Longest Thread Ever

[8]

Health insurance is unlike any other sort of insurance. A truly free market would be unsustainable for anything but catastrophic insurance. This is why you see a much freer market for auto insurance than for health insurance.

A truly free market would not be unsustainable for anything but catastrophic insurance. It would certainly create some elite insurance plans. Some would have worse insurance or none at all. It all depends on how much of a catastrophe you think having no/poor health insurance is.

 

[babe]

I don't see belief in God as being a force for evil, nor a force for good. As a believer, you can still choose your own set of values and be guided by them just as well, if you care to. You just assign them to being what God wants.

Also, I really hope you're not putting serious stock into the depiction of a historical figure portrayed by a media that is itself a product of a highly religious country, with the usual bias of the positive effects of religion.

Looking for, and analyzing, the bias in a book or documentary or movie is a bad habit of mine. Usually, after watching anything, even a Disney movie or an episode of Dr. Who, I will ask the kids what kind of worldview they are buying. . . . The belief in magic and the prejudices worked into the stereotypes used in Disney products is not really good for kids, nor is the presumption of superiority in the elitism of the doctor. But then, sometimes I won't ruin the fun, either. . . .

Socrates was a fine teacher, especially for children or youngsters. If you are content to let any mode of public indoctrination go unquestioned, the primary value of education is missing. It's the asking of questions that initiates thought. It might be a gift or an art to inspire questions in the first place, but until you engage that human faculty, hammering facts, data, or a world view into a child is probably a crime in the eyes of God.

 

[babe]

A truly free market would not be unsustainable for anything but catastrophic insurance. It would certainly create some elite insurance plans. Some would have worse insurance or none at all. It all depends on how much of a catastrophe you think having no/poor health insurance is.

Unless one has the ideological blinders one in favor of government solutions to everything. . . . the reality is dawning on almost everyone that the real catastrophe is the Affordable Care Act.

Employers have, en masse, resorted to evasion of the expenses it imposes on them in a probably vain attempt to remain solvent. They have cut back on the number of employees, and cut the hours of as many employees as they dare to keep them under 30 hours, and the total numbers of employees under the thresholds where mandates apply. They have also cut wages because they can't afford the costs of their labor.

People have chosen, in large numbers, to simply drop out of jobs in order to qualify for government-subsidized "care". Our entire economy is going into a tailspin and we are heading for the levels of prosperity only marxists have achieved, historically. . . .. mass shortages of goods, services, and everything else people can ordinarily produce. . . . even rationed health care that will mean a lot of folks simply won't get any care at all. . . .

To be certain, a lot of production is moving out of our country even while our cartelists are importing virtual slave labor under "Amnesty", as well.

Housing prices, and prices in goods and services in every segment of our economy will also be dropping like lead balloons while people earn less, and pay much much more for the little health care they can afford. . . .

Stock prices will ultimately plummet as well because even the trillions of "economic stimulus" funds being handed out by the Fed and even directly invested by the Fed in various markets, are an unsustainable sort of influence. In the end, it is only actual earnings that can "prop up" investments from whatever source, and there is no way our 'sugared up" markets are not just another "pump and dump" operation courtesy of our economic planners, who are delusional at best.

 

[One Brow]

A truly free market would not be unsustainable for anything but catastrophic insurance. It would certainly create some elite insurance plans. Some would have worse insurance or none at all. It all depends on how much of a catastrophe you think having no/poor health insurance is.

Any time you include health maintenance in voluntary health insurance, you get into a spiral where those who are healthy are paying to supplement those with chronic conditions. They leave, and the price of insurance increases, and again the most healthy leave, the price increases, etc. You can't gather a large group by marketing to them as individuals. Why buy health insurance to cover things like vaccines, asthma medicine, etc., that you don't use?

 

[One Brow]

Socrates was a fine teacher, especially for children or youngsters. If you are content to let any mode of public indoctrination go unquestioned, the primary value of education is missing. It's the asking of questions that initiates thought.

I agree that modes of teaching that encourage the asking of questions are valuable for all ages. However, when the answer is known, so is supplying the answer is the correct move for young kids. Working out why it is correct, and why some plausible-on-the-surface alternatives are not, is more likely to confuse young kids than help them.

 

[One Brow]

Employers have, en masse, resorted to evasion of the expenses ...

I see you are buying into some media hype of your own.

Employers cutting back on hours to reduce benefits occurred well before the ACA. People leaving jobs they don't like anymore, because now they don't have to keep them to keep health insurance, is a boon for the economy, not a drag on it.

 

[8]

Any time you include health maintenance in voluntary health insurance, you get into a spiral where those who are healthy are paying to supplement those with chronic conditions. They leave, and the price of insurance increases, and again the most healthy leave, the price increases, etc. You can't gather a large group by marketing to them as individuals. Why buy health insurance to cover things like vaccines, asthma medicine, etc., that you don't use?

Right. Not sure what your point is. Shouldn't those who have more health problems have to pay more for insurance? Your last question is spot on, individuals can decide for themselves what they want and what they don't want.

Much better that it be voluntary in my mind. But now the solution is to force people to supplement insurance for others, even if they don't need it?

 

[8]

Any time you include health maintenance in voluntary health insurance, you get into a spiral where those who are healthy are paying to supplement those with chronic conditions. They leave, and the price of insurance increases, and again the most healthy leave, the price increases, etc. You can't gather a large group by marketing to them as individuals. Why buy health insurance to cover things like vaccines, asthma medicine, etc., that you don't use?

It doesn't matter which position you take, the debate is never-ending because they are 'flaws' in every ideology. Every person cannot get exactly what they want, but as a utilitarian, I believe the free market is the way to go because it's best for the greatest amount of people. There will always be people on the bottom, but the nice thing is that a truly free market gives them the best opportunity to move from that position. I'm concerned with protecting the right to pursuit of happiness, not having the government attempt to provide happiness to all.

 

[PearlWatson]

I'm concerned with protecting the right to pursuit of happiness, not having the government attempt to provide happiness to all.

 

[One Brow]

Right. Not sure what your point is. Shouldn't those who have more health problems have to pay more for insurance? Your last question is spot on, individuals can decide for themselves what they want and what they don't want.

Even when you stratify the groups of people by health conditions, some people in those groups will be healthier than others, and wind up paying more for their health maintenance insurance to supplement other people. So, they will leave instead.

Much better that it be voluntary in my mind. But now the solution is to force people to supplement insurance for others, even if they don't need it?

I don't like the ACA act much either. It's possibly one of the worst ways to implement universal coverage.

 

[One Brow]

It doesn't matter which position you take, the debate is never-ending because they are 'flaws' in every ideology. Every person cannot get exactly what they want, but as a utilitarian, I believe the free market is the way to go because it's best for the greatest amount of people. There will always be people on the bottom, but the nice thing is that a truly free market gives them the best opportunity to move from that position. I'm concerned with protecting the right to pursuit of happiness, not having the government attempt to provide happiness to all.

As a utilitarian, you should only believe in the free market when it works. it doesn't work for health maintenance insurance, and never has.

 

[babe]

As a utilitarian, you should only believe in the free market when it works. it doesn't work for health maintenance insurance, and never has.

From my point of view, the best form of "health insurance" is plenty of doctors and lots and lots of other people who are trying to do stuff to help out, for a price that reflects virtually infinite "competition" for the patient's dollar.

I don't see where insurance company high rises actually do much to help, but I appreciate the idea of insurance against catastrophic risks. I think the total cost for my wife has reached one million dollars, already, and I appreciate that if she had not gotten the care she did, she would already be dead. . ..

our present crisis has been in the making since the liberal AMA organization was founded by socialist idealists perhaps, but with money from the likes of the Rockefellers, and so the organization has acted as an advocate for cartelism across the board in every way that impacts our health care. We have engineered ourselves into having too few medical schools, too few doctors, and too few everything that has any impact on our choices. . . . and we were still the best place on earth for medical care simply because we had the best economy and people cared to get the best possible care, on their own choice.

I think we had "The right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" including the right to choose our own medical care in an somewhat free market. Thej Philippines had more doctors and nurses than the United States, but few people could afford to use them. . . .

Freedom works.

Planned economies don't work as well.