People choose what they eat and what they smoke. The middle-aged woman with ovarian cancer did not choose that disease; the child who develops MS did not decide to become ill; the teenager who cannot go to sleep at night because of severe pain didn't plan on having an appendectomy that evening; the baby born with HIV had no say in the matter. However, these people will be given care because doctors in first-world societies do not withhold care because a patient cannot pay for it. It would be immoral to do so, but it must be paid for somehow. That is what makes healthcare unique.
Absolutely. But you're assuming the best and only remedy to situations like you describe is to essentially hold a gun to everyone's head and demand money to pay for it. Sure, it sort of works but I disagree this is the only effective way to deal with health emergencies such as what you describe. Imagine someone is against being forced to pay for someone else's healthcare when they can't even pay for their own. Are we going to put them in jail for that? Moreover, what precedent are we setting? What is the government going to mandate that we pay for next?
I don't want to sound cold-hearted, but what did we do in the past prior to the ACA when it came to pre-existing conditions, specifically terminal illness types? If you previously had HIV or cancer, were doctors giving you procedures / treatments costing potentially in the hundreds of thousands because it was immoral to turn down a dying patient? And I "golden rule" only extended to public hospitals, correct? You couldn't walk into a private medical facility and start demanding cancer treatment even if those doctors are part of the AMA. These people just slowly died without costing other tax-payers / insureds money, right? Isn't this the main culprit of healthcare costs rising from Obamacare? It sounds like the main reason why we can't come up with a plan that keeps everyone happy is because politicians and constituents are afraid to have the hard conversation of when is it okay to let someone die. Or alternatively phrased, deny life-saving/prolonging treatment at the expense of public subsidies. Obamacare started the conversation, but where do we draw the line? Someone has to pick up the chalk.
I think in the old days, if you had cancer, heart disease and cannot afford the medication or treatments, you just hope you do not die and when things happen, you get taken to emergency rooms for things like heart attack, stroke, or what ever emergencies cancers might cause. I am sure that was great for people who could not afford insurances and had those conditions.
Is that not what insurance is? "Holding a gun to someone's head" in the event of future necessity? I've never had a car accident, but I'm forced to have car insurance in the event that I do one day. The money I pay into that pool now helps people who need auto coverage today and the money the pay in tomorrow helps me, potentially, in the future. I hesitate to use this analogy because my initial post in response to you using it was to challenge it. But, that's exactly my point: healthcare is fundamentally different than other types of insurance because every human being gets sick. It cannot be controlled and when the people who disagree with paying for insurance today need treatment tomorrow, we do not turn them away or scan their bank account before giving them medicine. Basically, unless a person can guarantee they will never become ill, or sign a contract that they'll wander off into the woods instead of seeing a doctor when they do become sick, they should not have the option to decline health insurance. I'm a dirty statist that way, I guess . When the lack of an insurance mandate creates a drain on the national economy to the extent that healthcare has, this becomes less of a theoretical argument about the limitations of freedom and more of a "Holy cow, this is going to ruin us and we should treat it with some order of magnitude" problem. We cannot keep apply elastic economic ideals to an inelastic market.
Well fat sick people die off early so they are cheaper in the long run. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/05/health/05iht-obese.1.9748884.html
Once they change the name to Trumpcare it will be wonderful and a whole bunch of converts will extol it's awesomeness. No need to change anything else about it. Just the name.
Prior to ACA, here in Texas you either went without insurance, or your purchased insurance through the Texas High Risk Pool. I was between jobs and COBRA lapsed, so I had to buy insurance for my entire family.but my older daughter was born with a heart defect (Transposition of the Great Vessels; corrected at birth), but still considered a pre-existing condition. All insurance companies rejected her, and some rejected my entire family because of her, so I bought insurance for myself, my wife, and younger daughter through e-Insurance and purchased insurance for my older daughter through the High Risk Pool. For just minimal health coverage (not dental, not vision) for my older daughter, I paid $500/month.
Yeah. They would rather pay say $1,000 per month for their FAMILY health care to private insurance companies plus of course all the copays, deductibles than say $600 per month in taxes for as good or better care withsingle payer. Propaganda and marketing are powerful antidotes to real news and rational facts. lol Many even think they are even saving money somehow.
Yes and no. Old age is certainly expensive which is why I brought up an aging population as the longer you live the more likely you will develop age related diseases. However, when we have as many 30 and 40 years old as we do in this country already on blood pressure, blood sugar, and cholesterol medication, that will be more expensive than if these folks merely developed these issue later on in life due to old age. US life expectancy has been stagnate essentially. By far the largest single cost comes from end of life care, which is perhaps where you are seeing old age being more costly than someone who will die by their 50s.
The point about car insurance is the risk pool. ACA failed the way it did because not enough healthy people were mandated to subsidize the unhealthy. Insurance is pricey when the costs aren't spread around.
Not at all. You aren't immortal and will require healthcare at some point, guaranteed. Apparently conservatives don't mind being moochers when it's them, which is purely human nature. Do you oppose Medicare for seniors?
No, that's a different argument. I would argue for a fat tax, vice tax, and sugar tax so we don't subsidize unhealthy behavior. Like I said, regardless of life choices, everyone will at some point require healthcare.
Granted. It should be MY CHOICE as to when I require that healthcare, not yours or anyone else's. Nobody knows mooching better than liberals. Do you send in more than you are required to in taxes to support Medicare?
Everyone requires food, too. Should the government provide that for everyone? I don't think this is a valid argument.
Oh.... can you predict when you'll have a major healthcare need? Can you predict when and how you'll die? That's pretty impressive you'll have the foresight to buy insurance before you'll need it. Yet here you are being cheap and will become a moocher yourself. Answer the question, don't deflect with a tired old conservative argument. Why would I pay more than my fair share? I am sitting here advocating everyone needs to have skin in the game for something that everyone at some point will absolutely need to have.
First, the ACA is NOT a single payer system, so your data doesn't relate to your question. Second, because our government sucks at providing things like this (look at the care veterans receive). Also, because there are going to be things that don't make economic sense to do, like caring for babies with terminal diseases, where those would cost millions of dollars, which is better spent providing care elsewhere where it would have more positive results and on many more people, and finally because the ACA did NOTHING to address the fundamental problem of health care here, which is excessive cost. In fact, it made that worse. As to your intro...don't most people like things they don't have to pay for? This is the epitome of the entire problem with liberal philosophy...lots of things are great and wonderful, UNTIL you have to figure out how to pay for them. I would LOVE to drive a Ferrari. But I would hate, for now anyway, to make the payments on one. That doesn't mean a Ferrari isn't awesome...it means it makes no economic sense, and isn't worth it IF you actually have to pay for it.
Food stamps? Government subsidies to agricultural to ensure we don't have famine? When was the last time famine struck America and putting food on the table was diffucult? The Dust Bowl. Funny how issues that have plagued mankind for their entire existence went away with technology and government.
Healthcare for veterans is expensive and we have underfunded it. We are great at waging war but we suck at planning for the peace. But hey.... Trump says he's got a plan bigger and cheaper than ACA.....
