Wow, I was going to rep you but it wouldn't let me until I spread the wealth around a bit more. Thanks for the info.
A person's health risk is assessed and a rate is agreed upon mutually by provider and customer. No mandate necessary, it's immoral in fact, force is wrong. Not sure how you can argue that insurance can't exist without forcing people to buy it. Lots of us had great insurance plans before the mandate was passed. A voluntary risk pool is not socialism. The provider offers a standard rate to an employer and is willing to charge a lower rate in return for premiums from thousands of employees. That's just one model, the individual may be able to find a preferable plan outside of their employer. Especially if they have better health than the average employee and can bargain for a lower premium. Even within employer plans, the individual employee can secure a lower premium based on their health risk. It's not necessarily a uniform rate for all employees. A good argument to stop forcing people to pay for the cost of the uninsured.
Do you think it is fair for people to go bankrupt in an attempt to pay medical expenses? If you had a loved one that had to pay $900+/month to be in a high risk pool but couldn't afford to do so... do you think that is fair?
It's immoral to force future sick people to get health insurance. It's moral to allow them to decline health insurance and then deny them health care they can't pay for when they're sick. That's brilliant.
Hello McFly, we only know that is was sold off well before any votes were taken (behind closed doors and under the influence of lobbyists, no less). Guessing who would or would not have voted for it is conjecture, a fart in the wind. We don't know how much pressure might have been applied and what the outcome would have been.
It is fair. Health care isn't a right. It's a luxury. It's not clean air, water, or whatever. People can live without it. The reason I support it because it's in the best interests of everyone. It makes us all safer, it makes our economy stronger, and it will net lower each of our costs. It's financially puts each of us better off - that's the best reason.
I disagree. It is immoral to allow these companies to deny people with preexisting conditions. That is the single biggest provision in the HCR bill and one that I support. Unfortunately, that provision isn't possible unless you also have a mandate, that is if you want to avoid freeloaders who game the system by only buying insurance when they get sick, then dropping it after they receive care. Since conservatives are the ones against freeloaders on welfare, SS disability, and other forms of "socialism," I would think that this solution would make the most sense and draw conservative support (and did when conservatives proposed it). I guess when the guy that proposes it has a (D) after their name on C-SPAN, it doesn't matter how conservative the policy is or how much it makes sense.
By this logic, you must think it is wrong to force hospitals to provide emergency care to people when they can't pay, right? And those same people will still have the same insurance. Banning the current industry practice of denying coverage to those with preexisting conditions is the part that requires a mandate. Otherwise, you will have people gaming the system as described above. This is exactly the same thing the government is setting up. The people who would not otherwise buy insurance are put into the pool with people who have preexisting conditions, which makes the rates affordable to all and keeps freeloaders from gaming the system. It is at every job I have ever had. I have never had the opportunity to negotiate for a rate different from other employees. A better argument for making sure everyone is insured, this way the costs are not borne by the taxpayer and nobody is gaming the system or going broke because they got sick.
behind closed doors, laughable, you know exactly who Obama met with unlike the previous administration. you'r all speculation. we know senators came out immediately against the public option. that's the facts
Yes, it's immoral to force someone to do just about anything. Depends what you mean by deny. It would be immoral to forcibly deny them from getting care, but it would also be wrong to force the burden of care onto others unwillingly. Charity is only moral when it's voluntary. Otherwise it's just theft.
That's interesting, because earlier up in the page, you were shooting your mouth off about how you had a great insuance plan, in which healthy participants with low expenditures are forced to subsidize the cost of unhealthy participants with high expenditures - why don't you explain the difference between the two.
Assuming we agree that is "unfair" for people to go bankrupt paying medical expenses, who should be held responsible for that? The financial institution that steps in and pays the medical expenses that you can't afford, or the medical institutions that are supposed to care about your health and yet continue to jack up their fees to the heavens?
Yes, although I think such hospitals would still exist. If rates cannot be set based on the health risk of the customer, then either rates will go up or coverage will be curtailed, for everyone in the pool. That's certainly not the same insurance one had before. No, the mandate means the risk pool is no longer voluntary. Rates will go up for all if people with greater health risks cannot be charged higher premiums. The costs are always borne by some taxpayer, in this case in the form of higher premiums.
So you're in the Mary Mallon, anti-vaccine, anti-fluoridated drinking water camp? The act of entering into a society is a fundamental agreement to allow yourself to be forced to obey rules that you may or may not agree with. If you think that is immoral, you should probably move to Hashima Island or some other remote, uninhabited locale. Even the smallest, loosest society qualifies as inherently wildly immoral under your terms.
Why are you choosing to pay for others health care? That is completely irrational. Are you stupid or do you just like to give money away to others? I get it, I'm sure this argument gets you out of many legal obligations in your daily life.
