Congratulations to my fellow Democrats

[WildCat]

So you're saying that I'm subsidized because I could be paying higher taxes that could be used to provide free healthcare to people whom are currently not paying for emergency room visits.

Got it.

A tax break is the same as a subsidy.

 

[Thunder]

What year do the death panels start?

when Jesus returns.

 

[AlBell]

What year do the death panels start?

When the Medicare cuts actually occur, and doctors refuse to accept new Medicare patients. It's hard to see why they won't also stop seeing their existing Medicare patients.

 

[thaiboxerken]

That's actually middle-of-the-road here, in New York state for example good luck finding a policy for less than $700/month for a single person over 40.

In an individual market, which this policy is supposed to eliminate. However, in your hypothetical situation, this person would not have to buy insurance and would not be fined.........which is where he was in the first place. So he's not any worse off or better.

 

[thaiboxerken]

Sort of like... right now only much, much more expensive.

How is zero payment more expensive than zero payment?

 

[Unabogie]

Why don't you ask someone who holds those views? Because I sure don't.

Holy Christ, man! I'm not ascribing views to you, I am asking a question to those who are against government assistance with health care. Do you agree that government should help? Fine, then the question isn't directed at you!

Sheesh, this obtuseness has to be deliberate, because I can't ask this question any clearer.

For those here who are against government assistance with healthcare, what should happen to those who cannot afford it? If we abolish Medicare, Medicaid, etc, what should an elderly or poor person do when they get sick, and who should pay?

Isn't that perfectly clear what I'm asking?

 

[corplinx]

Before today, I didn't even realize that the bill mandated dental and vision coverage. At most companies, lavish health plans even have vision and dental as optional coverage which you can elect at additional expense.

Sounds like the Dems had some heavy influence from the dental/vision lobbyists. These are affordable services without coverage.

Can anyone here without a microeconomics education but with a hair of intellect (a hair is all thats required to give me the correct answer) tell me what happens when you mandate coverage of these options? (Hint: it is the opposite of "costs going down".

I think this further represents the fundamental problem with this bill. Too much of it was written by health industry lobbyists.

 

[WildCat]

In an individual market, which this policy is supposed to eliminate. However, in your hypothetical situation, this person would not have to buy insurance and would not be fined.........which is where he was in the first place. So he's not any worse off or better.

And as health care costs spiral further out of control and insurance costs follow people like that hypothetical 43 yo will grow in numbers.

When do we reform health care instead of pretending the problem is just health insurance?

 

[WildCat]

How is zero payment more expensive than zero payment?

I'm pretty sure 1 trillion > 0.

 

[WildCat]

Holy Christ, man! I'm not ascribing views to you, I am asking a question to those who are against government assistance with health care. Do you agree that government should help? Fine, then the question isn't directed at you!

Then why did you quote me?

 

[corplinx]

For those here who are against government assistance with healthcare, what should happen to those who cannot afford it? If we abolish Medicare, Medicaid, etc, what should an elderly or poor person do when they get sick, and who should pay?

Isn't that perfectly clear what I'm asking?

Yes. The problem is you don't seem to understand your own question. Moreover, you don't understand the audience.

Wildcat for instance is pro single-payer. He is outspokenly for it (but perhaps not on this forum). He just opposes this health plan because its not reform at all.

In the case of Medicare, the elderly spent less out of pocket before medicare was instituted. Decades later, the elderly pay more than before their health care was "free". I don't think you can find a larger failure of semi-socialization than medicare.

So when you ask what would happen if we abolished medicare, it is apparent you understand very little historically about medical assistance. If medicare had never came along, prices would be lower today. However, abolishing medicare is currently unfeasible, since you pull the rug out from under the elderly you've made dependent on it.

So no, I doubt you will get a simple answer to your question, as these topics aren't mere yes/no simpleton fodder as you might think.

 

[Unabogie]

Then why did you quote me?

Because you appear to hold these views. If you don't, just say so! Frankly, it's perplexing to me that none of the conservatives will answer such a simple question. If we can all agree on this, then we're better able to formulate policy. If there are those, like many I hear today, who think "why should I pay for anyone else with my money?" then the task is much different.

Either way, if you'd just answer, then we can move on.

 

[Unabogie]

Yes. The problem is you don't seem to understand your own question. Moreover, you don't understand the audience.

Wildcat for instance is pro single-payer. He is outspokenly for it (but perhaps not on this forum). He just opposes this health plan because its not reform at all.

In the case of Medicare, the elderly spent less out of pocket before medicare was instituted. Decades later, the elderly pay more than before their health care was "free". I don't think you can find a larger failure of semi-socialization than medicare.

So when you ask what would happen if we abolished medicare, it is apparent you understand very little historically about medical assistance. If medicare had never came along, prices would be lower today. However, abolishing medicare is currently unfeasible, since you pull the rug out from under the elderly you've made dependent on it.

So no, I doubt you will get a simple answer to your question, as these topics aren't mere yes/no simpleton fodder as you might think.

Bull. I am seeing all kinds of people today asking "why should I pay for someone else?".

That's not a straw man, my wife is arguing with her brother right now over this. It's a commonly held view.

For those people, some of whom participate here, I am asking the question. I'm not asking about Medicare as policy. I'm asking about the philosophical underpinning of it.

And no one here will answer the damn question and it's glaring.

 

[Shalamar]

Bull. I am seeing all kinds of people today asking "why should I pay for someone else?".

That's not a straw man, my wife is arguing with her brother right now over this. It's a commonly held view.

For those people, some of whom participate here, I am asking the question. I'm not asking about Medicare as policy. I'm asking about the philosophical underpinning of it.

And no one here will answer the damn question and it's glaring.

Tell them that if they hold *any* insurance at all, They *are* paying for someone else. Someone else, is using your money that you put into the insurance plan, to pay for their illness.

The only way to avoid that, is to self-insure.

 

[corplinx]

Bull. I am seeing all kinds of people today asking "why should I pay for someone else?".

That's not a straw man, my wife is arguing with her brother right now over this. It's a commonly held view.

For those people, some of whom participate here, I am asking the question. I'm not asking about Medicare as policy. I'm asking about the philosophical underpinning of it.

And no one here will answer the damn question and it's glaring.

Free enterprise systems do the greatest amount of good for the greatest amount of people. In a free enterprise system, you will have more people covered at a greater level of care. Its a utilitarian ethic. It is a fact.

However, why in a world with so much wealth would we not share a bit of it to help the corner cases? Surely there must be a way to help those people without lowering the overall standard of care?

This was the problem medicaid was supposed to solve.

However, through decades of interference, we have wound up without a free enterprise health system. We have wound up with a health system where the government pays over half the tab (yep, we're majority public funding as of this year without Obamacare). Government tax code mangling has resulted in the employment based health coverage system we have today for "the other half".

There is no going back. We've lost. You cannot politically survive trying to undo 40 years of unintended consequences when the opposition can paint portraits of you taking away something people have.

We just need to get used to the idea that single-payer or single-payer by proxy is on the horizon, we will have a lower standard of care for many people, and its the price we payed for diddling with things too much for decades. Our health care system is a gigantic failure of government intervention.

However, the narrative will be that free enterprise has failed, and government has succeeded. Again.

 

[Unabogie]

Free enterprise systems do the greatest amount of good for the greatest amount of people. In a free enterprise system, you will have more people covered at a greater level of care. Its a utilitarian ethic. It is a fact.

However, why in a world with so much wealth would we not share a bit of it to help the corner cases w? Surely there must be a way to help those people without lowering the overall standard of care?

This the problem medicaid was supposed to solve.

However, through decades of interference, we have wound up without a free enterprise health system. We have wound up with a health system where the government pays over half the tab (yep, were majority public funding as of this year without Obamacare). Government tax code mangling has resulted in the employment based health coverage system we have today for "the other half".

There is no going back. We've lost. You cannot politically survive trying to undo 40 years of unintended consequences when the opposition can paint portraits of you taking away something people have.

We just need to get used to the idea that single-payer or single-payer by proxy is on the horizon, we will have a lower standard of care for many people, and its the price we payed for diddling with things too much for decades. Our health care system is a gigantic failure of government intervention.

However, the narrative will be that free enterprise has failed, and government has succeeded. Again.

That's a lot of words to evade a question.

 

[corplinx]

That's a lot of words to evade a question.

Is that what she said?

 

[Meadmaker]

Free enterprise systems do the greatest amount of good for the greatest amount of people. In a free enterprise system, you will have more people covered at a greater level of care. Its a utilitarian ethic. It is a fact.

I won't dispute this, but there's a problem applying this to health care. Free enterprise also leaves a select few behind, and "behind" in the case of health care may very well mean dead.

In order to work as it's supposed to, the free enterprise system requires people to make informed choices that are in their own best interest. However, we see, all around us, that people don't do that. The young, healthy, person decides to forego health insurance, as is his right to do so, and then is in a serious auto accident, requiring long term care just to keep him alive. What does the free enterprise system dicate be done in that situation?

We have reached a point in medical science where we can work cures that would have once been considered miracles, but often those miracles can only be worked by applying intense labor from highly trained, specialized individuals, or substances (pharmaceuticals and such) that require exotic materials and long,difficult, extraction and manufacturing technique, so much so that there is absolutely no way that an afflicted individual could possibly pay for such care, if he is the one in need of it, by exchanging labor or goods in kind.

In such cases, free enterprise breaks down. The assumptions simply don't work. Unless you are willing to let the uninsured suffer a logical consequence, possibly including death, for their decisions, the system won't work. I'm not willing to do that, so I welcome a system where people have no choice but to provide for their own care, in the event they need it.

Even then, just the possibility that they might need such care requires a great deal of money to cover the possible cost, and some people simply are not capable of generating, through their rather low valued labor, enough wealth to cover the cost of that care, even after multiplying by the probability that they will need it, i.e. the cost of an insurance premium. Again, I will not let them go without, so the poorest must receive a subsidy.

The bill passed yesterday has a lot of room for improvement, and I'm sure left and right will tug at it in their own ways, but that bill has, at it's core, some extremely sound principles. Those who can afford to provide for their own health care must do so. Those who cannot must receive subsidies that allow them to do so. To my way of thinking, there's nothing even worth debating about those principles.

 

[WildCat]

Wildcat for instance is pro single-payer. He is outspokenly for it (but perhaps not on this forum). He just opposes this health plan because its not reform at all.

No, I'm not for single payer. As I've repeatedly said here and there I'm for a system very similar to what the Dutch have.

The Dutch are very practical people, they would never have built the Rube Goldberg contraption our Dems have constructed.

 

[drkitten]

No, I'm not for single payer. As I've repeatedly said here and there I'm for a system very similar to what the Dutch have.

The Dutch are very practical people, they would never have built the Rube Goldberg contraption our Dems have constructed.

The Dutch might well have been forced into it, as the Democrats were.

If the Republicans had at any point actively cooperated on developing a practical bill, the end result would have been a lot neater. But it was far too much fun to tell lies about "death panels" and to forego any rational discussion.

Shrug. Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind.