Wow. Sounds too good to be true! Here's how to order! Print money out of thin air to pay for everyone's health care. When the currency is worthless, who cares? Our grandchildren will just have to figure out a new plan for themselves. Fuck them. They're not born yet, and we're a bunch of myopic selfish pricks.

No doubt we need health care reform, but this sounds like utopian wand waving to me. If the idea is to have government force insurance companies to give policies to people with preexisting conditions, then it's no longer insurance, because they're not "insuring" your health, we're forcing them to pay for your health care plan. That means premiums for everyone will skyrocket, because it will be a health spending account versus insurance. If by some magical reason they don't raise premiums, then government is subsidizing it which means we still pay, but worse we mortgage our grandchildren with debt. Selfish.

Also, whether someone is unemployed or not shouldn't matter when purchasing "insurance", because it's silly to think employers must offer health insurance. Should they offer car insurance next? What about fire insurance? Why is it the employer's responsibility to offer that? It's all silly. But instead of addressing this problem directly and bringing about true reform, it feels as if the Dems and Repubs want to place band-aid fixes on everything. This is all utopian nonsense that simply will not work.

We spend about 16% of our GDP on healthcare, a larger share than any other industrialized nation.

Germany's healthcare system is a good analogue to the current plans coming out of congress, and they spend 11% of GDP (the 2nd most of any nation), and have better health outcomes. The European average is more like 8%, with about the same or better outcomes as Germany.

That means we spend half a trillion dollars a year more, and in return we receive worse outcomes. If we were really concerned about costs, we would go to single payer, and get that up to $1 trillion/yr of cost savings.

As for employers, I agree. They shouldn't have to pay for health insurance, it should be a basic government service like fire departments and police. Everyone pays for them, and whoever needs them gets their help.

To be honest, I'd much rather have the government cut military industry spending to next to nothing (closing down bases abroad) and move some of that money over to nationalized health care before I'd ever agree to support additional taxes to pay for the health care.

But, the government never cuts spending. It always spends more and takes more like a petulant trust fund kid who spent their entire savings but demands his current "quality of life" be maintained using credit cards.

NetRunner: "As for employers, I agree. They shouldn't have to pay for health insurance, it should be a basic government service like fire departments and police. Everyone pays for them, and whoever needs them gets their help."

I didn't mean this was an either/or scenario. I know we can do without employers paying for insurance. I know we can do without government getting involved (thus, less involvement from corporations). And open the health market up to the people to do for themselves without coercion.

>> ^blankfist:
I didn't mean this was an either/or scenario. I know we can do without employers paying for insurance. I know we can do without government getting involved (thus, less involvement from corporations). And open the health market up to the people to do for themselves without coercion.


On one level, I tend to think of myself as non-ideological. I have desired outcomes for society that are based on my moral compass (in this case health security for everyone), but I have no particular desire to see government or corporate involvement, nor do I have a particular desire to try to eliminate their influence if they're serving the public good.

If you're just saying that your moral compass says that a society that forces people to pay taxes is worse than one that gives people the freedom to choose between bankruptcy and their life and limb, you've pretty much lost me.

But if you have a plan that provides all the benefits described in the original post, that mostly just involves government butting out...I'm all ears.

I'd argue phrasing it "serving the public good" is an euphemistic way of placing a noble label to presumed safety through political coercion. Rarely do I see human government's purpose being that of service, but rather that of control and authority. I suppose by your logic, the Patriot Act should be considered a service to the public good, as well, as it was intended to supply us all with presumed safety at the cost of our liberty.

I don't believe there's a higher moral purpose than allowing every individual his or her self-evident freedom to choose for themselves. Your hyperbolic example of a person choosing between bankruptcy and "life and limb" confuses morality with fear.

You can find plenty more examples where fear can be used to scare people into surrendering their personal liberties and those of their neighbors, but where will it stop? After we nationalize health care, what will be next that will require us to give up our essential liberties?

Should be ban sidewalks because they're too close to the roads? What about compulsory exercise regiments for anyone weighing over two hundred pounds? Most people have an irrational fear of crimes committed after dark, so maybe a mandatory curfew on every citizen once the sun goes down?

>> ^blankfist:
Your hyperbolic example of a person choosing between bankruptcy and "life and limb" confuses morality with fear.

As many as 22,000 people die each year because they don't have health insurance (PolitiFact
).

Medical bills are responsible for most bankruptcies in the US (American Journal of Medicine, via NYT).

I think it's safe to say that the people bankrupted by medical bills didn't do it with elective procedures. I don't know how many of those bankruptcies involved treatments that were life saving, but certainly you would concede that my overall description of our system was accurate: people sometimes have to choose between bankruptcy or death. I think that's a broken system.

Most of your anti-government rhetoric is based on the slippery slope fallacy. In this case, you're saying that if we give the government the power to, say, outlaw insurance companies from rejecting or rescinding coverage from people on the basis of their medical conditions, the next step is forced labor exercise camps, and curfews.

Which of us was using hyperbolic fear tactics again?

If all you've got is to feed me a line of bull about how healthcare reform will lead to totalitarian socialism, and that therefore medical bankruptcies are just the price of freedom...you aren't really adding anything to the debate.

However, if you have a cure for the problem that doesn't involve government, I'm all ears.

We DO print money out of thin air.. or might as well.. so at the least why not direct the flow of numbers representing nonexistant holdings towards "good" things... it won't make any difference to anyone who doesn't unethically manipulate currency. those people might be pissed though.

"How Health Care Reform Will Help You, No Matter Who You Are"

1. I never get seriously sick or injured.

2. I already have health insurance with a no-drop clause.

3. I'm a millionaire. I pay for healthcare in cash.

4. I'm ideologically and superstitiously opposed to placing bets against my own health.

5. I'm a doctor, surgeon, and pharmacist. Healthcare is free for me

6. All my friends are doctors, surgeons, and pharmacists. Healthcare is free for me.

7. I don't believe in modern medicine; rather I believe in a healthy diet, exercise, and the avoidance of unnecessary risk.

6. I live on a remote farm with no physical access to healthcare.

7. I don't believe in medical intervention. If injury or disease are in my cards, so be it.

8. I rely on foreign healthcare paid in cash. Its a free vacation and is much cheaper than healthcare in the US - even with insurance.

9. I have a large network of friends and family. We have agreed to donate money if one of us is seriously ill. None of us need insurance.

10. Health insurance is a bad investment for me because I am rarely sick or injured. The money I save on premiums goes into a high-yield investment portfolio, whose funds I will draw upon in the event of an emergency.

Please explain how health care reform helps me?

I think we need health care "reform". But, we're looking in the wrong places for the answer. Currently we think it's A) corporations or B) government that should supply all the answers for us.

That's the problem. We need to get government out of it so smaller businesses can compete and offer us something of higher quality.

>> ^blankfist:
I think we need health care "reform". But, we're looking in the wrong places for the answer. Currently we think it's A) corporations or B) government that should supply all the answers for us.
That's the problem. We need to get government out of it so smaller businesses can compete and offer us something of higher quality.


My question is, what would a bill that steers things in that direction actually say? On the surface of it, I don't have an issue with that, but a desired outcome isn't the same as a plan for how to achieve it.

Edit: After writing the post below this one, it occurs to me that the Obama plan actually matches a lot of what you're looking for. The idea is that they're going to set up individual insurance "exchanges". People who do not receive coverage from their employer will be able to pick from participating plans offered by private insurers. There will be new regulatory requirements on those plans (like no dropping or denying people on the basis of health), and subsidies offered to people below a certain income level. The public option would go there as well, as just another plan offered in the exchange. The public option would essentially be repackaged Medicare insurance that charges a premium, without direct taxpayer funding (though you are free to use the subsidy to pay for a portion of the public option's premium).

This is coupled with mounting pressure for eliminating or reducing the tax exemptions on employer provided plans, which would no doubt have the effect of pushing more people into the exchanges, especially if it was eliminated outright without an employer mandate (which is at hypothetically possible, politically speaking).

Another option that I think you guys might be willing to go along with (but that Congress would never, ever pass), is Brad DeLong's unrealistic, impractical, utopian plan.

DeLong's plan sounds to me like something a Democratic/Libertarian 2-party congress could hypothetically reach compromise agreement on.

>> ^imstellar28:
1. I [will] never get seriously sick or injured.

This is a false assertion, especially when you put the implied "will" into it.

2. I already have health insurance with a no-drop clause.

This too is a false assertion.

3. I'm a millionaire. I pay for healthcare in cash.

The plan will reduce the cost of the care you receive by making sure doctors no longer have incentives to pad your bill with unneeded tests and procedures, as well as allowing group plans to negotiate prices with care providers and pharmaceutical companies.

Plus, chances are if you're a millionaire you've got insurance coverage now, especially since medical costs can easily wipe out the bank account of a mere millionaire.

4. I'm ideologically and superstitiously opposed to placing bets against my own health.

Then your irrational fears will no longer hamper you from receiving care when inevitably you encounter a problem with your health. Though I suspect they will allow groups like Christian Scientists to be able to have an exemption from mandates on a religious basis.

5. I'm a doctor, surgeon, and pharmacist. Healthcare is free for me.

6. All my friends are doctors, surgeons, and pharmacists. Healthcare is free for me.

It's not free for the provider of the benefit. Reducing their costs will mean they have more money to spend on other things, like private jets and hookers, or hopefully higher doctor salaries, higher investment in the facility, etc.

7. I don't believe in modern medicine; rather I believe in a healthy diet, exercise, and the avoidance of unnecessary risk.

Modern medicine believes in those things as well, and one of the sub-goals of this is to get more preventative care covered, so things like dieticians, personal trainers, gym memberships and the like will also be covered in some form.

6. I live on a remote farm with no physical access to healthcare.

False premise, everyone has physical access in a world where we have helicopters. Presumably if there's a large enough pool of people who only have access to medical care via medevac someone will create a HDHP product that's aimed at such a market. If not, and they earn too much to qualify for Medicaid somehow, they're going to get a subsidy to help them pay for their choice of private/public individual plans, or pay a fine.

7. I don't believe in medical intervention. If injury or disease are in my cards, so be it.

Again, I presume there will be provisions that allow exclusion on religious beliefs.

8. I rely on foreign healthcare paid in cash. Its a free vacation and is much cheaper than healthcare in the US - even with insurance.

It might make care cheap enough for you to be able to get care here. I doubt there are many people for which this statement is 100% true though.

If it's true, we should copy the system of this hypothetical other country -- presumably Canada's -- and go for a much stronger form of government involvement in health care.

9. I have a large network of friends and family. We have agreed to donate money if one of us is seriously ill. None of us need insurance.

I'm not familiar with the finest of details of the plan, but I believe that allowing the formation insurance co-ops is going to be in there. In other words, such a scheme could qualify as being insurance.

10. Health insurance is a bad investment for me because I am rarely sick or injured. The money I save on premiums goes into a high-yield investment portfolio, whose funds I will draw upon in the event of an emergency.
Please explain how health care reform helps me?

If you have enough money in the investment portfolio, it may qualify as insurance (e.g. auto insurance requirements can be satisfied by this kind of thing now). If not, I suspect there will be many private insurance products targeted at just this sort of person, since I think there are nearly 20 million people who're uninsured for exactly this reason now.

I doubt you'd get resistance from the left on things like adding provisions for people to self-insure via co-op or high-value Health Savings Account, or letting people opt out on the basis of religious beliefs. I think your second #6 would be a worthy topic if there truly were lots of people in that category, though I suspect the response would be to look into what could be done to give them physical access to care, rather than just exempting them from the relevant mandates.

^Would have been easier to just admit that your statement was incorrect, because someone else came up with (several) counter-examples demonstrating that fact.

Not so. Everyone would get some benefit from having healthier, wealthier people out there, even if they didn't receive some direct benefit from the legislation.

Let's put this in terms libertarians like. Think of all the things the free market could do with all the money we save by spending less on health care. It's nearly a trillion dollars a year we could reclaim for capitalism by shrinking how much we spend on healthcare.

Everyone would get some benefit from having healthier, wealthier people out there

1. I'm a misanthrope.

2. I'm a hermit.

I could go all day...your argument just doesn't have two legs to stand on. Theres no possible thing that everyone benefits from, not even the worldwide removal of death or pain. Not everyone is like you, or has the same ideas as you - so what gives you the right to rule other people based on what you think is correct?

You are arriving at the wrong answer because you are asking the wrong question, in my opinion.

The question should be why should anyone care what you think if you're only for yourself and dont care about other people?

Answer: They shouldn't. But you should still have affordable health care and so should everyone else.

Markets are a lot better at making things affordable.

Healthcare reform can only be good if it reduces govt involvement in healthcare.

Thats stupid.

There's no inherent connection to lack of quality or lack of positivity with government being involved.

lack of diverse genetics hurts humanity, and lack of healthy people hurts diversity.... but a lack of diversity of markets maleable by greed and ignorance will never hurt anyone.

not shaping and manipulating insurance payout schemes also helps to make things affordable... a lot more than saying "govt ruins everything", for sure.

insurance companies do not exist to help you. it's a fundamental flaw that must be addressed.