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Conservatives, under what conditions would you allow universal coverage?

Travis

Misanthrope of the Mountains
Joined
Mar 31, 2007
Messages
24,133
I'm going to lose money for any for profit insurance company. So really only some sort of universal plan would allow me to be covered. And there are lots of other people just like me out there.

So under what conditions would you allow that to happen?
 
I'd imagine universal coverage under a conservative plan would be creating the economic climate in which everyone would be able to buy private insurance.

While they work on that, I'd advise you to move to the UK or Canada.
 
I'd favor any revenue neutral universal coverage plan that does not result in me personally experiencing longer wait times and does not prevent me from choosing to go private and does not cost me more for going private than I pay now. Oh, and does not allow the goverment to influence what is and is not covered for me. Oh yeah - and requires those here illegally to pay into the system comensurate with what my burden would be before they get the first aspirin. One more - criminalizes falsifying a medical claim with penalties equal to tax fraud.

There. That should be easy enough.
 
I'd favor any revenue neutral universal coverage plan that does not result in me personally experiencing longer wait times and does not prevent me from choosing to go private and does not cost me more for going private than I pay now. Oh, and does not allow the goverment to influence what is and is not covered for me. Oh yeah - and requires those here illegally to pay into the system comensurate with what my burden would be before they get the first aspirin. One more - criminalizes falsifying a medical claim with penalties equal to tax fraud.

There. That should be easy enough.

And I want a unicorn, while we're on the subject of pipe dreams.
 
Redefine "universal coverage" to mean everyone is entitled to the sky over their head and is free to pursue their Objectivist dream.
 
And I want a unicorn, while we're on the subject of pipe dreams.

He asked, I answered.

If we can't provide what I asked for, then I oppose "universal" coverage as it is usually proposed. Any system that removes my choice to seek medical care that I can afford to pay for or requires me to wait longer for care than I currently do or results in me paying more for the same level of care is contrary to my best interests. Right now, every proposed "universal" coverage system causes at least two of these three outcomes. Most of them also result in worse heath care outcomes for guys like me. Why in the world would I favor such a thing?

If someone can clear these hurdles, then sign me up. Seriously. Simply make adequate health care available to all legal residents at no greater cost than we pay today without also causing me to suffer a different kind of rationing than currently exists.
 
Oh, and does not allow the goverment to influence what is and is not covered for me.

But you're ok with insurance companies trying to turn a profit dictating what procedures you're allowed to get?

Oh yeah - and requires those here illegally to pay into the system comensurate with what my burden would be before they get the first aspirin.

Illegal aliens generally pay payroll and sales tax. They already do pay into the system.
 
But you're ok with insurance companies trying to turn a profit dictating what procedures you're allowed to get?

Stop making stuff up. The arguments for universal coverage really do not depend on you attributing positions to me that I do not actually hold.

So far, no universal coverage scheme has been proposed for the US that does not sinply shift the approval authority from private insurace companies to a goverment agency. Under the current "system", I have some choice. Under all of the proposed universal systems that have a chance of passing, I have zero choice. That I prefer some choice over no choice does not mean I wouldn't prefer complete choice over some choice.


Illegal aliens generally pay payroll and sales tax. They already do pay into the system.

Illegal aliens generally (alomst exclusively) are lower income earners and would disproportionatly benefit from any universal coverage system. Effectively, they would have free health care at my expense, both in terms of cost and availability. Charge them the highest rates or deny them coverage. If you care enough about them as people, then fix our immigration mess. Don't simply add another incentive (free health care) for them to hop the border.
 
Give us an example of a choice you now have that would be gone under the universal plans.
 
Give us an example of a choice you now have that would be gone under the universal plans.

Which universal plan? Remember, we don't have one here in the States and there is no serious proposal to develop one.

Under most every scheme mentioned as a proposed US universal coverage system, the patient goes to the doctor he is assigned to see, and gets treated according to the doctors schedule. It is not allowable for the patient to arrange, at his own expense, to go to a different doctor and pay for either expedited service or for a treatment that isn't normally allowed. Under schemes that do allow this option, the patient must still pay for the service he doesn't get, and pay extra for the service he does get.

There's an example.

Now - your OP asked conservatives to provide conditions under which they would support universal coverage. I am (arguably) conservative on some social issues, and I provided my conditions. I'm not being snarky, but I'm not particularly interested in participating in the next great on-line universal health care debate. It has all been said before - and this thread already contains evidence that this iteration will contain the same intentional mischaracterizations from both sides that the previous ones have.
 
In the meantime the uninsured, like myself, are kind of left waving in the wind. You talk about wanting choices for procedures when I would be happy to just be able to have any procedure.
 
And the whole choice thing is pretty much mythical anyway. Most insurers cover the same damn things, to pretty much the same amounts--the only variations are the contracts between the insurer and the provider, and that's just a question of market clout on either side. And insurers pretty much just copy Medicare on what procedures and drugs are covered, with what diagnoses, and they even base their allowables on Medicare's much of the time. You can see it happen whenever the new CMS guidelines come out, private insurers scramble to make similar changes, and they're implemented when the policy is up for renewal.

You might as well say "because there are multiple studios, and multiple movie theater chains, I have a wide selection in what movies I can go see!" Check the papers. It's mostly the same stuff everywhere.
 
You might as well say "because there are multiple studios, and multiple movie theater chains, I have a wide selection in what movies I can go see!" Check the papers. It's mostly the same stuff everywhere.

Some theaters have better popcorn.

I've never been to any of those, though.
 
Stop making stuff up. The arguments for universal coverage really do not depend on you attributing positions to me that I do not actually hold.

So far, no universal coverage scheme has been proposed for the US that does not sinply shift the approval authority from private insurace companies to a goverment agency. Under the current "system", I have some choice. Under all of the proposed universal systems that have a chance of passing, I have zero choice. That I prefer some choice over no choice does not mean I wouldn't prefer complete choice over some choice.

Again, choices are now made based on profit motive, not the best interests of the patient. The only way to have "choice" in the American system is to 1) have a significant amount of money and 2) be healthy.

If you are missing one or both of these elements, you are 100% dependent on finding an employer to give you coverage or you're just **** out of luck.

Under a single payer system you still have the choice of doctors and other medical service providers, it just turns out that the government doesn't have a choice to NOT cover your needs in the vast, VAST majority of situations.

And if we adopt a system similar to Germany's, you can still take your hard earned dollars and buy whatever health care you want from high-end providers.

This "choice" nonsense is another vapid canard.



Illegal aliens generally (alomst exclusively) are lower income earners and would disproportionatly benefit from any universal coverage system. Effectively, they would have free health care at my expense, both in terms of cost and availability. Charge them the highest rates or deny them coverage. If you care enough about them as people, then fix our immigration mess. Don't simply add another incentive (free health care) for them to hop the border.

Who do you think pays for their coverage when they receive treatment at a hospital today? That cost is reflected in your premiums.

It is more expensive for society, and in turn you, me, and anyone earning more than the lowest earning workers, to deny them coverage out of some sort of zenophobic principle of "others" getting your money, than it is to just cover them. They're obtaining the most expensive emergency care possible, and you're paying for it through premiums.

But you're basically providing an argument for denying poor people medical insurance. Very little is different between that level of labor if you're legal or illegal. The only substantial divergence with respect to health care is that the illegals will put off any needed medical check-ups and procedures until it's an emergency situation. So setting aside the economic argument (which you are, of course, completely wrong about), I don't particularly care how much it costs, any modern, humane society should provide medical coverage to all of its citizens.

America is the only Western nation that doesn't and we pay twice as much per capita as the others. Pathetic.
 
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Give us an example of a choice you now have that would be gone under the universal plans.

The choice to pay money to an insurer that will then deny you coverage if they can concoct some crazy Rube Goldberg-esque explanation for why you have a pre-existing condition.
 
I thought some differed in how much eye care they had, TM?

Depends on what you mean by eye care. Glasses, prescriptions, vision correction is usually a separate line of business offered by specialty insurers. I'm not aware of any of the big medical players offering those coverages, just like they don't do dental. But medical-type eye stuff, like retinal detachments, eye diseases, stuff like that is usually covered by regular medical insurance.
 
Ah. I was curious, becuase it seemed to me that Tricare was much better than Blue Cross of Idaho about glasses.

I have no idea, I've never had big-name corrective vision coverage. The two different insurers I've had for that were so small they didn't even have cards, the optometrists just knew where to look up your info.

Tricare's government, though, for a limited market, so they may well get extra benefits.
 

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