Goddamn Psychotic Motherfuckers DO NOT GET IT

[filkertom]

Again, again, again, the ratbastards want to make not having health insurance punishable by law. With hefty fines.

Let's see if I can explain this as simply as possible, for our poor, dumb fuck congresscritters and weaselly presidential advisers and shitheaded overgreedy lobbyists and reality-challenged commentators, none of whom have to worry about their goddamn health care.

What people need is "health care", not "health insurance".

For the most part, the people who don't have health care don't have it because the way the system is set up right now, they need to either have health insurance, which they cannot afford, or the money to get health care without insurance, which (being a good deal more than insurance) they really can't afford.

If they cannot afford health insurance, they cannot afford the fines for not having health insurance. Therefore, making it illegal to not have health insurance actually makes things worse, and still does not provide health care.

Comparing the prospective mandatory health insurance to no-fault car insurance does not work. Driving is a privilege. Your health is a necessity.

Admittedly, I don't know why I'm bothering. These evil fucks are trying to squeeze every last drop of blood out of people, and the Obama administration, all inspiring soliloquy and no cojones, are trying to help them.

Comments

[lovefromgirl.livejournal.com]

From what I hear, Baucus is a smug little prick anyway.

I am willing to pay higher taxes. God knows I'd part with more of my paycheck if I had one. What about the people who don't have one?!

I think the Capitol Steps were right all those years ago. "I want a brand new pair of candidates..." Only if this passes, it's "Fix it or I'm frakking well emigrating."

-- Disgusted in NY

[scruffycritter.livejournal.com]

Maybe the people in Massachusetts can eluciate on the matter, but I thought MassHealth is something like that.

Everyone has to have insurance, and the state insures you if you cannot get it but it's mandated that everyone has to have it.

[chipuni.livejournal.com]

The government LOVES to create 'unfunded mandates' -- required things that they don't need to spend their own money.

It's usually things that the states have to pay (if the Federal government), or that towns and cities have to pay (if a state).

The idea is just filtering down to the rest of us.

[emiofbrie.livejournal.com]

How are MassHealth prices? Is it comparable to MinnesotaCare?

MNCare is Minnesota's state health plan, but it's not mandatory (yet), and is priced on a reasonable sliding scale. If you make below $7K a year, it's free and termed as "Medical Assistance".

[pjack.livejournal.com]

I absolutely agree that we need universal health care. Health care should be free for anyone living in America, with no health insurance needed.

However... If you're going to keep the health insurance system, with or without a public option, there is a logic to making it health insurance mandatory. Its an information distribution problem. When consumers (i.e, patients) know more about their health future than the insurance companies do (through family history, genetic analysis, etc), it changes what insurance they buy. As genetic tests become more prevalent, the problem gets worse. Imagine what would happen to the fire insurance industry if you knew for a fact whether or not your house would burn down in ten years, but your insurance company didn't know! The insurance companies would go out of business, and no-one could get insured... unless buying insurance was mandatory. (Here's a link to the NPR Planet Money podcast (http://public.npr.org/anon.npr-mp3/npr/pmoney/2009/08/podcast08.21.09.mp3) where Charlie Wheelan talks about the problem. It's a really good listen. My apologies if I'm misremembering it.)

I still think it's a bone-headed system, but I wanted to point out that there's a logic to it other than pure greed.

[thistlethorn.livejournal.com]

I was incensed by an article about this earlier today (a very *breezy*, blithe article, I must add).

The whole car insurance thing? It means a lot of poor people who cannot get around without a car (in the many places that have poor or no mass transit) drive without car insurance anyway. I'm sure they'll all go to some sort of hell for that huge crime.

But *this*??? Evil *is* the only word to describe penalizing the poor even more for being poor. So, you know, they won't get health care, but they will pay fines for not having health care.

[allandaros.livejournal.com]

ARRGGGGHHHHHBBL.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Well, yeah, but the problem is that making it mandatory does not provide any way to make it affordable. Saying it's against the law if you don't have it doesn't suddenly give people the money to get it.

[lariss.livejournal.com]

And when these folks who don't have money for Health Insurance also don't have the money for the fine...then what?

Debtor's Prison?

In which case we, the public, will pay for their frockin' health care ANYWAY?!! Just like we do when people who can't afford healthcare go to the Emergency room and then default?

I say skip the middle man. Provide universal healthcare like almost every other developed or semi-developed nation in the free world including the Czech Republic. Come on now. Surely we can do better than the Czech Republic?

[ebonypearl.livejournal.com]

Huh. The fine is considerably less than what I'm paying for mandatory health insurance. Seeing as I only used it once in 9 years (for a strep throat test - and I had to pay for the whole thing because of co-pay and deductibles, so I might as well have been uninsured), if I had to pay the fine to be free of health insurance, I'd be saving money.

I know others aren't in the same situation,and aren't near as healthy as me, so I think the fine is unfair. Just like I feel taxing food is unfair. We have to eat. That's why I grow much of my own. I just hope they don't decide to tax gardening!

[baphnedia.livejournal.com]

Do you mind if i xpost this in its entirety, and would you like me to attribute it to you?

[redneckgaijin.livejournal.com]

Well, it's not like we haven't seen from the stimulus package and the public option that Obama is quite willing to abandon his campaign promises to the whims of Congressional leadership- and abandon them without even lifting a finger to defend them.

There's also the fact that, as things currently stand, one of two things will happen if for-profit insurance gets required to carry all comers: either the rates skyrocket for EVERYONE so the insuror's profits stay strong... or else for-profit insurance folds up as an industry as claims surpass income, with nothing ready to replace them. In other words, either healthcare will become more expensive than ever before... or else it'll essentially vanish altogether in a medical market crash.

[devospice.livejournal.com]

I suspect both will happen. Rates will skyrocket so they can keep up their profits for their stockholders. Those that aren't profitable will be sold off to other companies until we're left with just 2 or 3 major health insurance companies. When those start to fold the government will bail them out. Fun!

[ericthemage.livejournal.com]

It's not just a matter of their profits staying strong. If they're required to cover pre-existing conditions, then there's no reason to carry health insurance until something major happens, and then you just walk in and demand coverage with a new policy. Companies cannot survive very long when people walk in with a check for a few hundred dollars and then immediately demand tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of treatments. The only way to make sure they can stay in business is to force people to have insurance.

If you have a sliding scale based on how long you've been with a company, then people will be screwed when they lose a job, or be afraid of leaving a crappy job because starting new insurance will cost too much.

We need to stop tying health care to a specific job. Make it tax deductible for everyone, not just corporations.

[zibblsnrt.livejournal.com]

First, the logic you point out there is fallacious; appeal to consequence isn't logic so much as its opposite, even before getting into the question of whether your scenario would actually happen in the event of reliable genetic testing. Oh, and sometimes people just get hit by a bus or something, a condition for which there are few genetic markers.

Second, this Canadian's wondering how "private insurance companies collapsing under the weight of their own inadequacies" and "nobody has any health coverage" are necessarily linked at the hip. I'm doing alright for most of my medical needs.

Honestly? Looking at US insurance companies I think most of them should go out of business. Trash 'em, replace them with something that works instead of something whose principal goal is to prevent access to as much health care as possible. It's certainly preferable to fining poor people $62.50 a month for not being able to spend, say, $50 or $100 a month on health coverage.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Don't mind, and please. :)

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

I'd be utterly happy if the health insurance companies were nationalized. It's not as if the proposed national health records database, the existing records, and the attendant data infrastructures are gonna vanish completely. We need more people doing that stuff.

[danceswithlife]

Actually, if they have a family the insurance premium is probably closer to $500 to $1000 per month unless it's subsidized by someone (Obama pushed through some subsidies for cobra). If I lose or leave my job my single Kaiser coverage group premium will be at least $1100 per month for cobra (my union made some really lousy decisions about how to cover their members). That's almost as much as my mortgage. I think with what Obama has on tap that can go down about 50%, but it's still VERY high.

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

The Baucus plan is awful for everyone but insurance companies and their stockholders. Yet--we can pay the government through taxes, or pay the insurance companies somewhat more (profit), but we are going to have to pay. Care costs can be reduced by making the plan universal, but it is still going to cost. This is where the rubber meets the road in public health care, and why this is so hard to do.

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

There's a subsidy for people who can't pay. Problem is, in the Baucus plan, not enough people are eligible, and the insurance companies are going to take a big bite from the subsidy.

[pjack.livejournal.com]

First, the logic you point out there is fallacious; appeal to consequence isn't logic so much as its opposite, even before getting into the question of whether your scenario would actually happen in the event of reliable genetic testing. Oh, and sometimes people just get hit by a bus or something, a condition for which there are few genetic markers.

If there are any fallacies in my argument, please accept my apologies, and chalk it up to me misunderstanding/misremembering the Charlie Wheelan interview. It certainly made logical sense to me when I heard it, but perhaps I'm explaining it badly or leaving out something crucial. If you get a chance to listen to the interview yourself, I'd love to hear your thoughts on it.

Second, this Canadian's wondering how "private insurance companies collapsing under the weight of their own inadequacies" and "nobody has any health coverage" are necessarily linked at the hip. I'm doing alright for most of my medical needs.

The concern would be if private health insurance became even more inadequate than it already is, and nothing arose to take its place. Some people have the ability and foresight to set aside tens of thousands of dollars so that they could pay for their own health care costs in case of catastrophe, but most people don't.

Honestly? Looking at US insurance companies I think most of them should go out of business. Trash 'em, replace them with something that works instead of something whose principal goal is to prevent access to as much health care as possible. It's certainly preferable to fining poor people $62.50 a month for not being able to spend, say, $50 or $100 a month on health coverage.

I agree completely!

[caraig.livejournal.com]

I'd love to say that I'd refuse to pay for insurance, or the fine... but they'd drag it out of my paycheck or account anyway, even if I'm not working.

I'd love to say that I'd move to a country that has real health care... but they only seem to let you emigrate if you have a job waiting for you there.

That doesn't leave a lot of options, and they look more and more appealing as this debacle drags on.

[caraig.livejournal.com]

*sigh* And reading that back, I come off like a LEFT-wing nutjob who's going to take a gun to elected officials. No, I'm not talking about nor advocating that. Primarying the bastards, getting them out of office or better yet making them face their ex-constituents, that I'd go for, but as unlikely as some of these crooks behind bars is, assassination isn't the solution. That wouldn't solve a damn thing.

[lovefromgirl.livejournal.com]

Completely. I mean, take me individually, unemployed, sure. I'm eligible. But take me with my parents, and all our debts that regularly outstrip our family income, and it's good night Irene.

[emiofbrie.livejournal.com]

Yes, but honestly, in a country where average Joe will do whatever the TV news tells them, would you be ABLE to vote the creeps out of office?