I don't think the problem is we're buying to many statues... it think it's more like we've got super expensive healthcare in this country. Healthcare mind you- that doesn't amount to longer or happier lives here in America as compared to industrialized nations like Japan, England, France, Canada, etc.
Ponderable
- Thread starter Bruddah IZ
- Start date
I don't think the problem is we're buying to many statues... it think it's more like we've got super expensive healthcare in this country. Healthcare mind you- that doesn't amount to longer or happier lives here in America as compared to industrialized nations like Japan, England, France, Canada, etc.
Bruddah IZ
DA
That's illegal.
It pays for whatever the state and my auto-lender said I had to have.
What it does not pay for is acts of got like hurricanes.
So you're point is just like we do with cars that get swept away in a storm, we just accept some people cost too much and we let them get swept away. Is that your point?
Bruddah IZ
DA
Not very tenacious. Right from the start actually.
If we take the auto insurance parallel, "dying in the street" would equate with a head on collision, and thus would qualify for coverage.
A trip to the doctor for a seasonal cough or flu, depending on severity, would not.
Bruddah IZ
DA
An oil change is not the same as a fatal head on collision. All other forms of insurance pay for catastrophe not maintenance.
Exactly, and if you decide to get full coverage, you pay more.
Even full coverage doesnt pay for oil changes, brakes and tires.
If it did, what do you think would happen to your premiums?
Bruddah IZ
DA
IV. Health Insurance
I and others have written a lot about how to fix health insurance, so I won’t repeat that all here.25 To summarize briefly, health insurance should be individual, portable, life-long, guaranteed-renewable, transferrable, competitive, and lightly regulated, mostly to ensure that companies keep their contractual promises. “Guaranteed renewable” means that your premiums do not increase and you can’t be dropped if you get sick. “Transferable” gives you the right to change insurance companies, increasing competition.
Insurance should be insurance, not a negotiator and payment plan for routine expenses. It should protect overall wealth from large shocks, leaving as many marginal decisions unaltered as possible. “Access” should mean a checkbook and a willing supplier, not a Federally-regulated payment plan. Such insurance would, of course, be a lot cheaper. And insurance can be all these things, in a free or lightly- regulated market.
I and others have written a lot about how to fix health insurance, so I won’t repeat that all here.25 To summarize briefly, health insurance should be individual, portable, life-long, guaranteed-renewable, transferrable, competitive, and lightly regulated, mostly to ensure that companies keep their contractual promises. “Guaranteed renewable” means that your premiums do not increase and you can’t be dropped if you get sick. “Transferable” gives you the right to change insurance companies, increasing competition.
Insurance should be insurance, not a negotiator and payment plan for routine expenses. It should protect overall wealth from large shocks, leaving as many marginal decisions unaltered as possible. “Access” should mean a checkbook and a willing supplier, not a Federally-regulated payment plan. Such insurance would, of course, be a lot cheaper. And insurance can be all these things, in a free or lightly- regulated market.
Bruddah IZ
DA
Why do we not have a system? First, because law and regulation prevent it from emerging. Before the ACA, the tax deduction and regulatory pressure for employer-based group plans was the elephant in the room. This distortion killed the long-term individual insurance market, and thus directly caused the pre- existing conditions mess. Anyone who might get a job in the future will not buy long-term individual insurance. Mandated coverage, tax deductibility of regular expenses if cloaked as “insurance,” prohibition of full rating, barriers to insurance across state lines – why buy long-term insurance if you might move and are forbidden to take it with you? – and a string of other regulations did the rest. Now, the ACA is the whale in the room: The kind of private health insurance I described is simply and explicitly illegal.
Some folks ignore the obvious and see what they want to see....
Okay... but to put this here in the real world... let's just imagine your neighbors daughter develops cancer it's going to be really expensive to cure. In fact, more money then you know they could ever afford to pay. Under your belief system she should be left to die.
Yuck-
You dont get it.
Incredibly surprising to me.
Bruddah IZ
DA
Budget Politics
"Back in my teaching days, many years ago, one of the things I liked to ask the class to consider was this, imagine a government agency with only two task. One, building statues of Benedict Arnold and two providing life saving medications to children. If this agency's budget were cut what would it do? The answer of course is that it would cut back on the medications for children. Why? Because that is what is most likely to get the budget restored. If they cut back on building statues of Benedict Arnold, people might ask why they were building statues of Benedict Arnold in the first place.-- Thomas Sowell. Who else?
Bruddah IZ
DA
Tenacity has it's limitations.
That would be covered under catastrophic insurance...
Thank you.
I was a little embarrassed for him.
Bruddah IZ
DA
My Dad was that neighbor. My sister had insurance despite our family history.
Bruddah IZ
DA
Don't be. His tenacity will regenerate. ACA will take care of it.
All I'm trying to figure out, is with regard to your POV, if someone gets sick and they can't afford the cure, what are you saying happens to them?
Bruddah IZ
DA
That depends on the cure.
Bruddah IZ
DA
The second reason we do not have a system is that functional “insurance” requires a functioning underlying market, which law and regulation have also prevented from emerging. We can’t reasonably write contracts about who pays the bill when the bill itself is so meaningless.
If there were functional cash markets, health savings accounts could also substitute for much of the necessarily cumbersome functions of insurance. Health borrowing accounts, i.e. HSAs with a preapproved line of credit, which you can tap for unexpected expenses but are not insurance in the sense of transferring overall wealth, would help even more. But without functional (competitive) cash markets, HSAs are not that helpful either.
If there were functional cash markets, health savings accounts could also substitute for much of the necessarily cumbersome functions of insurance. Health borrowing accounts, i.e. HSAs with a preapproved line of credit, which you can tap for unexpected expenses but are not insurance in the sense of transferring overall wealth, would help even more. But without functional (competitive) cash markets, HSAs are not that helpful either.