Look who thinks the ACA is unaffordable

There's significant limits placed on what emergency medical services must be provided. Follow up care isn't one of them, even for serious incidents. Which also leads, to a predictable abuse, of the emergency room.

Honestly, you should consider yourself fortunate to have a Cadillac style health care plan at that rate. My sister was self-employed, successful enough with her own business to have her house paid off in her early twenties. She had to quit and take a banking job though once she had kids, as in her state private family policies were outrageously priced. Hell my wife was in her late twenties, 125pound, vegetarian, and doing daily yoga when she was quoted at $800 a month for a private insurance plan... Not everyone or every state has plans that affordable, count your blessings.

I can honestly state I've never seen a catastrophic insurance policy for $90 a year, and I negotiated these on behalf of thousands of people. Again, rates and plans used to vary wildly between states.

 

I worked in the medical field briefly so I'm well aware of the emergency room abuse and I'm also aware that the Affordable Care Act will only make this problem worse, not better.

I do consider myself fortunate. I'm a business owner myself but I'll be closing up in a couple months and leaving the country.

As far as the policy that I have, it's BlueCross BlueShield. You can go to their site and get an instant quote. The prices do fluctuate quite a bit from state to state but I've informed other friends in Texas and Louisiana that got family plans for less than 800 per month from BC/BS. One of the couples are almost 60. Again, one of the big reasons for the fluctuations is because of government involvement....

 

I don't necessarily disagree with that point of view, but where do you draw the line? You mentioned paying for schools, for instance. I never wanted children either. But if everyone chooses which services they want to be taxed for, I'm not sure how that would work. What about a guy who doesn't want to pay taxes to finance wars unrelated to the direct defense of the homeland? Should he be able to opt out of that part of his taxes?

I can't speak for them, but I would imagine they might have been talking about the fact that you don't need to be dying to receive medical care in their countries if you are poor. Mandatory emergency care for uninsured patients is an extremely inefficient Band-Aid, in my opinion. It's not a solution to the underlying problem.

 

Since when is reading comprehension required? I thought we just read the part that we wanted to be outraged about and responded to that.

 

Yes....

However then we get into the debate of justification over whether the war fought anywhere other than home soil is actually in defense of the homeland or not.

 

Exactly. That's where it gets really interesting. Do you think that would be a manageable system?

 

Nothing anyone tries to do on the size and scope of the entire nation is manageable. The military paying way too much for most of the shit they buy is a fine example of that.

 

Who says we need one system, with that system being the government in charge of everything?
While the ideal would be that you not be forced to pay for that which you don't need, and that isn't possible across the board, there is no reason to throw that ideal out the window and go completely in the other direction.
A whole lot of affordable and reasonable health care for poorer people could be provided with low-cost clinics, keeping free-loaders out of emergency rooms.
Despite what Papa said, emergency rooms provide a lot of services that aren't emergency services.
If you want to see how medical services improve while lowering costs, use the example of Lasik surgery, which isn't covered by insurance.
Since it became available, the cost has decreased tremendously as the technology and results have improved. Competition for business from people who have to care about how their money is spent has produced those results.
Remove that from the equation, and you have the explanation for higher costs.
Now replace an insurance-based system with a government-paid system, and you lose any incentive to control cost at all, until the money runs out and you have to reduce the quality and quantity of service.
That's just the opposite result than what we've seen with Lasik surgery.
You cannot get around natural human motivations or economic principles.

 

And contrary to what many will try to argue...it really is that simple. A free market capitalist approach works...period. It is not perfect but it is far better than any other model ever used...

 

Wait a minute. Are you saying that poor people should get governemnt healthcare?

 

What criteria do you use to arrive at this conclusion?

 

Does that sound like an efficient use of emergency rooms to you?

 

That would be an excellent analogy, and perhaps I'm wrong, but I find it a bit disingenuous to compare a luxury medical procedure with those necessary to maintain life or what not.

While not particularly relevant since so few policies do, but some policies do cover the procedure. Even as a luxury medical procedure that's primarily paid for with cash or equivalent, many people don't shop via price. When I had it performed, I paid about 4x the cost of the cheapest provider. As I wanted the quality and experience of the most skilled doctor I could find with the latest and greatest machine. Granted, one could argue that in many areas, people pay significantly more for quality... but it's generally quite a bit more ambiguous with medical procedures.

As for the insurance based systems versus the government systems, are the insurance companies not regulated to only have a percentage of their policy payments retained for administration and profit? While it's their job to negotiate on their policy beholders behalf, and to reduce the rates for their own competitiveness, their fee's actually increase the more the policies costs... which regardless of your view, creates a powerful incentive that's not in the publics best interest. Because you're right, we can't get around natural human motivations and economic principals.

 

I was born in Quebec. I have been in the US for 11 years.

US health system> Quebec health system

The US health system is maybe slightly better but definitely faster. The US system seems more expensive when you deal with doctors but they tax the shit out of you in Quebec so at the end it is the same...
The ACA will slowly make the US like Quebec… It will be like I never left!

 

History and literally 100's of thousands of examples. Do you disagree? If so, what criteria do you use to arrive at this conclusion?

Just because it is "health care" does not change the facts. Competition (unobstructed balanced competition) has been and always will be a good thing.

 

Ever read Adam Smith?

 

How do you find it disingenuous? Just because regulators consider it a "luxury" doesn't change the fact that your eyesight will be improved. Why is that a luxury and glasses and contacts are not? (do you think lobbying has anything to do with that? I mean, one is a permanent fix and the other examples ensure that revenue will continue to flow for the companies.)

Yes, some policies cover things that others don't and often time that is dictated by politicians in different states. Again, lobbying can and most often does contribute to this. How do you fill about insurance policies being required to cover RX's for the little blue pill?

If the government would get out of the way of the insurance companies and the Dr.'s, the cost would likely go way down and the level of care would likely increase. The incentive would be to get a larger market share and build more efficient/beneficial business relationships and provide the best service to attract clients. There are numerous examples of this around the world, again, not too far away...just look at the private shops in Canada now. The same knee replacement can be paid for out of pocket for 5k give or take while it cost over 36k through the social system. You can most often have the surgery within a week or month at the private system, at the public system...not so much.

Compare vet shops...no insurance and you take an injured animal in to see the vet...do you expect to be put on a waiting list? Is this not a fair comparison?

 

The "Wealth of Nations"? Yes, refer to it quite often. That should be required reading in schools!

I love to watch debates with Milton Friedman and Thomas Sowell teaming up against "liberal" minded people that try to push social programs. I've yet to see where the facts put in front of the liberals didn't drive them crazy. And Milton in particular has a very cool and calm manner about him.

Again, I don't think anything is perfect but history has proven that the closer you get to a free market capitalist system, the better off things are. It has been the most successful model in the history of the world and it's simple. I think that's why many governments fear it so much. They by default loose much of their control.

 

One of the criteria of whether a health care system works is whether even the poor recieve proper health care.

How does unbridled capitalism/freemarket accomplish that?

 

I submit that tossing a system based on one of many criteria is kinda silly counselor.