Government Involvement in Health Insurance & Mandated Minimum Standards

[Quantum Windbag]

That's a lame-ass argument with the possible exception of Medicaid dollars. As long as contributions are paid in according to a set of rules applied equally to all and claims paid in a similar fashion, it's no more you paying for another persons health care choices than if you share the same bank and your money is 'commingled' on some balance sheet.

It is, however, me buying something I do not need. Being a man, the only forms of birth control available to me are abstinence, rythm, and condoms, none of which are covered by the insurance plan I am paying for.

Please, tell me that me paying for something does not mean I am buying it so I can make you look as stupid as Plasmaball when he tried to say that.

Payment for services rendered to you come from the premium dollars YOU put in the kitty and payment for her birth control come out of the premium dollars SHE put into the kitty.

Once again, this is not rocket science... unless complicating things is good for your politics, if that's the case then there's no amount of reasoning.

I am buying a policy that covers contraception. The fact that I never use it does not change the fact that I am paying for it. The fact that I might use other services doesn't change the fact that I bought contraception. The fact that someone else who wants to buy contraception through an insurance policy instead of saving money by getting it out of pocket does not change the fact that I am buying contraception.

It is like buying a HDTV that comes with a "free" 10 year contract for dial up AOL, even if someone else buys the TV and actually uses dial up AOL, I still bought the AOL. If you buy a bunch of bananas and don't eat them all before they go bad does that mean you did not buy the bananas? Does the fact that someone else went to the same store and bought Filet Mignon mean that I didn't buy the bananas? After all, the money they paid and the money I paid both went to the same store.

The problem here is that you are complicating this. You are trying to argue that I am not buying her birth control. Guess what? I know that, go read the other threads on this same subject, you will see I repeatedly argue that my insurance premiums do not pay for other people's services. What bothers me is me paying for something I have no use for, not that insurance companies are willing to sell birth control coverage to people that are stupid enough to pay extra to get it through an insurance company.

I do not want to pay for birth control I will not use. There is nothing you can say that will change the fact that, by mandating that every single insurance policy in this country cover birth control, you are forcing a single man who has no intention of getting married to pay for birth control he will never use.

Don't try to over think my position, I made it simple. I do not want birth control. If other people want it, I have no objection. That is not the issue, the issue is why should a gay couple have to buy it? Do you honestly think one of them might one day end up pregnant because it isn't covered by their insurance?

 

[Care4all]

Unconstitutional

Not the point I want to argue - see post #2.

Give me a truly free market for health coverage or give me minimum standards and controlled prices, enforced by a government beholding to the consumers.

Something has to give. The health insurance lobby has made its bed and needs to be turned on its ear or via open competition regardless of employment, or highly regulated and controlled.

The only other method that makes any sense is a single payer option run like Social Security, with claims paid based on a list of rules that everyone has access to.

Why am I expected to pay for something I will not use? I don't want to pay for birth control if I don't use it... regardless of whether someone else does... if they want it, they can choose to pay for it. Why is the Government forcing insurance companies to only provide coverage that includes birth control? If I don't want birth control, why do I have to pay for it?

i don't want to have to pay for your pregnancy some day, I don't want to have to pay for another man's prostate exam or for someone's heart attack or for someone's diabetes treatments or for another child's broken arm....or Rush's viagra or Bobbie jo's antihistamine etc etc etc...

that is tough though, because that is how insurance works, it is their business model structure....those not in need of the service pay for those who do need the service....

 

[AVG-JOE]

Taxes are part of government, the only thing we can do is keep them to the minimum by insisting that the government only do things that are necessary and proper for the government to do. The fire department actually falls into that category, even if you don't like it.

Yes, definitely, but that's the whole health care debate, isn't it? The argument is whether or not healthcare is one of those few things - like fire departments - that the government can do better than the private market.

Why's it on the table? For the reasons I listed before; consumer has (1) lack of price knowledge and (2) lack of knowledge about what he/she needs.

Is it necessary and proper for the government to be involved in the private lives of every citizen?

No.

But it is necessary for the private lives of every citizen to be tangled up in some sort of health care bureaucracy (ass-u-me-ing of course that those citizens choose to live ON the grid). How's the current system of profiting handsomely for managing those bureaucracies working out? The system clear and easy to navigate? Costs and responsibilities easy to understand?

The current bullshit ain't working.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

ha, ha, ha... the echo chamber of you and that Oddball Dude is hilarious.

a tax by any other name is still a tax.

Isn;t that what I just said?

FYI, every single judge that has ruled on Obamacare has one thing in common, the mandate is not a tax. The law was specifically written to say that the mandate is not a tax, even though the IRS is responsible for making sure everyone has insurance. The judges that enthusiastically support the mandate, the ones who reluctantly say it is constitutional, the ones who think it isn't even though they aren't sure why, and the ones who outright reject the mandate all agree, it is not a tax. They have all rejected the argument put forth by the administration that, although Congress specifically said it is not a tax, it still is, because that just makes life easier.

Unanimous. Only a few pundits, lawyers that are paid to keep repeating things even if they don't believe it, and fools, are still saying that it is a tax.

Stop being a fool.

a tax by any other name is a tax. this is a conservative argument. get behind it.

Republicans Call Health Legislation a Tax Increase http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/02/health/policy/02tax.html

Republicans have been focusing in particular on a provision in the health legislation mandating that all Americans buy health insurance or pay a penalty. Because the requirement would force some people into expenditures they would not otherwise make, Republicans assert that it amounts to a tax increase.

Is my name Quantum Windbag(R)? Politicians lie. Every Single One. They lie every time they move their lips. Some of them even know how to lie when they are not actually talking. Most of those end up in DC taking your money to make themselves rich.

The fact is that every single judge has agreed, the mandate is not a tax. You can line up all 535 conresscritters, throw in both Obama and Biden, add in all the people that work for all of them, and have them all tell me it is a tax. That will not change the fact that the law specifically said it is not, and that every single judge has agreed on that fact.

In fact, a few of them specifically said that, if it had been a tax, the mandate would have been a lot easier to justify. Can't have it be a tax though, because Obama specifically promised not to raise taxes.

 

[AVG-JOE]

It is, however, me buying something I do not need. Being a man, the only forms of birth control available to me are abstinence, rythm, and condoms, none of which are covered by the insurance plan I am paying for.

Please, tell me that me paying for something does not mean I am buying it so I can make you look as stupid as Plasmaball when he tried to say that.

Payment for services rendered to you come from the premium dollars YOU put in the kitty and payment for her birth control come out of the premium dollars SHE put into the kitty.

Once again, this is not rocket science... unless complicating things is good for your politics, if that's the case then there's no amount of reasoning.

I am buying a policy that covers contraception. The fact that I never use it does not change the fact that I am paying for it. The fact that I might use other services doesn't change the fact that I bought contraception. The fact that someone else who wants to buy contraception through an insurance policy instead of saving money by getting it out of pocket does not change the fact that I am buying contraception.

It is like buying a HDTV that comes with a "free" 10 year contract for dial up AOL, even if someone else buys the TV and actually uses dial up AOL, I still bought the AOL. If you buy a bunch of bananas and don't eat them all before they go bad does that mean you did not buy the bananas? Does the fact that someone else went to the same store and bought Filet Mignon mean that I didn't buy the bananas? After all, the money they paid and the money I paid both went to the same store.

The problem here is that you are complicating this. You are trying to argue that I am not buying her birth control. Guess what? I know that, go read the other threads on this same subject, you will see I repeatedly argue that my insurance premiums do not pay for other people's services. What bothers me is me paying for something I have no use for, not that insurance companies are willing to sell birth control coverage to people that are stupid enough to pay extra to get it through an insurance company.

I do not want to pay for birth control I will not use. There is nothing you can say that will change the fact that, by mandating that every single insurance policy in this country cover birth control, you are forcing a single man who has no intention of getting married to pay for birth control he will never use.

Don't try to over think my position, I made it simple. I do not want birth control. If other people want it, I have no objection. That is not the issue, the issue is why should a gay couple have to buy it? Do you honestly think one of them might one day end up pregnant because it isn't covered by their insurance?

If we are going to allow any form of coverage that does not involve wide open competition among the bureaucracies, we are ALL going to have to accept the fact that part of the price of having coverage is kicking in to a fund that people will be tapping for things we don't approve of. Get over it.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Right now it's a lack of choices.

If someone doesn't see a plan during open enrollment that suites the needs of their family, the only choice is to quit their job...

How will having less choices fix that?

It won't. Unless it gets knocked down to a single payer system.

That's the fucking point. We have to go one way or the other - either give me choices in health insurance that are as prevalent and as easy to execute as are choices in the auto insurance industry, or let me buy in to Medicare at a rate based on my age. The bullshit we have now ain't working.

The fact that it does not work by whatever standards you want to apply doesn't make it right to make things worse.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

I didn't attack Fried because I disagree with him. I actually agree with him, the arguments against the mandate are all politically motivated, so are the arguments in favor of it. Pointing out that the arguments against it are political while ignoring that the arguments that support it are also political makes him pretentious.

Some of the arguments, both for and against, are well grounded in legal theory. The fact that Fried rejects all the arguments against, and then fails to make a good argument for that is actually well grounded in legal theory, makes him an idiot.

He also happens to have a degree. That makes him a pretentious idiot with a degree.

By the way, in case you missed it, I just agreed with you, again. The fact that I actually have to explain that to you makes you a lot more akin to Oddball when he just posts to disagree with someone than you might like. The difference is, his arguments are rooted in his principles and beliefs, yours are just rooted in your constant attempts to troll the board. I think that makes him better than you.

"Charles Fried is a pretentious idiot with a degree."

Republicans have been focusing in particular on a provision in the health legislation mandating that all Americans buy health insurance or pay a penalty. Because the requirement would force some people into expenditures they would not otherwise make, Republicans assert that it amounts to a tax increase. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/02/health/policy/02tax.html

Politics Dante, look it up, then remember that politicians lie. everyone one of them, all the time.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

When the government tells me that my tax dollars have to go to a fire department, no matter what, isn't that a form of government mandated insurance? Are you against public fire departments, and if no - why? What's the difference?

I could live in a completely non-flammable environment, yet still have to pay. What the heck is that!

Taxes are part of government, the only thing we can do is keep them to the minimum by insisting that the government only do things that are necessary and proper for the government to do. The fire department actually falls into that category, even if you don't like it.

Get "taxes" out of your mind for this discussion - we are talking about the relationship between the consumers of private health care coverage and those who provide that service.

My health care dollars going in to a fund today to help cover costs of my health care needs down the road. It's a simple transaction that needs strict government controls or wide open competition, 'cause the bullshit we have now ain't working.

I was addressing a specific question addressed to me. If you bothered to read the question I responded to you wouldn't end up looking like an idiot, especially after I just got through explaining to another poster that making me buy insurance from a private company is not a tax.

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

How will having less choices fix that?

It won't. Unless it gets knocked down to a single payer system.

That's the fucking point. We have to go one way or the other - either give me choices in health insurance that are as prevalent and as easy to execute as are choices in the auto insurance industry, or let me buy in to Medicare at a rate based on my age. The bullshit we have now ain't working.

The fact that it does not work by whatever standards you want to apply doesn't make it right to make things worse.

"doesn't make it right to make things worse" - and therein lies the flaw in Quantum's fallacious argument.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Not the point I want to argue - see post #2.

Give me a truly free market for health coverage or give me minimum standards and controlled prices, enforced by a government beholding to the consumers.

Something has to give. The health insurance lobby has made its bed and needs to be turned on its ear or via open competition regardless of employment, or highly regulated and controlled.

The only other method that makes any sense is a single payer option run like Social Security, with claims paid based on a list of rules that everyone has access to.

Why am I expected to pay for something I will not use? I don't want to pay for birth control if I don't use it... regardless of whether someone else does... if they want it, they can choose to pay for it. Why is the Government forcing insurance companies to only provide coverage that includes birth control? If I don't want birth control, why do I have to pay for it?

i don't want to have to pay for your pregnancy some day, I don't want to have to pay for another man's prostate exam or for someone's heart attack or for someone's diabetes treatments or for another child's broken arm....or Rush's viagra or Bobbie jo's antihistamine etc etc etc...

that is tough though, because that is how insurance works, it is their business model structure....those not in need of the service pay for those who do need the service....

Your money is paying the insurance company to assume the risk of you getting sick. You are not paying for other people's services because, once you pay the insurance company, the money is no longer yours. How they handle the risk abatement is their problem, and if they get it wrong, they will end up going out of business.

I hope that makes you feel better about not paying for other people medical expenses.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Yes, definitely, but that's the whole health care debate, isn't it? The argument is whether or not healthcare is one of those few things - like fire departments - that the government can do better than the private market.

Why's it on the table? For the reasons I listed before; consumer has (1) lack of price knowledge and (2) lack of knowledge about what he/she needs.

Is it necessary and proper for the government to be involved in the private lives of every citizen?

No.

But it is necessary for the private lives of every citizen to be tangled up in some sort of health care bureaucracy (ass-u-me-ing of course that those citizens choose to live ON the grid). How's the current system of profiting handsomely for managing those bureaucracies working out? The system clear and easy to navigate? Costs and responsibilities easy to understand?

The current bullshit ain't working.

It is not necessary for everyone's lives to be tangled up in any bureaucracy. We managed to get by pretty good when people paid doctors out of their own pocket, and only had insurance to cover major problems. The government stepped in and started mandating all sorts of things for insurance polices, and that got us tangled up in a bureaucracy. Please note, if the current system is fracked up, adding more levels of government, and bureaucrats, will not make you an happier.

Personally, I find most doctors are quite happy to take patients on an up front basis. I generally pay about the same as most copays, the doctor gets to avoid the extra expense of filling out all the insurance paperwork, and we both walk out of the meeting happy. You should try it sometime, you might be surprised how easy it actually is.

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

Politics Dante, look it up, then remember that politicians lie. everyone one of them, all the time.

credibility alert!!!



everyone of them, all the time? okie dokie

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

Video: U.S. Health Care: The Good News - Preview | Watch PBS Presents Online | PBS Video

PBS Presents U.S. Health Care: The Good News - Preview

---

The United States is the only industrialized democracy that doesn’t provide health care for all its citizens. Of course, we’d like to cover all of the 50 million uninsured, but how would you pay for it? In fact, we could. The consensus view among health policy experts is that Americans pour enough money into health care — a $2.6 trillion industry — to have universal coverage. http://www.pbs.org/programs/us-health-care-good-news/

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Payment for services rendered to you come from the premium dollars YOU put in the kitty and payment for her birth control come out of the premium dollars SHE put into the kitty.

Once again, this is not rocket science... unless complicating things is good for your politics, if that's the case then there's no amount of reasoning.

I am buying a policy that covers contraception. The fact that I never use it does not change the fact that I am paying for it. The fact that I might use other services doesn't change the fact that I bought contraception. The fact that someone else who wants to buy contraception through an insurance policy instead of saving money by getting it out of pocket does not change the fact that I am buying contraception.

It is like buying a HDTV that comes with a "free" 10 year contract for dial up AOL, even if someone else buys the TV and actually uses dial up AOL, I still bought the AOL. If you buy a bunch of bananas and don't eat them all before they go bad does that mean you did not buy the bananas? Does the fact that someone else went to the same store and bought Filet Mignon mean that I didn't buy the bananas? After all, the money they paid and the money I paid both went to the same store.

The problem here is that you are complicating this. You are trying to argue that I am not buying her birth control. Guess what? I know that, go read the other threads on this same subject, you will see I repeatedly argue that my insurance premiums do not pay for other people's services. What bothers me is me paying for something I have no use for, not that insurance companies are willing to sell birth control coverage to people that are stupid enough to pay extra to get it through an insurance company.

I do not want to pay for birth control I will not use. There is nothing you can say that will change the fact that, by mandating that every single insurance policy in this country cover birth control, you are forcing a single man who has no intention of getting married to pay for birth control he will never use.

Don't try to over think my position, I made it simple. I do not want birth control. If other people want it, I have no objection. That is not the issue, the issue is why should a gay couple have to buy it? Do you honestly think one of them might one day end up pregnant because it isn't covered by their insurance?

If we are going to allow any form of coverage that does not involve wide open competition among the bureaucracies, we are ALL going to have to accept the fact that part of the price of having coverage is kicking in to a fund that people will be tapping for things we don't approve of. Get over it.

Why is this so hard for you to understand? The money I pay in premiums does not fund other people, it funds the insurance company. Once they cash the check the money is theirs, and what they do with it is there business. I do not object to them using it to pay for golf excursions, or anything else they might do with it. What I abject to is the government telling them, and me, that I have to buy things I neither want, or need. If the government suddenly decided you had to buy a horse would you shrug it off because horses have to eat?

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Politics Dante, look it up, then remember that politicians lie. everyone one of them, all the time.

credibility alert!!!



everyone of them, all the time? okie dokie

Everyone one of them. Can you name one politician that hasn't lied? Just one?

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

Politics Dante, look it up, then remember that politicians lie. everyone one of them, all the time.

credibility alert!!!



everyone of them, all the time? okie dokie

Everyone one of them. Can you name one politician that hasn't lied? Just one?

I'll go out on a limb here...

every single politician in history has told the truth (not lied) at least once in their political life

 

[dblack]

Oddball - I think it's a perfectly fine analogy. The fire department is a service that protects us from fire, just as healthcare protects us from cancer. Fire fighters are even trained healthcare professionals! Public healthcare can also be localized too - as in State run.

This is a point I've been hammering on for years. If we really want to provide health care via government, we can and should do it at the local level - something along the lines of how we handle public education. Something as personal and important as health care should be controlled as locally as possible. But the PPACA is exactly the opposite of that.

 

[dblack]

I believe most every single argument against the health care mandate is politics.

I couldn't disagree more. Politicians might be choosing which arguments they take up based on purely political motives, but the arguments themselves are genuine, and represent a fundamental disagreement regarding the future of our nation.

 

[dblack]

My health care dollars going in to a fund today to help cover costs of my health care needs down the road. It's a simple transaction that needs strict government controls or wide open competition, 'cause the bullshit we have now ain't working.

I'm glad you keep saying this, because it is the salient point in the discussion.

I'd also like to raise one other issue. Most of these kinds of discussions are based on the unquestioned assumption that health insurance is a necessity. But it's not. Health insurance isn't health care. It's one way to deal with health care expenses. Moreover, it's a proven failure at doing that.

The main reason PPACA was even able to get off the ground was the impending failure of the group insurance model. That's why the insurance lobby finally decided to 'play ball'. They're not reluctantly accepting regulation as a concession to public demand, they're seizing on it as a means of maintaining their dominance.

So often we think of laws that dictate standards on business as "reigning in" profiteering business. But these regulations regulate customers as much as they regulate business. Why should I be told what kind of insurance policy I can and cannot buy?

 

[AVG-JOE]

How will having less choices fix that?

It won't. Unless it gets knocked down to a single payer system.

That's the fucking point. We have to go one way or the other - either give me choices in health insurance that are as prevalent and as easy to execute as are choices in the auto insurance industry, or let me buy in to Medicare at a rate based on my age. The bullshit we have now ain't working.

The fact that it does not work by whatever standards you want to apply doesn't make it right to make things worse.

No, but it does leave it wide open to discussion and that's what we're doing right here and now.

The current bullshit ain't working and we have two and only two directions to go: Open up competition, or finish squeezing it down to a single payer option - my mission here is to simply point out that fact and open up a discussion.

Conserving the status quo in health coverage is killing this country because the current, government mandated mission of the industry is not to deal with controlling costs and managing risk in health issues, the current industry has been carefully designed by lobbyists and their lap-dogs in congress to make a select group of rich folks wealthy and make a few wealthy individuals disgusting.

If your goal in this discussion is to preserve the current status quo, you and I will have to agree to disagree on this one. And just 'cause you disagree with me doesn't make me right, I'll leave that judgement call to history.