Universal Healthcare is Wonderful and Will Ensure Better Health care for everyone

[Corganist]

Originally Posted by Debaser

Should emergency rooms be allowed to refuse to treat somebody without health insurance?

Of course not, but we don't require hospitals to offer a full range of treatment to those who can't pay for it. Do you not agree that there should be a limit as to how charitable the government can force private entities to be?

What if you make good money, self-employed, but have a pre-existing condition? How do you then earn the right to get health insurance? Suppose this pre-existing condition is not even your own fault -- suppose you were hit by a car when you were young and have a balky knee -- but you can't get insurance because of this pre-existing condition. Through no fault of your own, and in fact, through the fault of somebody else's negligence, you have a much higher bar to clear just to attain insurance. Does this seem right to you?

Of course not, but there's a reason that those people weren't being covered. If the government had a great solution (or any solution whatsoever) that would allow coverage for those with pre-existing conditions and at least try to mitigate those reasons (i.e., $$$$) in any way, shape, or form, then I think everyone would welcome it. But just telling the insurance companies, "You're covering them, deal with it." doesn't even begin to solve the problem. It just punts it down for someone else to deal with. And they will deal with it, it's just going to cost everyone.

In the rest of the modern world, going bankrupt from being sick is unheard of. But in this country, the richest country in the world, it's common. And not an insignificant amount of people who do go bankrupt from being sick did have health insurance. Does this seem right to you?

It is not common. I'm pretty sure I've said this before here, but the Harvard study that most people point to to show how "common" medical bankruptcies are was very inclusive as to what it termed "medical." For example, say you gamble away your life savings and run up your credit cards on an alcohol bender? That's a "medical bankruptcy" according to that study (and others of its ilk). The actual numbers of people who honest-to-goodness had overwhelming medical debt that they couldn't pay that was the main reason they filed were actually a lot lower than the scary headlines showed. In my own practice, out of a couple hundred bankruptcies I've worked on, I can probably count on one hand the number where medical debt was the main factor that drove it.

Now does it happen that people do occasionally end up over their head in medical debt to the point of bankruptcy? Absolutely. Should it happen? Absolutely not. But it's not some dire epidemic that required immediate and sweeping action.

[Debaser]

Originally Posted by Corganist

Of course not, but we don't require hospitals to offer a full range of treatment to those who can't pay for it. Do you not agree that there should be a limit as to how charitable the government can force private entities to be?

How do you set a limit? Say somebody comes in with a heart attack. or a gunshot. or a terrible car accident. After the hospital has saved that person's life, and before you can even think about limiting the rest of his treatment, I would bet the hospital has already spent the vast majority of the cost that will be incurred under "full range of treatment". Financially, it's already too late and adversely affecting everybody else with insurance.

Originally Posted by Corganist

"You're covering them, deal with it."

actually:

"You're covering them, now here's 35 million more paying customers, just like you wanted."

Make no mistake about it, this reform is a good deal for insurance companies -- they sought for the individual mandate.

Originally Posted by Corganist

But it's not some dire epidemic that required immediate and sweeping action.

I guess that's where we differ in opinion. Don't 45,000 people die a year from lack of insurance?

[Debaser]

Do critics from the right know that this reform is idealogically conservative? A liberal reform would have purposely killed private insurance companies and installed a public option. This reform bends over backwards to preserve the private structure of our health insurance system. The main mechanism of this reform, the individual mandate, was a republican idea from the 90's as a counter proposal to Hillary-Care.

[Gish08]

AT&T will take $1 billion charge for health care - U.S. business- msnbc.com

AT&T jumping on the bandwagon.

[dudehitscar]

Originally Posted by Debaser

Do critics from the right know that this reform is idealogically conservative? A liberal reform would have purposely killed private insurance companies and installed a public option. This reform bends over backwards to preserve the private structure of our health insurance system. The main mechanism of this reform, the individual mandate, was a republican idea from the 90's as a counter proposal to Hillary-Care.

no it's a progressive commie plot to destroy America.

[Corganist]

Originally Posted by Debaser

How do you set a limit? Say somebody comes in with a heart attack. or a gunshot. or a terrible car accident. After the hospital has saved that person's life, and before you can even think about limiting the rest of his treatment, I would bet the hospital has already spent the vast majority of the cost that will be incurred under "full range of treatment". Financially, it's already too late and adversely affecting everybody else with insurance.

Maybe, but I think we're just talking about the tip of the iceberg here. There is a lot of medical care that hospitals give that does not involve stabilizing someone in an emergency state. For example, someone isn't going to be able to go to the ER for cancer complications and end up getting months and months of radiation or chemotherapy out of the deal. Same goes for your car crash victim. Once they're stable enough to be released, there's no obligation to provide ongoing physical therapy or anything like that if there's no indication they'll pay for it. And I think that's about as fair as you could hope for. We definitely don't want people dying in hospital parking lots because they can't get through the ER doors, but hospitals can only afford so much charity past the act of lifesaving.

I think it would be fine if the bill forced insurance companies to cover people with pre-existing conditions at some minimum baseline level, like catastrophic care or something (similar to the hospitals' duty to stabilize a patient), but my understanding is that isn't what it is doing. You have a pre-existing condition, you're getting the works now, right? That doesn't seem right to me.

actually:

"You're covering them, now here's 35 million more paying customers, just like you wanted."

Make no mistake about it, this reform is a good deal for insurance companies -- they sought for the individual mandate.

I'm not shedding too many tears for them. They'll get what is theirs one way or the other. But I just don't think a larger pool really solves the problem. It just allows them to spread the hurt around a little thinner when they pass the customers the buck for having to cover people that are expensive to cover.

I guess that's where we differ in opinion. Don't 45,000 people die a year from lack of insurance?

Let's suppose that number is correct (and I have no reason offhand to doubt it). At least twice as many people die every year from medical errors. I would say that if we're going to pour money into health care, it would be a much better, cheaper, and more pressing move to invest in ways to promote better outcomes. I know the bill just passed has a little of that in it, but I just don't see why we're in such a hurry to strain a system that clearly isn't ready to be strained. Are we willing to drive up costs and strain resources in a system that's already allowing preventable deaths almost in the six figures every year just to say that people have insurance? People dying because they're uninsured is a problem, no doubt. But I've got a feeling that the way this bill attacks the problem is like doing brain surgery with a chainsaw.

[jczeroman]

Originally Posted by sppunk

No, it's not. I have never and will never have car insurance.

Wha?

[jczeroman]

Originally Posted by duovamp

Then that makes it a scam, not a business. It's like a casino, the house always wins. Who the fuck wants to live by that?

What in the world are you talking about? Insurance is a business model that is built on risk. If Risk=0 (i.e. with a pre-existing condition) then there is no longer risk associated with whatever that thing is to be covered. It completely defeats the purpose of insuring it.

[jczeroman]

Originally Posted by Debaser

Should emergency rooms be allowed to refuse to treat somebody without health insurance?

Of course they should. If someone comes to my door with their foot cut off and bleeding, do I have to take them into my house and get blood all over my BRAND NEW WHITE CARPET WHICH I JUST CLEANED LAST SATURDAY?!?!?!

[Corganist]

Originally Posted by Debaser

Do critics from the right know that this reform is idealogically conservative? A liberal reform would have purposely killed private insurance companies and installed a public option. This reform bends over backwards to preserve the private structure of our health insurance system. The main mechanism of this reform, the individual mandate, was a republican idea from the 90's as a counter proposal to Hillary-Care.

I do hope a lot of Republicans hear this exact same argument and finally realize that this is what happens when you try to defeat Democrat proposals with Democrat-lite proposals. Bad shit happens, and guess what? It was your idea!

[duovamp]

Originally Posted by jczeroman

What in the world are you talking about? Insurance is a business model that is built on risk. If Risk=0 (i.e. with a pre-existing condition) then there is no longer risk associated with whatever that thing is to be covered. It completely defeats the purpose of insuring it.

A business model built on risk? That is every business model. The problem is that the risk involved is like that of a casino, rather than a lemonade stand. You insist on making health insurance a business, rather than realizing that is precisely the problem with it.

[duovamp]

Originally Posted by jczeroman

Of course they should. If someone comes to my door with their foot cut off and bleeding, do I have to take them into my house and get blood all over my BRAND NEW WHITE CARPET WHICH I JUST CLEANED LAST SATURDAY?!?!?!

What a tremendous waste of capital. You must be a horrible businessman. You could've had a healthy life slave in return for a few bucks to get your carpet washed/replaced. Gotta spend money to make money.

[sppunk]

Originally Posted by jczeroman

Wha?

You know I don't drive, Colin!

But yea Debaser - that is the funniest part of this. BOTH parties should be against this reform; for Democrats it keeps and gives more control to private companies while for the GOP it mandates those companies take on risk they cannot cover.

It is bizarro world.

[duovamp]

I submit that it is in fact the most epic tarp ever set. Either the democrats tarped the republicans to voting against their own stuff, or the republicans tarped the democrats into voting for republican stuff. I don't know which it is, but I guarantee the Catholic Church, CIA, and Illuminati are all behind it.

[Debaser]

Originally Posted by jczeroman

Of course they should. If someone comes to my door with their foot cut off and bleeding, do I have to take them into my house and get blood all over my BRAND NEW WHITE CARPET WHICH I JUST CLEANED LAST SATURDAY?!?!?!

and that's why i'm not a libertarian. people dying in the streets and white (why?!) carpets.

[jczeroman]

Originally Posted by duovamp

A business model built on risk? That is every business model. The problem is that the risk involved is like that of a casino, rather than a lemonade stand. You insist on making health insurance a business, rather than realizing that is precisely the problem with it.

There is the difference between:

a) a business that takes risks in general

and

b) a business which values, purchases and minimises risk as a product

Originally Posted by duovamp

What a tremendous waste of capital. You must be a horrible businessman. You could've had a healthy life slave in return for a few bucks to get your carpet washed/replaced. Gotta spend money to make money.

Actually, that is true. I should have a contract at my door for such an occasion for a life-slave. I bet I could actually get a few of them...

[Order 66]

I just want my country back

[jczeroman]

Originally Posted by Debaser

and that's why i'm not a libertarian. people dying in the streets and white (why?!) carpets.

That's kind of a false dichotomy don't you think? There is a LOT of ground between "making all emergency rooms cover everyone by force" and "emergency rooms aren't required to cover and therefore NO ONE will ever get covered."

[Debaser]

I have no other conclusion to reach if an emergency room refuses to treat a dying man if he has no insurance.

[JokeyLoki]

One of my aunts died yesterday, after being admitted to the hospital with an infection that ended up spreading to her blood, shutting down her liver and kidneys. She had no insurance, and got the same treatment anyone else would have gotten. Unfortunately, she decided to go to the hospital too late.

Just throwin' that out there.

[redbreegull]

Originally Posted by JokeyLoki

One of my aunts died yesterday, after being admitted to the hospital with an infection that ended up spreading to her blood, shutting down her liver and kidneys. She had no insurance, and got the same treatment anyone else would have gotten. Unfortunately, she decided to go to the hospital too late.

Just throwin' that out there.

So had she lived, how would she have paid for her hospital bill?

[jczeroman]

Originally Posted by Debaser

I have no other conclusion to reach if an emergency room refuses to treat a dying man if he has no insurance.

You are confusing the terms. Being allowed to refuse is different then refusing. Grocery stores are not required to give people water and food, this doesn't mean the poor masses are dying in American streets of hunger.

[ryan patrick]

Originally Posted by jczeroman

Grocery stores are not required to give people water and food, this doesn't mean the poor masses are dying in American streets of hunger.

food stamps

[Order 66]

Originally Posted by Debaser

Do critics from the right know that this reform is idealogically conservative? ..... The main mechanism of this reform, the individual mandate, was a republican idea from the 90's as a counter proposal to Hillary-Care.

thats what i find most mindblowing about all this. i mean seriously....

health care law’s individual mandate is “what you call totalitarianism,” Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) said.

....

back in the 1990's, during the Clinton administration's reform efforts, Hatch supported a bill that contained a similar mandate.

To that, Hatch responded, "Well, in 1993, we were trying to kill Hillarycare, and I didn't pay any attention to that because that was part of a bill that I just hadn't centered on."

facepalm facepalm facepalm. i know politics is a cynical game but jesus fucking christ.

[jczeroman]

Originally Posted by ryan patrick

food stamps

That's not my point. My point is that there are lots of options between the masses starving and government mandated total-entitlement-for-all.

[dudehitscar]

Originally Posted by Order 66

thats what i find most mindblowing about all this. i mean seriously....



facepalm facepalm facepalm. i know politics is a cynical game but jesus fucking christ.

mindblowing is right. Fucking hell politicians are incredible.

[ryan patrick]

Originally Posted by jczeroman

That's not my point. My point is that there are lots of options between the masses starving and government mandated total-entitlement-for-all.

and my point is that the government intervenes in the hunger issue to prevent hunger, and the health care issue to prevent denial of emergency health service. the health care bill will actually lessen the burden on ERs encountering uninsured individuals, so you should be super happy they will less often be faced with this great libertarian moral dilemma.

actually I'm pretty sure your model is still that poor people should just die though.

[Eulogy]

Originally Posted by ryan patrick

and my point is that the government intervenes in the hunger issue to prevent hunger, and the health care issue to prevent denial of emergency health service. the health care bill will actually lessen the burden on ERs encountering uninsured individuals, so you should be super happy they will less often be faced with this great libertarian moral dilemma.

actually I'm pretty sure your model is still that poor people should just die though.

survival of the fittest, broseph

[Order 66]

the american people don't want this monstrosity jammed down their throats

[Future Boy]

Originally Posted by dudehitscar

mindblowing is right. Fucking hell politicians are incredible.

yes, the politicians are incredible.