Quote:
Originally Posted by ikestoys
Well, considering I'm a pretty radical free-marketer, just about all of it, because it's really anti-free market.
Now, since that will never happen and we're nowhere close to a free market, that gets me into a bunch of weird spots.
The problem is that when it comes to health insurance the free market has opposing goals to the needs of the populace. Consider: if you own a health insurance company, there are ONLY two ways to make your insurance company more profitable than the guy next door:
1) Sign up more healthy people than he does
2) Deny more claims than he does
You can go to whatever business school you want, but when it comes to health insurance there are simply no other options. Of course, you can try and hide those facts with some fancy advertising claims and marketing material, but the bottom line is that if an insurance company is suddenly allowed to compete in market xyz, they're not going to make any money if the only people they sign up are seniors with diabetes and heart disease. No, if they want to make money, they need to sign up only healthy people, and if they totally had their druthers they would sign them up in their 20s and then drop them in their 40s when things start to go wrong with the human body. That's good for them, of course, but not so good for people over 40 (or 50 or 60), and in fact it's the whole reason why Medicare came about, because without it there would be NO OPTION for seniors to get health care.
Though of course you can still make money with a health insurance company if you sign up non-healthy people, but now you need to
deny their claims, and in an unregulated health insurance market that's exactly what happens. Hell it happens now. Insurance companies have entire departments who pour through the language of their policies looking for ways to deny claims, and they deny millions of them. How is that good for anyone, except them, of course?
Quote:
Originally Posted by General Tsao
pre-existing conditions should absolutely be considered for insurance costs (unless the insurance co doesn't want to). this isn't insurance anymore.
And that will inevitably lead to a huge segment of your population who has no insurance. In the US it's currently about 30-40 million people. What would President Taso do with them?
Bear in mind that every single one of them can VOTE, and if you don't come up with an acceptable plan they are 100% going to vote for the first liberal that comes along who does, unless your plan involves suspending the Constitution and implementing martial law, of course.
Quote:
i don't believe in forcing people to buy stuff
And if you put that belief up against 25-40,000 people dying each year, which would win out, President Taso?
Quote:
there should be no law for minimum standards. if a poor person can only afford a really bad insurance policy, give them that option plz.
And what if they can afford nothing? Just let them die in the streets?
Quote:
So the question "how would YOU fix it", well, first, we gotta define the problem. healthcare isn't one problem, it's actually THREE problems.
so first define the problem, then FIX the problem. how would i fix it?
Nice cop out.