Ace makes a great point on one of the many problems in the health care bill:
On Fox & Friends, they offered another good talking point: Currently 90% of all Americans are covered by insurance. Obama’s vaunted plan will cover, theoretically, another 7%.
So: We’re destroying the entire system to move from 90% to 97% coverage? And that 7%, of course, includes a lot of young people who think they don’t need health insurance because they’re young and healthy (and, in fact, they’re right, according to the statistics; even more right when you consider that each young person is forced to pay way too much for health care, as he subsidizes older customers).
I’m one of those people. I don’t have health insurance now, and I haven’t ever carried it when I wasn’t working a W-2 job, because I’m generally healthy and don’t particularly want to subsidize people who are more likely to require medical care. It’s possible, of course, I could regret this decision due to circumstances beyond my control, but I’d prefer to put that money into investments and play the odds by making an effort to stay healthy via exercise and supplements and generally engaging in low-risk behavior.
Let’s take a closer look at the numbers on that. The sum of the time I’ve been without insurance is about four years. I think the average premium for health care insurance for someone in my position has been around $300/month over the last four years (I’ll use the last four years for simplicity, although the period I wasn’t covered is actually spread over a longer period). That’s about $3,600 a year (we’ll conservatively ignore deductibles, too, which reduce the benefit). In that period I had essentially no medical costs, so at the moment I’m ahead about $16,000 if we discount at 7%.
So in answer to the inevitable “But what if you get sick or need medical care tomorrow?” — as long as it costs less than $16,000, I’ll still be ahead. That’s not a sure thing, but the odds are in my favor, and the amount I’ve saved gets bigger every year. (If I didn’t have that money available, of course, the benefit of insurance would be somewhat greater as I might face a situation in which I could not afford necessary care or could be forced to declare bankruptcy, but then that’s the benefit of saving.)
Of course, the reason we pay for insurance is to avoid having to take this gamble, but the price they’re asking is too high. The benefit of being insured is not commensurate with the cost for someone young and healthy and low-risk if they have to subsidize others. Now, if someone came along with a policy priced for people who are young and healthy and low-risk, I would take it, because it would be a lot cheaper, but I’m not sure that’s even legal.
Here’s where things gets both scary and infuriating. Under the health-care proposal currently being considered, I won’t have this choice anymore. It will essentially be illegal to not carry health insurance, and I will be fined thousands of dollars a year if I continue to do what I’m currently doing. And the really galling part of this is I’m one of those “uninsured” people they claim to be helping.
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Mayo Clinic:
“Minnesota’s not-for-profit Mayo Clinic, which Mr. Obama has repeatedly hailed as offering top quality care at affordable costs, blasted the House Democrats’ version of the health care plan as lawmakers continue to grapple with several bills from each chamber and multiple committees.
The Mayo Clinic said there are some positive elements of the bill, but overall “the proposed legislation misses the opportunity to help create higher quality, more affordable health care for patients.”
“In fact, it will do the opposite,” clinic officials said, because the proposals aren’t patient-focused or results-oriented.“
“The real losers will be the citizens of the United States.”
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jul/21/mayo-clinic-calls-house-plan-bad-medicine/print/
I can’t help but think that a whole lot of the push for “universal coverage” is from the sort of Europhilic bien-pensant types who are annoyed that soccer isn’t more popular in the US or that we don’t use the metric system, and who are likely to say they’re Canadian when they’re abroad.
The problem is that the issue has become highly politicized. The Dems now have their “political prestige” on the line, so they may be inclined to pass anything, while the GOP wants to stop anything.
It’d be much better if both sides take a breather, have a good, honest debate on what the problem is, and how to solve it.
I understand Obama’s predicament that haste is required, because if it drags out the opponents will pick it to death.
It’s real hard to address the big structural problems in our country (Social Security solvency, entitlements, health-care). It’s even hard to precisely define what the problem is, let alone how to solve it.
Does the GOP have an alternative proposal?
–HBarnes
The ultimate problem is the legislative process. The R’s actually have tabled interesting proposals; one I like is a sort of health care voucher that you can use to buy insurance with, along with a whole lot of stuff that would genuinely make things cheaper, such as tort reform.
But the Dems are In Charge, so Republican proposals would never get out of committee, much less see a vote.
As for stuff like SS, making it viable is actually pretty easy, but involves telling people that something they’re “entitled to” won’t happen. Raising the SS age to 70 would fix much of the problem, as would changing the SS benefit formula so it goes up with inflation and not with wage growth.
But AARP would eat the gonads of any Congresscritter, D or R, who dared to table such proposals, and guys like Krugman would demagogue them to death in the usual rags, since he sees higher taxes as a feature, not a bug.
“We have a problem.”
“We must do SOMETHING.”
“This bill is SOMETHING!”
“We must pass THIS BILL.”
I’m not even sure the “logic” of the situation even reaches this level. It is quite possible the logic is more like this.
“We can’t let this crisis go to waste.”
“This bill vastly increases public dependence on the Government.”
“We must pass this bill.”
Or something like that.
A few years ago, I was admitted to the hospital for a few tests and stayed overnight. The bill for that one night and the tests was around $25,000. My insurance company paid less the $11,000, and I paid nothing, because the hospital had an agreement with the insurance company to accept there lower fees.
Basically, your $16,000 would be wiped out by one day in the hospital, and because you don’t have insurance, you will be paying full price.
If you were to actually become seriously ill, then you would be un-insurable and would be forced into bankruptcy by your medical bills. Since most of your medical bills would be unpaid, the county, state and everyone who has insurance would be paying for you medical care.
That is the crazy system we have now.
I see no problem with forcing you to pay fines for not having insurance. It will cover part of the expenses the government has to pay for people like you who are injured in accidents or become seriously ill and cannot pay.
I don’t have health insurance now, and I haven’t ever carried it when I wasn’t working a W-2 job, because I’m generally healthy and don’t particularly want to subsidize people who are more likely to require medical care.
I understand this dilemma from a libertarian perspective – but I’m sorry to break it to you, but thats just too bad.
the entire concept of innsurance REQUIRES that the healthy subsidize the ill. Without universally mandated coverage – at both ends, the consumers MUSt buy and the providers MUST sell – you will inevitably have a system where the financial incentive moves people who are sick onto the public expense sheet and healthy people into private insurance. thats going to cost everyone more in the long run – what do you think youll be paying in taxes when the problem gets even worse, as it is over time because of the infrastructural imbalance that incentivizes the sick to seek public care?
remove the problem by universal mandate OR provide pure, true socialized medicine and forget about having an insurance industry at all. thats the stark choice your game-theory selfishness is driving the choice towards. Obamas plan is actally a compromise.
The GOP has no alternative proposal to be tabled. There is an aternative by Ron Wyden which has garnered interesting cross-partisan support however, a solution that is in many ways more radical than Obama’s incrementalist approach. details, see here:
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/07/on-health-care-bipartisanship-without.html
the entire concept of innsurance REQUIRES that the healthy subsidize the ill.
Huh ?
The concept of insurance is that the insurance company will extract your premium dollars because they are betting you will not get sick and they’ll earn a profit after they payoff the one’s what do get sick. Its been a long term bear market for the insurance companies.
Whatever concept in American ethos requires that the healthy subsidize the ill ?
But I can opt-out of private insurance if I don’t want to pay for that.
I can’t opt-out of the government plan. I must pay.
I think you both have it right. Insurance companies need the healthy to pay for the procedures for the ill, and they’re betting you won’t get sick. Why else to rates go up when you age? They know that’s a riskier bet to take.
So, yes, the insurance industry is founded upon the healthy paying for the coverage of the unhealthy.
Which is fine, really. There’s nothing wrong with that because the healthy choose to partake in this process.
With the government plan there’s no choice. That’s where the problem arises.
Dave, at the very least you should be carrying catastrophic coverage. It’s really quite reasonably priced.
And if you become seriously ill or are seriously injured in an accident, you will not be able to pay your medical bills.
Under the US system, this does not mean you will simply be left in the street to die because you don’t have insurance. The government (county and state mostly) and those people who do have insurance will pay for your medical treatment. It probably will not be as good a treatment as you would have gotten with insurance, but you will not simply be left to die.
I have seen estimates that 10% of US medical insurance premiums goes to cover the medical expenses of the uninsured.
McK, your slightly – but in an important way – wrong. the model you describe means that the insurance industry would need only a single healthy customer to be proftable, but even a healthy person who undergoes routine preventive health checkups (which many people dont) would probably make them draw even, The cost of a prostate exam, mammography, routine dental, etc adds up to a lot more than you pay in premiums in the short term, youd only make money if everyone was fantastically healthy, barely used their preventive care, and lved a very long time.
even ONE customer who gets sick will take out premiums from a dozen healthy individuals. do the math: say your premium is $500/mo (who actually pays, private vs employer vs govt etc is not relevant – this is insurance company income we are talking about). Over ten years thats $60k in premiums. a *single* surgery for bypass due to cardiac problems is in the neighborhood of $600K – thats TEN people for TEN years with ZERO health problems of their own!
insurance IS a healthy-subsidize-the-sick arrangement and its actually pretty profitable because the actual ratio of healthy to sich is a lot better than ten to one. But, if all the sick are forced out of insurance, becauise of pre-=existing conditions or impossibly high premiums, then they go to the ER and the texpayer pays for their care directly. And even assuming you NEVER have any health problems at all, that scenario is going to cost you a LOT more than any plan in congress righ now.
Kevin, thats right you MUST under the reform – thats essential to making it work, and the fact that you arent forced to pay right now is exactly why we are barreling towards unsustainable health care costs.
In fact it was the CEO of Kaiser Permanente himself who made the argument that we need to have dual-oligation i the US – consumers MUST buy and insurers MUSt sell – else we cant fix the problem. the very corporations themselve sinvolved in health care agree about this, this is not just teh socialist liberals out to get ya. its teh titans of capitalist industry too, all on teh same page 0- which is why they agreed with Obama and stood with him and pledged to reduce costs, and are agreeing not to obstruct teh reuqirement that preexisting conditions no longer be a valid reason to deny. Think about that last bit for a sec and what a concession youd think, intuitively, it must have been, but its not a concession at all, its actually critical to the outcome – one where the insurance industry survives and isnt dismantled overnight for something like single payer instead.
Dave your $16k is chump change. Thts about how much teh total cost for EACH of our pregnancies was (of course we paid much less – our share amounted to about $3k).
And this doesn’t strike you as a terrifying curbing of liberty? We must abandon the free market model (warts and all) for the good of whomever the government tells us it is?
Where in the Constitution does the Federal government get that power? Where does it get to choose to eliminate a private industry?
You have to see how dangerious this is, Aziz.
Where does it end? Tell me! Where does Federal authority end?
Over the past 10 years, I’ve spent a lot of money at this one fancy restaurant downtown — the waiters are always pleased as punch to see me, treat me nice, brighten my lunch hour.
Over the past 10 years, I’ve spent a heluva lot more money on health insurance premiums, but have only visited the doctor a handful of times. When I see him, he’s like, “Who the f%ck are you?”
–HB
And this doesn’t strike you as a terrifying curbing of liberty?
no, because i have no problem with the idea that I am partly my brother’s keeper, nor do I feel it particularly onerous to help those less fortunate than myself.
Aziz,
In all, my health requirements never exceeded out of pocket payment of more than $ 2000.00 up to the age of 65. Were I to have had health insurance all those years, that figure would be probably in the $ 20,000 to 60,000 range.
Under Obama’s plan, I am a criminal if I have no insurance..
mck, in your time, there were less people, and they didnt have an epectation of living to 80+. blame your peers for much of the entitlement attitude towards health care today. I salute you but the world has changed.
Aziz,
Excuse me, but this still is MY time, even if I’m a criminal under Obama time.
no, because i have no problem with the idea that I am partly my brother’s keeper, nor do I feel it particularly onerous to help those less fortunate than myself.
But we’re talking about the government, not you. Unless you’re conflating support for particular government policies that support your preferred groups with personal charity. (A whole lot of people seem to do this.)
The government is not a “you”, or “I”, or even “we” – it is the government. Its power ultimately comes from its ability to compel people to do things under force of law, and to arrest or kill them if they don’t without penalty.
The more the government does, the more coercion there is in society, by the simple fact that the government needs to compel more resources in order to do what it does.
It makes no difference whether the government is democratic or not. It certainly ain’t no charity.
I’ve been dying to use this line all day…
They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary (health) security, deserve neither liberty nor (health) security.
Here is the bottom line.
There is no way private insurance will be able to compete with government insurance. Even if the system is set up initially with some sense of fairness, politics is inevitable, and the long term result will be the complete absorption of health care by the government.
Once that happens it will be inevitable that government will have to ration that care. Government will then be in the business of deciding who lives and who dies, who gets the hip replacement and who takes the aspirin.
And if you don’t realize that the inevitable conclusion of that will be that the politically connected will get health care while the politically disconnected will not, then you are living in a dream world.
Which is what this is all about.
Living in a dream world.
It starts as a dream. It ends as a nightmare. It is inevitable.
Aziz, what if I don’t want to participate in your plans?
Will you use force — including the proxy force of the State — to compel me?
Ok, I’m no fan of Obamacare but as a dyed-in-the-wool fiscal conservative I still believe we need some kind of reform. Making it illegal not to have health insurance, while requiring companies to sell it to us, is basically what Massachusettes has and it seems to be working pretty well.
Is this really a curbing of liberty? I guess a little, but we make compromises like that all the time. If I drive a car I need insurance, isn’t this pretty much the same? And, yes, some of you will say, “But it’s your choice to drive a car.” I will answer: In this day and age? Not really.
Seems like a good compromise for a system that is definitely broken. To be clear, though, this IS NOT the bill that is currently in Congress which I certainly DO NOT support.
Dave,
if you think 16k is going to cover a medical event you didn’t see coming, then you’re living proof that people are too insulated from health care costs. and, god forbid, you develop a chronic condition while not on health insurance, good luck GETTING the insurance once you realize you need it.
Kevin,
there already is no choice. you are already forced to pay for the uninsured, and if you are uninsured you are already forcing the rest of us to pay for the care you will likely eventually need.
Acksiom,
talk about an overblown red herring. the state is currently using force (either through threat of imprisonment or stiff fines) to compel you to do or not do all sorts of things, regardless of your desire for participation in american society. that in itself is not an argument.
CC,
health care is already rationed. see dave schuler’s many posts on health care’s low supply and high demand. not saying that government rationing is going to necessarily be better than health insurance company/hospital establishment rationing, but the rationing argument on its own seems a silly starting point. furthermore, even if you grant that socialized medicine is the “inevitable conclusion” of Obama’s plan, health care has been absorbed by the state in most other industrialized countries without the apocalpyse coming to pass. Lastly, there have been several posts around the blogosphere this month about health insurance industry monopolies. most markets in the country have zero to little competition. i’m not going to say that the public plan proposal is amazing, or anything. i think there are plenty of totally sane reasons to oppose it, but i think one has to acknowledge that first of all the status quo is not a free market solution, and second of all that the creation of a public plan increases rather than decreases competition. and if you feel the public plan, if it passes, gets too politicized, you have a say in changing it.
zack, how exactly do you get a say in changing it? “Healthy Mae” will become a politicized cauldron of Congressional intrigue, just like Fannie Mae and all the other big federal “companies”. It’ll be run by politically connected insiders and will have a fat lobbying budget.
As an individual, you’ll have about as much chance to change Iran’s health care system as you would of influencing Healthy Mae’s policies.
Sorry if I’m cynical, but I am, especially with a bunch of Chicago pols running things.
foobar,
then contribute to a larger political/lobbying group that shares your goals. nobody said you had to go it alone.
Yes, and. . . ?
So. . .what?
I mean, how and why exactly is it that being improperly compelled by the State to take or not take certain actions therefore means — somehow, magically! — that I am not entitled to protest against the State doing so even more?
Let alone not allowed to pare the discussion down to that ugly bare essential so that I may, figuratively speaking, scrub Aziz’s endorsement of it in his face?
Uh, no, kiddo. If anything, the fact that the State is already improperly compelling me through the threat of force in other ways serves to support my argument.
So apparently the only overblown red herring here is the one that’s attached to my body and gagging your ignorant pie-hole.
Acksiom,
mental image titillating but unnecessary. juvenile condescension unwarranted. nobody said you couldn’t say it. i only said i found the argument lacking. first of all, if all state action is tyrannical action to you, then i think there are probably bigger fish (taxation, police and penal system, standing army) in your frying pan than this particular statist proposal. second, your appeal to anarchy is not especially illuminating as to your opinion of the current health care situation in america, does not describe ways in which you find the current democrat proposal lacking, nor does it suggest alternative actions that might be taken to either address the current proposal’s shortcomings, or else design a wholly new proposal whose merits could be debated.
Basically, your $16,000 would be wiped out by one day in the hospital, and because you don’t have insurance, you will be paying full price.
Ha, no. Most one-day visits do not cost $16,000, and hospitals will negotiate rates for individuals that are less than insurance companies pay.
If you were to actually become seriously ill, then you would be un-insurable and would be forced into bankruptcy by your medical bills.
Not likely to happen. Anyways, most serious illnesses are not that expensive to treat, and my savings are considerable. But if that happens, so be it. No one said this life was guaranteed to be free of tragedy, and bankruptcy isn’t the end of the world. I’m willing to play the odds, which are overwhelmingly in my favor.
the entire concept of innsurance REQUIRES that the healthy subsidize the ill.
No it doesn’t, any more than car insurance requires that good drivers subsidize poor ones. Benefits should be matched to costs.
When you fail to do this, two things happen: one, costs spiral out of control and two, the people (like me) who are getting hosed start opting out.
If I drive a car I need insurance, isn’t this pretty much the same?
No, that insurance is designed to protect the people you injure, not you. This is necessary because a motor vehicle is a very dangerous tool.
Aziz,
That’s fantastic you feel that way. More people need to. However, there’s a world of difference between charity (what you’re talking about) and government compelled theft.
What you’re advocating the government to do, on the basis of helping the less fortunate, is in no way connected to charity. You’re saying my choosing to help the less fortunate of my own free will is the same as the government coming in and forcing me to “help.”
Charity is a choice. This health care plan, by your own admission, isn’t.
Don’t be fooled into thinking you’re doing the charitable thing here, Aziz, by advocating this theft of liberty.
Helping the less fortunate is your choice. The government has no right to say who is or is not less fortunate than you then compell you, against your will, to “help” those people as they deem best.
There is no charity in this. Only expansion of government into our lives at the cost of individual liberty.
It’s a cost I am not willing to pay and you have no right to say I must.
The GOP has no alternative proposal to be tabled.
The alternative is the current system which is not perfect, but provides the best care in the world, and is probably the best that is possible. The more you take the free market out of the equation, the worse you will make it.
These utopians dreams just don’t work out. Doctors will be assigned by lottery, there will be 6-month waits for specialist treatment, and innovation will grind to a halt. We KNOW these things will happen, because this is what health care is like in socialised countries.
You people who think we can “improve” the system by more government action do not understand economics and have not studied history.
no, because i have no problem with the idea that I am partly my brother’s keeper, nor do I feel it particularly onerous to help those less fortunate than myself.
Nor do you have a problem putting a gun to my head and demanding I do the same.
Dave:
Ha, no. Most one-day visits do not cost $16,000, and hospitals will negotiate rates for individuals that are less than insurance companies pay.
I can tell you that this is patently untrue, and spoken from somebody who obviously has never been in a hospital for very long. I had to go in one night for some tests… They did a CAT scan and a lumbar puncture. I was occupying a bed for 12 hours and was charged $24,000 dollars. That is RIDICULOUS. Luckily, I had insurance. They may negotiate a payment plan, but you will not pay less with no insurance. In fact, you will probably pay more.
No, that insurance is designed to protect the people you injure, not you. This is necessary because a motor vehicle is a very dangerous tool.
So? It is compelled by the state. I don’t see how this is different. In the past, health was pretty simple. It no longer is. There are treatments for any malady you may be unfortunate enough to have. This means that the FINANCIAL RISK of living has — in a strange way — increased. Obviously our society needs some way of coping with this new reality.
Nor do you have a problem putting a gun to my head and demanding I do the same.
Dave, this is a straw man argument and you should know that. The government puts a “gun” to Aziz’ head and “demanded” his tax dollars go towards a war he did not support. How is this any different?
Note that I don’t believe the government should have a big role in health care, but I do believe we need reform. The current system is going to spiral completely out of control and I want to see an honest debate about it.
dave,
have you been to a hospital recently? know anyone who has? i realize that a lot of anecdote is being tossed around as data here, but let me toss one more log on the fire and say that i have a friend whose dad (visiting from another country – and without travelers’ insurance) collapsed. they rushed him to the hospital, where he was given a battery of routine tests including a cat scan, sat in a bed for a few hours, and was basically told to “take it easy for a few days.” then he got a $10k bill. haggling aside, that is the upfront cost. Here is some hard data on the subject.
good drivers subsidize bad ones. i have never been in an accident. had one speeding ticket. my rates are decent, but i am still “getting hosed” in your formulation. i’ve been driving for about 15 years now, paying for my own insurance for 10, meaning I am out about $10k, give or take, as rates have fluctuated.
however, auto insurance is a poor analogy for this discussion, because you have a huge amount of control in how you drive a car. you have comparatively limited control wrt your health, as so much is decided by both genetics and chance.
Jesse,
You are wrong. I have had several procedures that cost considerably less than that, and hospitals will always negotiate lower rates. You have a bargaining power insurance companies don’t: you can declare bankruptcy and make them eat the whole thing.
So? It is compelled by the state. I don’t see how this is different.
You seriously don’t understand the difference between insuring against costs to yourself versus costs to others?
The government puts a “gun” to Aziz’ head and “demanded” his tax dollars go towards a war he did not support. How is this any different?
I also didn’t say “look how noble I am, paying for the Iraq War.” Donating your own money is noble, demanding other people’s money is not.
where he was given a battery of routine tests including a cat scan, sat in a bed for a few hours, and was basically told to “take it easy for a few days.” then he got a $10k bill. haggling
You’re just proving my point. Like the lumbar puncture, those are very expensive tests, done for no benefit. In my situation, there would be no tests unless I determined there was a high probabhility they would be cost-effective, and everyone comes out ahead.
Dave, I’m sorry but my own experience and the experience of others here AND hard data contradict you. I mean, you’re basically saying medical care is cheap in this country. It is not.
You seriously don’t understand the difference between insuring against costs to yourself versus costs to others? The state may have legitimate cause to prevent harm to others, but not to yourself.
Huh? The state makes me put on my seatbelt, it makes sure I understands the risks of the drugs I’m taking, on and on. This isnt a new road we’re going down. PLUS, you being uninsured DOES harm others. Because when your $16,000 vanishes like a fart in the wind because (God forbid) you’ve become seriously ill and require a great deal of medical treatment to get better, guess who will pay for it?
Me! The insured.
You’re just proving my point. Like the lumbar puncture, those are very expensive tests, done for no benefit.
Depends. Sometimes those expensive tests reveal something they otherwise would have missed. Are you saying they shouldn’t be done? Now who’s rationing?
C’mon.
Now, do the Dems have the right answer? Not from what I’m seen so far. But saying health care doesn’t need some reform is spitting in the face of reality.
Aaaaand you get to authoritatively decide that for the rest of the world because. . . ?
Sorry, no. You are not the boss of us.
Aaaaand, again, you get to authoritatively decide that for the rest of the world because. . . ?
Sorry, no. You are still not the boss of us.
Besides, you didn’t just ask for it; you practically got down on your knees, shoved a dental gag in your mouth, tied your arms behind your back, and gave me the big pleading anime eyes for it.
If you don’t like the taste, don’t add it to the soup. You lowered the tone, so you don’t get to object when it gets thrown right back to you, even if done harder, faster, and better.
This would be relevant if anybody besides you was saying that somebody did.
Unfortunately, since nobody is, it isn’t.
What I did do is ask you two questions. Since you seem to have missed them — perhaps because of all the misrepresentatory smoke you’ve been trying to blow so far — here they are again:
How and why exactly is it that being improperly compelled by the State to take or not take certain actions therefore means — somehow, magically! — that I am not entitled to protest against the State doing so even more?
Let alone not allowed to pare the discussion down to that ugly bare essential so that I may, figuratively speaking, scrub Aziz’s endorsement of it in his face?
No, actually, you didn’t. You called it an overblown red herring, and said it was not in itself an argument, but then failed to provide any kind of actual sensible argument to back up your mere, airy, hand-waving assertions.
Thus my questions to you asking for such, to wit:
How and why exactly is it that being improperly compelled by the State to take or not take certain actions therefore means — somehow, magically! — that I am not entitled to protest against the State doing so even more?
Let alone not allowed to pare the discussion down to that ugly bare essential so that I may, figuratively speaking, scrub Aziz’s endorsement of it in his face?
Aaaaaaaand if anybody besides you was saying it was, that would be relevant. Unfortunately, since nobody else is, it isn’t.
Perhaps all that smoke you’re trying to blow also made you miss my deliberate use of the qualifying term improperly in my question. Reading comprehension and accuracy, Zach — it’s not just for little schoolchildren anymore!
The rest of your tripe, being based upon further grotesque misrepresentation of my actual position, has been discarded, and replaced, yet again, with a reminder of the questions to which we are all still owed direct and sensible answers by you:
How and why exactly is it that being improperly compelled by the State to take or not take certain actions therefore means — somehow, magically! — that I am not entitled to protest against the State doing so even more?
Let alone not allowed to pare the discussion down to that ugly bare essential so that I may, figuratively speaking, scrub Aziz’s endorsement of it in his face?
Simple questions, Zachary.
Simple, easy questions.
So whatever on earth could possibly be preventing you from answering them?
Other than, y’know, OOH knowing the answers, but OTOH really not liking them, but OTGH lacking the basic integrity and honesty necessary to face up to and admit that.
Dave, I’m sorry but my own experience and the experience of others here AND hard data contradict you.
The plural of anecdote is not data.
In any case, your examples are irrelevant. Once you accept the premise I am paying the same as less healthy people, it is without question a better bet to pay my own way.
Huh? The state makes me put on my seatbelt,
A lot of us think the state already does too much of this kind of thing.
Regardless, there is a large, obvious difference between preventing you from harming others and preventing you from harming yourself. The state may frown on you deciding to cut off your own hand, but cutting off someone else’s is an entirely different matter.
Sometimes those expensive tests reveal something they otherwise would have missed. Are you saying they shouldn’t be done? Now who’s rationing?
Exactly, I am choosing to ration my own care, in exchange for retaining large sums of money. This is also known as “freedom.”
Jesse,
Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution grants the government the power to make war. It doesn’t need Aziz’s support.
I can’t seem to find in the Constitution where that same government has the power to create a health care system and destroy a private industry in the process.
There is no strawman here. One power is granted explicitly by the Constitution, the other was never dreamed of by the drafters or ratifying states.
Acksiom,
:)
Thank you for your tacit but inherently necessary concession that the State’s use of force to compel us to participate in this blatantly totalitarian collectivist idiocy is wrong. Your support is appreciated.
1. Insurance is not a gamble but a busniess deal, and NOT healthy people supporting unhealthy people; I am baffled why one would cast it that way unless the goal is to BS so that it looks like charity. You pay to your insurance company, they invest the money to make a profit for shareholders. The insurance company leverages your payments so that they are able to pay out what you need within contractural limits. If you are going to cost the insurance company so much that they cannot cover your expenses with thier profit, then they cannot provide you insurance and survive. If health care insurance becomes a government program, then it may become healthy people supporting unhealthy people. If insurance companies are REQUIRED to insure people who are so unhealthy that profits generated by insurance payments will not cover the costs, then we have another mortgage crisis with the same root cause for the insurance industry.
2. I did not have insurance when my 1st was born and it cost just under $2,000.
3. Health care costs are not under any kind of control, and there is no attempt to reduce costs in anything under consideration. If the government tries to control costs in the same way the insurance companies try to limit thier liabiltiies, it will not change anything that is currently thought to be a problem. If the government just raises everyones tax burden to cover all costs regardless, God help us all.
I carefully assessed the decsion to go to war and in the end did not think it was justified in Iraq. Howeverm, once we were in, I have never, not once, whined about “MY MONEY” because guess what? taxes are an obligation of the citizen to provide for teh functioning of the state, without which the state CANNOT provide services and guarantee rights and safety of those citizens. so i have absolutely ZERO problem that some $x of my pwn personal money earned went dircetly to subsidize that war. In a very real and diriect sense, I directly paid for fellow muslims to be killed, and i accept that (and I am marked for death by bin Laden for it, too, as are all American muslims who are labeled traitors to Islam because we are American citizens who do not renounce our citizenship. Frak him!)
now, argue if you want that the state shoudl only provide safety and guarantee rights, not services. I respect that view, but youre in the minority and the trend and majority of the nation wants it, so you ave a choice to suck it up or move. I hear Australia is nice.
still here? then welcome to The Tragedy of the Commons. You pay taxes, they may be used in ways you dont approve of. label it tyranny if you want, but thats just your brute ignorance of the rights-vs-responsibility sacred contract a democratic state makes with its citizens. There is no free lunch, and your freedom has a maintenance cost.
again if you are so oppressed then move out.
As much as I am in support of the unconstitutional arguments here, I’m afriad that ship sailed back when FDR created Social Security and other “New Deal” socialist programs. Which is very unfortunate for us and demonstrates that those who at the time predicted a slippery slope towards massive government intrusion and socialist control of our society have been vindicated yet again.
I want to go back to Aziz’s comment earlier in the thread because I think it is the perfect demonstration of how the Left thinks:
“…i have no problem with the idea that I am partly my brother’s keeper, nor do I feel it particularly onerous to help those less fortunate than myself.”
This is the essence of the smug self-righteous condescending assumed moral superiority of the Left.
To translate: “If you don’t agree with me, you are opposed to helping the elss fortunate.” Or to put it more bluntly, “If you don’t agree with me, you are evil.”
Which is what most Leftist arguments eventually boil down to, and which is why the Left typically accuses the right of being hard-hearted, selfish and any other mean-spirited euphamism they can come up with.
The fundamental foundation of Aziz’s statement is that since he has decided that his position is the morally superior one, then it is perfectly OK to COMPEL others to do the same.
I could use the same argument Aziz does to support exactly the opposite approach. Since I believe that the end result of the Obama (and most liberal) universal health care plan is going to be reduced quality, fewer doctors, higher taxes and rationed care going mostly to privileged politically connected people, it is MY ASSERTION that MY POSITION is SPECIFICALLY designed to HELP THOSE LESS FORTUNATE by ensuring that a superior approach to health care is not abandoned in the ideological pursuit of a demonstrably failed approach.
So Aziz, I completely disagree with your assertion, with your assumptions and with your smug willingness to force me to support YOUR conclusion of what is best.
Aziz,
You’re right. There is no free lunch. Problem is, I never asked the government to make me lunch.
Indeed, I feel pretty strongly that the government is a terrible cook, and doesn’t even belong in the kitchen.
In fact, last I looked the government was never actually hired as a cook.
You don’t get to chide me at whining about cost when I never wanted to buy the thing in the first place. You’re not my wife.
As for my “freedom has a cost,” tell me how that freedom is Constitutionally paid by universal health care. Typically that line is used by the right when talking about military expenditures. You know, something Constitution actually tells Washington to do.
Is the left now using it to talk about fucking health care?
Kevin:
See my comment above yours, Aziz has decided you have a MORAL IMPERATIVE to agree with him, and if you don’t, you are morally deficient.
This is the typical approach of Leftists when advancing their ideology.
To put it bluntly, in Aziz’s world (and others like him) it is OK to COMPEL you to do the things THEY think are right. And if you disagree, you are just a whining neanderthal.
Great discussion!!
To throw another angle at the issue:
According to Lazarou in JAMA (Journal of American Medical Association), a large meta-analysis, “proper” use of prescription drugs CAUSE about 106,000 deaths each year in hospitals.
Adding the true, but unfortunate, observations of Dr. Starfield of Johns-Hopkins (JAMA, 2000: 284:483- 485), who calculates the iatrogenic deaths each year in the USA as follows:
* 12,000 deaths/year from unnecessary surgery
* 7,000 deaths/year from medication errors
* 20,000 deaths/year from other errors in hospitals
* 80,000 deaths/year from infections acquired from hospital staff or patients
This is about 225,000 deaths/year in the US from doctors and hospitals. This is only outnumbered by cancer and heart disease.
Maybe, the folks who aren’t insured are better off!
–HBarnes
It’s perfectly wonderful, Aziz, if you want to spend your own money being your brother’s keeper. Fine. Go for it. If you donate your whole income, I will applaud your nobility and caring nature.
But your caring stops being noble when you want to seize and spend MY money. This is the false nobility of the leftist: “I care about the poor, and I am morally superior because I am forcing everyone else to help them.”
They may negotiate a payment plan, but you will not pay less with no insurance. In fact, you will probably pay more.
Absolutely untrue. I know several people without insurance (by choice) and they always get SUBSTANTIAL discounts when they negotiate. The hospital and doctors do not have to deal with the insurance bureaucracy, so it is a good deal for them to discount the services.
Also, the Republicans DO have alternatives on the table – it’s just that the MSM wouldn’t dare let this out.
http://is.gd/1JaQd
And a response to the “some want to do nothing” meme:
http://is.gd/1JaRM
Dave:
You have a flaw in your criticism of Aziz, and it is a flaw which essentially concedes the key point to the Leftist. You say:
This is the false nobility of the leftist: “I care about the poor, and I am morally superior because I am forcing everyone else to help them.”
The falseness of this statement is not just that they are morally superior, but that their “solution” ACTUALLY HELPS THE POOR.
I would hope that the failure of the Great Society had proven that Leftist wealth redistribution efforts simply do NOT WORK. Not only will Aziz force you to do something, but he will force you to do something that does not ACTUALLY HELP THE POOR.
Once health care is rationed, the poor will (as always) be the ones who find it hardest to get new hips, new hearts and new leases on life, while the politically connected will find it easiest.
This is the false nobility of the leftist: “I care about the poor, and I am morally superior because I am forcing everyone else to help them.”
Translation: I will give you the shirt of someone else’s back!
HB
Harry Reid has sensibly said this thing needs to slow down a bit — no vote until the Fall.
A good responsible move.
–HB
I know that anecdote does not equal data, but here goes anyway…
I have been working in the health care industry since 1980. That’s 29 years. I work for a very large medical device vendor so I get to see the operating practices of a lot of both public and private institutions and health care providers.
In every single one of those institutions and providers – from the big university medical centers down to the free-standing, private imaging centers – they are more than willing to negotiate their fees when a patient is paying out-of-pocket. (ie has no insurance) Indeed, most of them actually have a standing discount for no-insurance patients that is substantially lower than the published procedure price.
I have also seen the effects that various government policies have had on costs over those years. And in almost every case, the intervening policy has had the opposite effect of what was stipulated when the policy was put into effect.
Greenwell:
You say:
“I have also seen the effects that various government policies have had on costs over those years. And in almost every case, the intervening policy has had the opposite effect of what was stipulated when the policy was put into effect.”
This is in large part due to the fundamental difference between conservative and liberal approaches to problems. Paramount among those differences is the tendency for liberals to discount the Law of Unintended Consequences.
Things cost more than liberals think because they always leave out things they don’t want to confront, and because they refuse to acknowledge the effect of feedback mechanisms that come into play and change the environment as soon as the policy is implemented.
This is a LARGE reason that conservatives are suspicious of government solutions to things, we EXPECT them to have unintended consequences, and by and large they are virtually always NEGATIVE ones.
“still here? then welcome to The Tragedy of the Commons. You pay taxes, they may be used in ways you dont approve of. label it tyranny if you want, but thats just
your brute ignorance of the rights-vs-responsibility sacred contract a democratic state makes with its citizens.”
How do you come up with this stuff, aziz ?
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