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So if people have a right to pay less then retail for said product, how do you propose its delivered?
It's already being "delivered" for the poor and you know how that's done: taxes.
What I believe is that we need reform so that the "product" we have today: health insurance marketed by private companies whose ONLY goal is to make huge profits is regulated in some fashion so that stops.
I do not believe that "health insurance" should be run to make excessive profits. I may have felt differently about it 40 years ago when you could actually go to the doctor and pay for it yourself, you could go into the hospital and have a baby and get on a payment plan with the hospital and have it paid off, there were NO fantastical cures for cancer that were over six digits and you either had surgery and were cured or you died. Back then, health insurance could be a "luxury" product because it wasn't necessary. Employers could cheaply offer it to employees because it was affordable for them and was an enticement or "icing on the cake" as a benefit.
Today it is VERY different. Even I was shocked at what my GP charged for my last visit for a sore throat. $176. Crazy.
In order not to go bankrupt, people need health insurance as protection. In that way, I beleive that health insurance, AKA, the MIDDLEMAN needs to operate more like a public utility--such as the water company. Greed needs to come out of it. If you take their greed, excessive profit margins out of it, the costs won't be so awful. So regulate it better.
Amen. Health Care expenditures should be budgeted ahead of whether you want a 4,000 sq ft house instead of 3,500 sq ft. Ahead of that 40k car you are dreaming about.
If you want other peoples wallets to treat it like your #1, start by doing it yourself.
If you could afford those things, you wouldn't be worried about affording health care at all.
I love it when wealthy people act like they know what its like to be poor these days
You're wasting your time. You are advocating personal responsibility, which violates cradle to grave government care advocated by liberals.
Quote:
Originally Posted by AeroGuyDC
You're absolutely right. I've always wondered what it is about the liberal mindset that completely ignores personal responsibility while simulataneously advocating for government intervention. The two are diametricaly opposed in Liberal Utopia.
What?
First of all, I am all for personal responsibility. But personal responsibility does not mean that people are islands unto themselves. I believe health care is a right. I liken it to public vs. private education. Everyone has a right to public education but if you want something different, you pay for private education. But everyone, regardless of income, should be able to get public education. Same with healthcare, everyone should be able to access healthcare. But if you want healthcare that includes top flight benefits, then you pay for them.
I think that denial of those with pre-conditions should be outlawed. I believe that Medical Assistance should be expanded, Medicaid expanded to 55, instead of 65. I also think that there needs to be tort reform. I would also favor caps on price gouging by the health care industry.
One can believe in personal responsibility while still recognizing that there is a societal responsibility to provide rights to all.
The infant mortality rate was probably much higher then (1920) than it is now. And for good reason. The STRONG babies survived and the weak ones died. (My grandmother actually gave birth 20 times, with only 7 children surviving).
Since, as a nation, we are sicker now than we have ever been in recent history, we might consider that this is due to our insistence to save babies that might otherwise not have made it had it not been for advanced technology. Even as recently as 50 years ago if a baby was even ONE MONTH premature, the odds of its survival were very bleak. Now days, we are "saving" babies that are 4 months premature and who spend the rest of their lives battling ailments/disorders/defects that are not only costly, but often require endless, painful surgeries and other extensive medical intervention.
As a species, humanity survived for three reasons. First, our ability to adapt, second, our ability to think and make tools and third, natural selection, or survival of the fittest. It is natures way.
Perhaps if we did not have access to such things as "open heart surgery" we would work hard to take better care of our heart to prevent the need for such things. Having an easy fix, does not motivate us to make lifestyle changes that result in health.
20yrsinBranson
You do realize that many open heart surgeries are performed for congenital reasons, right? So should we just let those people die?
I really have to wonder if you are serious or just like getting people's dander up.
You do realize that many open heart surgeries are performed for congenital reasons, right? So should we just let those people die?
I really have to wonder if you are serious or just like getting people's dander up.
Well, those people are weak, don't you know. If everyone was born like 20yearsinbranson, they wouldn't have to worry about heart problems. After all, when your heart is two sizes too small, there is less to worry about.
My cancer was one that comes out of the clear blue sky - there's no reason for it, no real genetic connection, nothing that you could do to prevent it. In fact, it's a joke among those that I know who have had Hodgkin's that it's nature's way of knocking the really superior down a few pegs - I have yet to meet someone who wasn't of above average intelligence and reasonably successful to get this disease. And yet 20yearsinbranson, with her several decades on me, thinks it would have been fine for me to die at 23 and has advocated against life saving chemotherapy up and down in the health subforum. That's what we fighting for health care are up against - my cancer might be cured but there's no curing selfishness.
Well, those people are weak, don't you know. If everyone was born like 20yearsinbranson, they wouldn't have to worry about heart problems. After all, when your heart is two sizes too small, there is less to worry about.
My cancer was one that comes out of the clear blue sky - there's no reason for it, no real genetic connection, nothing that you could do to prevent it. In fact, it's a joke among those that I know who have had Hodgkin's that it's nature's way of knocking the really superior down a few pegs - I have yet to meet someone who wasn't of above average intelligence and reasonably successful to get this disease. And yet 20yearsinbranson, with her several decades on me, thinks it would have been fine for me to die at 23 and has advocated against life saving chemotherapy up and down in the health subforum. That's what we fighting for health care are up against - my cancer might be cured but there's no curing selfishness.
Yikes. Both my husband and I have congenital heart defects that required pediatric surgeries to correct. It scares and disgusts me that people believe we should have a "survival of the fittest" mentality in the human species.
BTW, I am happy that you were born at a time where you had a fighting chance to survive. The idea that some would simply allow you, me and others to wilt away because of taxes and politics makes me ill.
Well, those people are weak, don't you know. If everyone was born like 20yearsinbranson, they wouldn't have to worry about heart problems. After all, when your heart is two sizes too small, there is less to worry about.
My cancer was one that comes out of the clear blue sky - there's no reason for it, no real genetic connection, nothing that you could do to prevent it. In fact, it's a joke among those that I know who have had Hodgkin's that it's nature's way of knocking the really superior down a few pegs - I have yet to meet someone who wasn't of above average intelligence and reasonably successful to get this disease. And yet 20yearsinbranson, with her several decades on me, thinks it would have been fine for me to die at 23 and has advocated against life saving chemotherapy up and down in the health subforum. That's what we fighting for health care are up against - my cancer might be cured but there's no curing selfishness.
I had thyroid cancer when I was 30 years old. For the most part, they don't know why it happens. Radiation exposure will cause it but most people who get it don't have radiation exposure so there are other, unknown causes.
It is a very treatable cancer but does require an expensive thyroidectomy, follow up radiation treatments (also expensive) and lifelong monitoring. This cancer has not disabled me or stopped me from being productive and living a full, healthy life, yet if I could not access the basic, rudimentary care for it, it would have killed me eventually.
Please start a different thread to expound on this stuff, instead of turning this thread into a discussion about "natural" health care. This is not really related to health insurance.
This "stuff", as you put it, is all related to health care. Insurance companies take your lifestyle choices into consideration (particularly in regard to smoking). Most, if not all, insurance providers also have provisions for preventative care.
I realize that many medical providers are not concerned with health, but rather managing sickness, but I believe that all points of view are valid in such a discussion.
20yrsinBranson
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