patrick.net

Do you understand what an insurance is?
Some people have huge costs, some don't. We are all temporarily able bodied. We are all at risk for huge costs we can't pay without selling the family house.

Therefore spreading the costs makes sense.

Spreading payments is not the problem with healthcare in the US.
The costs are the problem.

Spreading payments is not the problem with healthcare in the US.

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Actually, it's a large part of the problem. There's no complex formula that accounts for all your personal inputs and possible outputs wrt your health. So what is the purpose of Private Health Insurance corporations? What are we insuring?

The correct name for the industry is Rent Seekers Assurance.

I imagine two scenarios.

A world with no health insurance
Or
What we have now

I can't think of any value added by health insurance, that we're better off for having, versus just not having it at all. Other than it makes for one hell of a jobs program.

I'm picking option #1:

1. No, I should only be responsible for the care of me and my family.

No way should everyone be entitled to unlimited medical care are everyone else's expense. That's more reverse Darwinism compliments of the Democrat party.

The problem isn't the idea of insuring everyone, it's the centralizing of that insurance under the most wasteful organization in human history, big government.

Although forcing someone to be a part of a system they have no interest in is inherently wrong. What if they want to join later when they get sickly you ask? Make them pay back-payments to make up for the years they weren't insured. But getting back to my first point, these should be administrated at a local level, and if the city is too big, break it up even more.

Of course this entire conversation ignores the AMA, which is responsible for choking supply, and cutting off alternative options(again everyone has the right to choose how they care for themselves). Getting rid of AMA would cut the costs tremendously, along with private insurance at a community level.

NuttBoxer says

The problem isn't the idea of insuring everyone, it's the centralizing of that insurance under the most wasteful organization in human history, big government.

This a thousand times!!!

Our government (even local) can't run an ice-cream stand without driving it into the ground. All over the country State and Local governments are raising taxes and reducing services so they can keep paying their criminally lavish pensions.

Get the corrupting and bankrupting unions out of our government, then we can talk about trusting them with more responsibility over our lives.

Ironman says

Yes, and that was fixed when the Dems passed Obamacare...

Weeeeeeee...!

Blurtman says

In the case of Gilead, it had been shown that they had far surpassed in spades what they paid to acquire the Hep C drug. But there is also the argument that drug development is high risk, and the costs of the losers as well as the winners have to be recovered.

There are hundreds of life saving drugs that we need. If every drug was priced the same way as Gilead priced the Hep C drug, we would be spending 100% of our GDP on drugs.

Blurtman says

Should we all be responsible for everyone else's health care?

Here's what it all comes down to. Would you rather spend 5% of your income in taxes for public health care that takes care of everyone including you, or pay 20% of your post-tax income in health care services and insurance that does no preventative care and will not cover you when you really need it.

It is far cheaper to have a national health care system that
1. Eliminates all private insurance.
2. Regulates health care service prices.
3. Streamlines all billing and accounting.
4. Upholds national standards.
5. Divorces health care and insurance from employment.

If the above reforms were made, everyone would be paying less for health care and getting more of it. And that's why we should nationalize health care. Private industry is extremely inefficient at providing infrastructure, and health care is infrastructure. There's a reason we don't have private sewer systems or private roads.

1 and 6

edit: maybe 5 if you add any self caused issue such as drugs, smoking, ect. fatties for sure

If we give a shit if thousands of Americans die needlessly each year, then we need to go with 2 or 3. If we are just pretending, then we can go with 1.

We also need to stop keeping people alive just for the sake of keeping them alive at all costs. Part of society and health care needs to be refocused on hospice and being able to die in comfort and dignity.

Dan8267 says

5. Divorces health care and insurance from employment.

One would think that corporations would support this. Why don't they ? Is it becasue the high level guys fear that in that world their personal health care wouldn't be as good ?

Ironman says

Wrong... see below..

Hardly. Quoting another baseless assertion is not proof. And if big government is inherently so wasteful and ineffective, then slash the military budget by 90%. If you aren't calling for that, then you are for big government.

While they are on a roll, Republicans should get rid of Bush's Medicare expansion. Why should we pay for the geezer's to load up on pills? Think of the tax cuts that would make way for!