patrick.net

And your problem is??

Dan8267 says

So I call upon all young adults to throw themselves into the fire. To sacrifice themselves upon the altar for generation with the luckiest birth dates. For that is the only purpose their lives serve.

The tragedy of child sacrifice is advocated by both major parties. The Republican method is religious repression, for example Republican "family values" include abusing and even disowning their own children if the kids turn out to be gay. (Muslims take it even further, murdering their own daughters for "honor.") Obamacare is the Democratic method, dressed as compassion in the same way faith healing is.

One point you sometimes miss though, it isn't purely a generational issue. Most people who take reasonably good care of themselves can expect low medical costs to the end, when the nursing home vultures attack, and that isn't even covered by Obamacare. The vast majority of Obamacare goes to chronic conditions caused by (a) smoking, (b) drinking too much alcohol, (c) eating too much, and/or (d) exercising too little. The consequences start appearing in the 40-70 age bracket. A typical 55yo non-smoker of normal weight, who isn't an alcoholic, and walks a reasonable amount, can expect medical expenses near zero. His morbidly obese alcoholic sedentary contemporary can expect massive expenses. So, while the Obamacare cost shifting occurs primarily between generations as you have described, it also occurs within generations, requiring people who take care of their own health to pay for the consequences of their contemporaries' unhealthy decisions. The real beneficiaries are the revenue recipients - ill health is its own punishment, and most current spending goes towards making people die more slowly and expensively rather than restoring them to good health.

The pretext that anyone can get hit by a bus is true, but emergencies where there is a chance of saving the patient account for less than 10% of total spending, in fact nearer to 1%. The vast majority of spending is on pointless interventions or chronic "care" for self-inflicted conditions.

The pretext that anyone can get hit by a bus is true, but emergencies where there is a chance saving the patient account for less than 10% of total spending, in fact nearer to 1%

Isn't this why motor vehicle operators are required to carry auto insurance? Because of the potentiality that they may cause bodily injury, to someone else?

It's the Oldfart game, don't cry son, you'll get to play someday you'll see...

I used to work really hard, gunning for retirement, I gave up on that dream. I'm still frugal and all, I don't live it up like many others, it's been years since I lost the debt, the money just keeps piling up, but it will never be enough, and that's ok. I see my pals older than me running to try to keep up and retire, why bother, your good health is literally worth millions of dollars these days. And, lol, according to WHO, the health care system in the U.S. is as bad as it gets for developed nations.

curious2 says

The tragedy of child sacrifice is advocated by both major parties.

Good points.

curious2 says

The vast majority of Obamacare goes to chronic conditions caused by (a) smoking, (b) drinking too much alcohol, (c) eating too much, and/or (d) exercising too little.

Also true. Unfortunately, any kind of socialization of the costs of medical expenses is going to suffer from this defect. With ages, you can use brackets to eliminate the problem. Through exams you could also bracket body fat rates. However, bracketing smokers, heavy alcohol users, and lack of exercise isn't as enforceable unless the deficiency is so extreme that it is obvious.

In any case, there's a difference between the purpose of insurance, which is to spread risk, and the purpose of getting young people to pay more than their fair share under the ACA, which is wealth transference from the less wealthy to the more.

CaptainShuddup says

It's the Oldfart game, don't cry son, you'll get to play someday you'll see...

Unless of course, I die young like most of the good.

http://www.NJBoHa3GArA

Dan8267 says

CaptainShuddup says

It's the Oldfart game, don't cry son, you'll get to play someday you'll see...

Unless of course, I die young like most of the good.

Here's the German version ;)
http://www.0p59I9dgCGo

I don't know, it works for me.

"Youth Break With President Over Health Care in Harvard Poll
***
More than half of those 18 to 29 years old say they disapprove of Obamacare and half expect it will increase their health-care costs, a survey by Harvard University’s Institute of Politics shows.
***
The survey found 41 percent approval for Obama, a number that drops to 34 percent when the younger Americans are asked to rate the job he is doing on health care."

The problem with this argument is that we're still living off the accomplishments of the the WWII generation!

There really haven't been any major technological breakthroughs or world realignments since then.

You can say that "young people" are owed this or that, but in some sense not really. Each generation since WWII has not fought in a major earth changing war, nor has it created technology that has created orders of magnitude changes in productivity.

John Bailo says

There really haven't been any major technological breakthroughs or world realignments since then.

The Internet.

And you're welcome.

The Internet is the greatest achievement of mankind, far surpassing the pyramids, the Library of Alexandria, the printing press, and the moon landing all together. It creates an enormous amount of wealth and opportunity. And it was created by a few ten thousand developers during the 1990s, including myself, mostly gen X and a few Boomers. Granted, we developers represented the tiniest proportions of our generations, but we accomplished the most magnificent technological advancement ever.

So the problem isn't that our nation cannot or has not achieved any technological breakthroughs. They happen all the time. The problem is that the current crop of owners decided to sell out the country to China so they could cash out all the infrastructure built during the 20th century. Short-term greed destroying long-term prosperity.

John Bailo says

There really haven't been any major technological breakthroughs or world realignments since then.

You can say that "young people" are owed this or that, but in some sense not really. Each generation since WWII has not fought in a major earth changing war, nor has it created technology that has created orders of magnitude changes in productivity.

John, that's just false. Gordon Moore was too young to serve in WWII, and others who founded INTC were younger. Sergey Brin and Larry Page weren't even born. As often as I say Wikipedia is not a source, it is a portal that presents sources and makes them accessible to millions, and it didn't even exist a decade ago. The average person today can find, with only modest effort, information that was inaccessible or did not even exist twenty years ago. The world is transformed, as the recording industry can tell you, but the consequences have not reached certain protected industries. (For example, medical: when the Rx requirement was imposed, a substantial % of Americans were actually illiterate. I don't mean that as an insult, I mean literally they could not read. Now they can, and besides even if they couldn't read they could use voice search. More information is available now, and often more accurate information, than ever before. The issue is separating wheat from chaff, and alas the mandatory dependence on paid pushers does not always help with that.)

At a salary of just over 15k, a person over 19 now qualifies for Medicare.

In CA, at 16K a person qualifies for insurance for $1 a month.

At 20K, $27 a month.

At 30K, $156 a month....capping at $190 with no discounts.

So what percentage of young people are we talking about here? Those who make over 30k and who would prefer to not have health insurance if they had to pay $156-$190 a month.

I really am curious about the percentage of people that includes.

It's been my experience that the young are excited to actually get insurance for the first time since being on their parent's plan....

Well excited might not be the right word. They are mostly excited about taking pictures of their lunch and posting it on Facebook. But yes, going to the doctor when you have pnuemonia is actually kind of cool to them.