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First of all, there's no such thing as "health insurance."
Secondly, if there was such an animal as "health insurance" it would be akin to home-owner's insurance.
Something happens to your home, it's covered. But, there are riders for special circumstances. People who live in a flood zone have to pay extra for flood insurance, as do those who live in hurricane zones, earthquake zones, tornado zones, volcano zones or whatever. And if you want to use you home for special purposes, you need to get extra coverage for that.
If you live in a flood zone, and you don't have flood insurance, and you're home gets flooded, you're home-owner's insurance won't cover it, and shouldn't cover it.
Real health insurance would work the same way. Everyone would get basic coverage and then for the extras, you'll have to pay extra.
For argument's sake, I'll agree that there is no such thing as health insurance if one thinks as you do. But to make a blanket statement - "there's no such thing as health insurance" - is akin to saying there's no God. It's all in how you look at it.
I suspect that the vast majority of people in this country (other than those way out on the fringes) would agree with the Wikipedia entry for health insurance:
Quote:
Health insurance is insurance against the risk of incurring medical expenses among individuals. By estimating the overall risk of health care expenses among a targeted group, an insurer can develop a routine finance structure, such as a monthly premium or payroll tax, to ensure that money is available to pay for the health care benefits specified in the insurance agreement. The benefit is administered by a central organization such as a government agency, private business, or not-for-profit entity.
In my case, I can choose between an HMO and a fee-for-service plan, and within those two broad categories, I can choose from among plans that feature high or low (well, comparatively low) premiums, deductibles, co-pays, etc. Specific coverages vary from one plan to the next, and during a person's lifetime, as their health needs change - with age, with the addition of a spouse and dependents, etc. - a person can change to a plan that best suits their needs at that time.
As a federal employee and now as a federal retiree, I have been able to choose from a variety of health insurance plans each year, changing from one plan to another as circumstances warranted. And if that sounds familiar, it should - it has been a highly successful form of the health insurance exchanges that are part of the Affordable Care Act.
As all people will eventually need some form of health care sometime during their lives I believe a Universal Health Care System from family services to then highest level of pharmaceutical research and teaching hospitals should be owned and operated by the government and paid for with an escape proof progressive income tax. By eliminating corporate executive salaries and profit the entire system would become affordable while providing better care to more people.
The biggest problem with our current system is it is being milked by Big Pharma, Big Insurance and Big Research-Teaching Universities for huge executive salaries and excessive profits.
Whether health insurance plans meets the dictionary definition of "insurance" is irrelevant. Why would this matter at all? Regardless of the answer there needs to be a system of spreading risk to pay for high-expense, low-occurrence medical care, and everyone needs to be covered (because lifesaving treatment cannot be denied) and therefore everyone must be included in paying for the risk.
And taxation is not considered theft by the Bible ("Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s") nor the US Constitution ("The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States,")
. . . so the argument that taxes are theft does not hold water from either a Biblical or a Constitutional stance.
I saw a top secret report showing that the US pays more per person than any other country. That "30 to 60k to each taxpayer" is way higher than what countries with single payer pay. But it IS politically impossible to enact.
what others pay is based "per capita"...ie per person
I was talking per TAXPAYER....as per my household..2 adults and 3 children, a family of 5..but one taxpaying household
the fact is that singlepayer will NOT lower the prices doctors charge to keep their doors open
RIGHT NOW we are paying (taxes) 900 billion to cover 70 million people through medicrae/medicaid...and that is only PARTIAL coverage....our population is 320 million.......
I had to take my troops an hour to get to Landstuhl Army Medical Center and then they had to wait hours while all of the dependents got treated. Yes, military personnel are supposed to get priority over dependents, but the hospital administrators didn't see it that way.
Then came something wonderful.
Want to know what it was?
It was a $10 co-pay assessed to dependents.
Lo and Behold! We could go to Landstuhl and get seen straight away by a doctor because that little $10 co-pay cleared out the waiting room of all the abusers of the system.
I'm sure this will be quite controversial, so all the more fun to strike up a conversation about it. I don't have a 100% answer, but I have some thoughts.
The question:
Should a pre-existing condition be covered as part of regular health insurance plans?
1. Having every necessity provided for you "food, shelter, healthcare, etc..", yet at the cost of your freedom.
2. The risk and responsibility of seeking such for yourself, but the freedom to choose as you wish.
That is a false dichotomy and you know it. Society can provide healthcare for people (and food and shelter for those in need) and yet give them their freedom. Places like Norway, Sweden, and Canada do, and they are rated as freer countries than the United States.
I got sick reading through this thread and gave up after several pages. Yes there should be coverage for pre-existing health insurance.
As an older person who's had to live without health insurance since I lost my job, I tried to find something affordable while on unemployment and those policies were non-existant. At my age (60 soon to be 61) everything is pre-existing.
I worked in the medical industry from '72-'91 and I watched the face of health insurance change, even back then the writing was on the wall. It was going to divide the haves and the have nots. It made me a believer in a universal health care system - not free - but a part of our taxes, as a previous poster stated I do like the German and several other models.
I now have a job after 3 1/2 years of unemployment, no guarenteed hours and of course no benefits. I work at a hospital yet I still can't get any health insurance because I don't work enough hours yet.
For those who think the insurance companies would willingly insure someone like me think again - they would make it so cost prohibitive that it would be impossible. The insurance companies per mandate as a corporation are supposed to make a profit and those profits are on the backs of the insured and uninsured.
Even while I did have a job making $35,000. a year, my monthly premium was $195 a month and the annual detuctable rose to $4500. a year and I rarely met that so much of my costs were out of pocket. My Rx's WITH a prescription card ran around $200 a month. So when you add my monthly maintance costs of $395 a month on my wages who could afford to go to the doctor? Plus it was a huge fight everytime to get them to cover anything and this was BC/BS not some rinky dinky company.
Health insurance has become a racket, and for those who think everything is just fine I truely hope you never get sick or have to fight with them to cover something. So many people in the USA have had to file for bankruptcy because of their medical costs even though they had health insurance.
The system is broken and only the well off get quality health care, the rest of us are screwed even with it.
Last edited by ReturningWest; 09-14-2011 at 08:57 AM..
what others pay is based "per capita"...ie per person
I was talking per TAXPAYER....as per my household..2 adults and 3 children, a family of 5..but one taxpaying household
the fact is that singlepayer will NOT lower the prices doctors charge to keep their doors open
RIGHT NOW we are paying (taxes) 900 billion to cover 70 million people through medicrae/medicaid...and that is only PARTIAL coverage....our population is 320 million.......
And that system is unsustainable. Every other First World system manages to deliver health care at a far lower cost. The American system costs two and a half times as much per person as the average.
Funny fact: The amount the American taxpayer pays the government for health care is more than what the citizens of places like Sweden, Canada, Japan, Switzerland etc pay for full UHC for everyone no-medical-bankrupcies health care. Per person.
UHC, at OECD average prices, would cost the USA 1 000 billion, 1 500 billion less than todays outlay.
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I don't have a 100% answer, but I have some thoughts.
