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Thats crap. I remember trying to get Blue Cross Blue Shield when I was 19 years old. My bill was over 200 bucks a month and the only thing I had on my health record was some depression medications that I took when I was 12 or something. Try paying that when you are in college and don't have mom and dad helping you out.
$200 a month huh?
Trying envisioning Blue Cross' cash outlay if you ended up in the hospital....for that $200 a month. One hospital stay for ANY reason, and you'd likely NEVER pay off their bill with your monthly payment.
It is what it is. Everyone is a risk, even a college student with a spotless health record.
There is a saying "Common sense isn't so common", and I agree. Having spent decades in health care, a lot of it as a public health nurse, I have heard just about every nutty practice you can think of justified as common sense. So no, I don't think that "common sense" says that one will use health care more if we have a UHC, which is NOT free in any event.
I applaud you for providing care to many people.
I too am in healthcare and see that human nature is to "buy" things more if you are not paying. While I learned in high school economics that "there is no such thing as a free lunch" it feels free if you do not have to pay for it when you receive it. Just consider the once rampant use of credit cards.
Again, in healthcare finance and operations, I traveled the country and saw a variety of healthcare finance options from a percentage of charges (providers loved that) to prepaid healthcare (scary for everyone involed except the insurance company). People do consume more healthcare when they do not have to pay for it directly.
On the contrary, and a personal experience, I switched from a typical healthcare plan to a high deductible ($5k) plan. I am much more of a cautious consumer when the money is coming straight from my pocket than when I meet my deductible.
Any UHC plan would have to come with heavy restrictions and regulations to be financially sustainable long term. That is not politics that is the economics of human nature. The politics is how you spin the econiomic truth of who pays and what strings are attached.
Who is Responsible for Paying Your Personal Medical Bills?
Quote:
Texas Governor Rick Perry says he won't expand Medicaid eligibility under the health reform law because he wants to spare taxpayers billions of dollars.
But many Texas taxpayers are already shouldering the burden of the state's uninsured through higher property taxes and heftier health insurance premiums.
Because government is the instrument a society uses to solve macro-level problems.
A person not being able to pay their medical bills is not a macro level problem.
An individual having the right to pursue health care is a macro level issue. An individual determining how to pay for that health care is a micro-level problem.
If you mind some of your taxes going to help these people who were shot or others in similar conditions and all you have to say is "tough luck" to them then you just suck.
Think about this, even if they did have insurance they may now have a life long condition after this and all insurance companies will refuse to insure them or will demand a crazy priced premium.
The way the system works now, people who have a horrible event happen like this or who come down with a debilitating disease and cannot afford the expensive treatment will have to file for bankruptcy.
Medical bills are the number one reason for bankruptcy in this country. A universal system IMO would be much better, but as it stands now, bankruptcy is what most of these victims will have to go through if enough donations are raised to cover their care.
I hate to think of regular people who get shot and survive in a similar fashion, yet don't get media coverage like this event. They don't get donations and are lucky to get hospital charity or qualify for medicaid if they become destitute due to their injuries.
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