Insurance Companies: Get Sterilized and Then We'll Cover You

[Immanuel]

What's wrong with controlling the poor? We're already doing it. We have to have some sort of system in place in order to provide for them. This is a specious argument with no downside.

Do you want to be manipulated?

See that is where I differ so much with people on the left. I think that the poor should be helped but allowed to lead their own lives whereas, it seems (if you weren't being sarcastic that is) that you want to control them and run their lives for them... make them vote for the people that YOU want to control them.

It is clear that this is the type of control that our political leaders (both Republican and Democrat) want over us.

Immie

I don't agree and had no idea that you actually meant control their lives. I was speaking more of having them in the system. Nobody makes anybody vote for anybody, that's crazy talk.

You think so?

You don't think that both parties don't try to "control" their bases and steal as many voters from the other side's bases? You don't think that the rhetoric of the Democratic Party is not geared towards convincing the poor that only they will help take from the evil rich people and give the deserving poor everything they need? edit: and that if the poor don't vote for Democrats then the poor will spend the next four years at least hungry and ignored?

You don't believe that the Republicans don't attempt to convince religious people that only the Republicans will fight against abortion and the ever dreaded Gay Marriage? edit: and that if church members don't vote for Republicans, there will be abortion on demand, forced abortions, gay marriages will outnumber straight marriages and Universal Healthcare is just around the corner?

Don't you realize that this whole debate about healthcare is about control?

It may sound crazy to you, but politicians are out to control us.


Politics is all about control.

Immie

 

[American Horse]

i say we scrap them, and all go on medicare...

all the hundreds of billions spent a year by us and our employers for health insurance costs can go towards paying for it.

Medicare aint free. A 65 year old woman going on Medicare will pay $250-275 just for starters for full coverage at the present moment. Insurance companies earn a profit of about 3-4% per annum. do you believe that the government can operate more efficiently and with less fraud than the insurance comanies? Who is more desirous or controlling fraud - insurance companies or a nannie state government?

Private insurers will be driven from the field into a more predictable and lucrative insurance profit base, like life insurance as people will become more cognizant of their own mortality because their lives will have become more tenuous. There are plenty other types of insurance - auto, fire/hazard, flood, liability, worker's comp etc. which lend themselves to statistical risk more amenable to profit than medical insurance for the insurance companies.

Medical Care Insurance was set up to take the catastrophic cost risks out of medical care for folks, not pay for every office visit. As long as the insurance companies could predict costs like those listed above, that type insurance was a viable for them and for the purchaser of the insurance. The more the government has interfered in the market the more competition in the field has been reduced.

In the past the only way Medicare has reduced costs has been to lower reimbursements to doctors and "providers". A universal Medicare system will in the end become a single payor system, and reduce the incentives for talented people to go into the practice of medicine.

We will end up with fewer and less talented doctors, rationing of service, and longer lines as people wait to find someone who will give humane attention to their medical needs. If people compain about the time their doctor gives them now, just wait until we get what we'll end up with after universal Medicare and then a single payor medical care system becomes law.