Thanks Obama… Now with medical insurance- WE ARE FORCED TO BUY IT. If you dont have a motorcyle, must you buy motorcyle insurance? NO. Because that would be dumb. Imagine a world…where you could speed 100MPH in a school crossing zone, get tickets over and over again at say $25 a pop, and they NEVER raised your insurance premium? In fact, no matter how many claims you make (total your car) how dangerous you drive, how many tickets you get they NEVER can raise your rates. But someone who is a safe driver and doesnt cost the insurance a penny is FORCED by LAW to pay the same rate as you. So your bad decisions have no impact on the price you pay. How sustainable or fair is that? BECAUSE THAT is how medical insurance works. Oh, it gets worse. Imagine…homeowner insurance. Imagine you pay your premium for 30 years, $1,000 a year. I’ve never paid in 30 years and my house catches on fire through no fault of my own. After it burnt down, I call your ins, and say “I want to pay my $1,000 premium now, and you owe ME 200,000 for my house” that is how the new “pre existing condition” laws work. THAT is why ins has been going up thousands of dollars per year the past few years. You can thank the Liberals.
false comparison
There are two philosophical points related to your criticism of the ACA. First, although it is an “insurance” law, the intent is to move closer to a universal healthcare system. Ultimately, Obama and others want a system where society pays $X into a national fund, and this fund would pay for all national healthcare costs. In this sense, comparisons between ACA insurance and other kinds of insurance are not necessarily appropriate. The complicated and distorted ACA relationships between federal and state governments, insurance companies and consumers exist as a result of combining this universal healthcare vision with the existing health insurance system.
Second, in your motorcycle example, you are highlighting the argument that the ACA is “forcing people to engage in commerce”. This was a main argument in the Supreme Court when they were trying to deteermine if the ACA law was constitutional. Ultimately, the court decided that the law did not force people to engage in commerce. It was effectively a tax to subsidize health insurance. Interestingly, this was the opposite of what Obama said when he was gathering support for the law. Obama assured voters that the law was “not a tax”, in order to avoid the negative connotations of that term.
agree man.
There’s essentially four options for healthcare: Single Payer (medicare), Government Run (VA, UK’s system), Free Market (in a true free market system people would inevitably die in the streets), and the individual mandate (or employer mandate which is a variant of the same concept). Personally, I think the individual mandate is the best of a few bad options.
Unfortunately, to get ACA passed, Obama had to buy off the fringe left with goodies to get their votes rather than of the moderate right.
It’s all BS no matter how you look at it.
Yes but when insurance becomes so expensive that nobody buys it (poor and healthy) and insurance companies will only insure the healthy (the sick cannot get covered), the system breaks down and the state or government has to step in.
^ Yep. Health Insurance isn’t “insurance” in the traditional sense like home insurance or car insurance, but really a prepaid health care plan where care providers have their own negotiated rates with health plans (Sort of like a smartphone plan). If you don’t have health insurance, you’re just not in the system, and you’re f***ed.
Obamacare isn’t a huge departure, but a natural progression of where the US health system has been going.
Not entirely true. As US hospitals by law cannot turn away people in need, there are many freeloaders who effectively get free healthcare.
^ Only true for emergency and other limited acute care situations. Otherwise they can.
I’ve often wondered why regular checkups and routine things like birth control are covered by health insurance. IMO, they shouldn’t be.
If I were emperor, health insurance would be exactly that–insurance–as in, against unforeseen disastrous consequences. It wouldn’t cover things that you know in advance that you’re going to need, such as your annual dental cleaning and X-ray.
^I generally agree that something you know you’re going to need isn’t really insurable. However, in a free market, it’s reasonable for a company to do a cost-benefit analysis for offering those ancillary services (like annual physicals and routine things). My understanding is that annual physicals, especially for the very young and the reasonably old, tend to reduce their costs by finding bad stuff early enough so that the cost of treatment is reduced. I’m not sure on the evidence for birth control, but it is conceivable that birth control every year and then two kids is cheaper than 9 kids.
However, we don’t have a free market. States and the Federal government make rules on what must be in insurance plans. They must cover birth control because the Feds say so.
the reason greenie is to catch things early. a lot of silent killers out there that would be far more life threatening to deal with when you actually get symtoms. Now if you want to argue, oh well let people die and then costs go down, then I can’t argue there.
We have fifty states or test labs if you will. Why do the feds think it is necessary to impose more rules on them. Can’t Oregon, Kansas, and Virginia take care of themselves…that is the bigger issue. We were warned about large central govenments. But, as usual, those in power know best. I would rather see Ohio with a big failure and cost overruns than the federal government. Which do you think is more damaging to the Republic? So obvious that those that promoted the ACA have no real World experience in rolling out product. This would be like ExxonMobil rolling out a new drilling fluid promoted by some vendor everywhere. They would not dare because they have been humbled by experience. They would test it on a very small scale and go from there. Sad, so sad.
The same problems are endemic to other parts of government too, right? Is the Senate defense committee comprised of military experts? Is the finance committee comprised of bankers? Imagine if you promote your legal department to take over your entire company.
^I like that analogy.
Well, we have promoted the lawyers to take over the entire country. The professions represented used to be much more diverse…But I did say those that promoted the ACA. Does that include you? If so, thank you for making the tax system even more complicated and expanding the reach of the federal government. History has been very kind to large growing central powers and their “people.”
I think the correct term is ‘Bleeding heart liberals’.
And stupidest fking comparison iv’e ever heard.
Maybe he can slow down and walk you through the analogy? He seems generous with his time and intellect. Ask nicely.
I’m slowly starting to realize that Ohai’s forum personality is a cliffnote version of BChad’s personality. Ohai seems like a smart guy and is good at keeping it brief as well