bought by consumers over-the-counter.

 

[BVS]

Third party payment introduces perverse incentives into the market. The way to lower prices is to introduce market forces and consumer choice and empowerment.

You understand this goes on now in your precious free market model, right? Please tell me you're aware of this. And guess what, it wasn't because of regulations of any kind, it was the doing of the insurance companies.

The prices of drugs fall dramatically when they go from being paid for on prescription by third parties to being bought by consumers over-the-counter.

And you think this is due to market forces and choice? Really? Are you serious?

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

Maybe killing off the human species could be a good thing


Huffington Post

Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) expressed a fairly extreme concern on the House Floor Monday night about the expanded preventative health coverage: offering free birth control to women could eventually kill off the entire human species.

KING: We have people that are single, we have people that are past reproductive age, we have priests that are celibate. All of them, paying insurance premiums that cover contraceptives so that somebody else doesn't have to pay the full fare of that? And they've called it preventative medicine. Preventative medicine. Well if you applied that preventative medicine universally what you end up with is you've prevented a generation. Preventing babies from being born is not medicine. That's not— that's not constructive to our culture and our civilization. If we let our birth rate get down below replacement rate we're a dying civilization.

The new guidelines under the Affordable Care Act were nearly unanimously recommended by a panel of experts at the non-partisan Institute of Medicine, and they ensure that health insurance companies will fully cover a range of preventative health services for women, including contraceptives, cervical cancer screening, breast-feeding supplies and HIV testing and counseling.

An estimated 98 percent of sexually active women in America have used some form of birth control at some point in their lives. According to a recent Thomson Reuters/NPR poll, 77 percent of American voters believe that insurers should cover the cost of birth control with no co-pays.

The socially-conservative King called the new guidelines "bizarre" and "Orwellian."

"Now none of us would have health to worry about if they prevented us," he said, "would we, Mr. Speaker?"

 

[Liesje]

Mmmm, yes, I'm sure it's SO much more expensive to cover birth control than the cost of pregnancy, birth, and health coverage for the child....

FWIW I'm happy to pay the co-pay for birth control like any other rx.

 

[yolland]

Apparently Rep. King has no faith in the intrinsic value of children, which is quite a strange position for a social conservative to take. He has a history of being a bit of a loose cannon though IIRC.

I would rather have directly government-funded contraceptive access than this new arrangement, but, fat chance of that.

If and when an effective pill for men is finally developed, it will be interesting to see how that impacts public opinion on this issue.

 

[kramwest1]

FWIW I'm happy to pay the co-pay for birth control like any other rx.

I'll be glad to save the $36 per month, but I'm sure our insurance will go up next year, like it has every year.

 

[INDY500]

‪Planned Parenthood Goes Bollywood!‬‏ - YouTube

This illustrates a big difference between liberals and conservatives. Conservatives rarely celebrate autocratic mandates with interpretive dance.

 

[corianderstem]

Maybe that explains why they're so dour and boring.

 

[yolland]

I have noticed bhangra beats are de rigeur when my '60s radical colleagues throw autocratic mandate parties.

 

[INDY500]

my '60s radical colleagues throw autocratic mandate parties.

Or as it's better known... a faculty meeting.

 

[kramwest1]

I'll be glad to save the $36 per month, but I'm sure our insurance will go up next year, like it has every year.

Correction--$12 per month. I didn't realize it was a 3 month supply.


(-not because I'm an uncaring, asshole male and birth control is "her" problem. It's because she doesn't need it, but takes it even out cycle.
TMI? Too bad.)

 

[maycocksean]

Or as it's better known... a faculty meeting.

I wish my faculty meetings were like that.. .

 

[INDY500]

Appeals court rules against Obama healthcare mandate - Yahoo!

Appeals court rules against Obama healthcare mandate

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama's healthcare law suffered a setback Friday when a U.S. appeals court ruled that it was unconstitutional to require all Americans to buy insurance or face a penalty.

The Appeals Court for the 11th Circuit, based in Atlanta, found that Congress exceeded its authority by requiring Americans to buy coverage, but also reversed a lower court decision that threw out the entire healthcare law.

"This economic mandate represents a wholly novel and potentially unbounded assertion of congressional authority: the ability to compel Americans to purchase an expensive health insurance product they have elected not to buy, and to make them re-purchase that insurance product every month for their entire lives," the majority said in its opinion.

After this week I wonder what the president's comfort food is?

 

[anitram]

Interesting how you're not crowing about activist judges when you agree with a decision...

 

[INDY500]

Interesting how you're not crowing about activist judges when you agree with a decision...

It appears these judges actually read the Constitution. I know... who does that?

“We have not found any generally applicable, judicially enforceable limiting principle that would permit us to uphold the mandate without obliterating the boundaries inherent in the system of enumerated congressional powers”

And you know what they say about powers not delegated to the federal government by the Constitution:

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

Of course I speak of the actual Constitution, not the "living Constitution" which liberal judges pull rights out of like rabbits from a hat.

 

[Canadiens1131]

It appears these judges actually read interpret the Constitution. I know... who does that?

Fixed that for you.

"The framers were wise in their generation and wanted to do the very best possible to secure their own liberty and independence, and that also of their descendants to the latest days. It is preposterous to suppose that the people of one generation can lay down the best and only rules of government for all who are to come after them, and under unforeseen contingencies."

- U.S. Grant

 

[INDY500]

Fixed that for you.

No fix necessary.

Article 5 spells out the requirements to amend the Constitution.

 

[BVS]

There's that INDY consistency again

 

[Dfit00]

The enemy of the insurance industry is confidence. Fear from people, on the other hand, is what keeps them in business. If everybody would quit their fear of not having health insurance (and quit their current policy also), the health insurance industry would collapse and it would bring remarkable and potential benefits for many people who either don't have insurance or pay too much for it.

This same scenario would apply to any sphere of insurance, whether it is auto, rental, homeowner's, etc.

 

[BVS]

If everybody would quit their fear of not having health insurance (and quit their current policy also), the health insurance industry would collapse and it would bring remarkable and potential benefits for many people who either don't have insurance or pay too much for it.

Explain to us how this would bring "remarkable benefits".

 

[U2DMfan]

A better question is...anyone, offer a Constitutional argument for this mandate.

 

[BVS]

The Constitution connects itself to the Declaration of Independence which defines certain unalieable rights, the first one being "life". I can't think of anything more important to life, than proper healthcare.