MAIN PURPOSE of Obamacare went in effect today - Bankrupt the Health Insurers!

[dblack]

Unfortunate as it is, the mandate is the only way privatized health care will work.

The mandate is the only way corporatist healthcare will work. There is no free market healthcare system, and with the mandate there is even less of a pseudo one. You seem to be conflating free market healthcare with the American healthcare system of the past several decades. At best we have had a mixed system for decades, with various levels of corporate-government collusion.

This colluded system hasn't worked, so the only way to uphold it is to force people to participate in it. Calling that "making privatized care work" makes no sense at all...it doesn't work and its not privatized.

The only way to get rid of corporatist health care is to do what almost every other industrialized nation does. Strong state funding of single-payer universal health care, instead of insurance based health care tied to employment.

Government health care isn't the opposite of corporatist health care. Please look up the term.

You are living in some kind of fantasy world if you believe government non-intervention would lead to corporations becoming health care stewards. Insurance companies are not in the healthcare business. They are in the PROFIT business.

We don't want or expect anyone to be our "health care stewards"; not the insurance companies, not the government. What we're arguing for is the freedom to decide for ourselves how to pay for our own health care and not be herded by the state toward some mandated "final solution".

THAT my naive friend is how a 'free market' works. Insurance companies are not in the healthcare business. They are in the PROFIT business. Denial of expensive treatments feed the bottom line.

Exactly. And government-run insurance would be, fundamentally, no different. Insurance is the problem, not the solution. What we need, more than anything, is the freedom to explore better alternatives. We need to remove the policies keeping us dependent on employer-provided health insurance. Replacing that with dependency on state-provided health insurance doesn't address the real problem.

 

[PratchettFan]

That's because the individual mandate is the option that allows them to survive. Socialized medicine puts them out of business entirely, and it was perceived that the public option was a move in that direction.

The PPACA is, in large part, designed as a bailout for the insurance industry. They are facing a dead end and they know it. Health care inflation, driven largely by the irrational insurance schemes that they have been peddling, is outpacing their ability to sign up new enrollees. Higher and higher payouts, and a diminishing expansion of their customer base is creating a vicious cycle: they have to raise premiums to meet expenses, but that only causes more and more people to drop out of their plans.

PPACA is their last gasp effort to stay in the game. They are essentially trying to establish themselves as public utilities - private corporations with government mandated customers. What could be a sweeter deal? In exchange for heavy regulation and government collusion, they eliminate nearly all risk from their industry. And if there's one thing insurance companies are eager to do, it's eliminate risk.

Not only does ACA force all of us to play the insurance companies' game, it implicitly protects them from failure. As the sole funding mechanism for all of our health care, they are assuredly 'too big to fail' and will enjoy whatever level of government assistance/collusion/bailouts is necessary to keep them solvent.

Unfortunate as it is, the mandate is the only way privatized health care will work. Unless you want to continue to allow insurance cartels to purge the sick.

The rest of the industrialized world realizes that health care does not fit a 'free market' model. Because the patient has no leverage in the market transaction.

Exactly. If you have cancer you are not in a position to shop around. Helathcare is one of those markets in which the buyers have very little choice in whether or not to use it, except in terms of maintenance.

What people lose sight of is that the purpose behind the mandate is to insure that people are not denied coverage on the basis of pre-existing conditions. If you require insurance carriers to cover pre-existing conditions without it, then people have no reason to buy insurance unless they get sick. You lose the entire financial base which pays for the people who truly need the coverage. Which means the insurance companies go out of business. So, of course the lobbied for it.

 

[dblack]

What people lose sight of is that the purpose behind the mandate is to insure that people are not denied coverage on the basis of pre-existing conditions. If you require insurance carriers to cover pre-existing conditions without it, then people have no reason to buy insurance unless they get sick. You lose the entire financial base which pays for the people who truly need the coverage. Which means the insurance companies go out of business. So, of course the lobbied for it.

I haven't lost sight of it. It's the deal-with-the-devil at the heart of PPACA. The problem is that it starts with an irrational demand - the idea that we can just pass a law that will force the insurance companies to function as an arm of the welfare state. If we want to create a safety net for people who get stuck with expensive illnesses we should create one - or expand the ones we already have. Trying to 'draft' the insurance companies into providing this service is idiotic and can only be accomplished by the kind of corporatist collusion that the ACA embraces.

 

[Bfgrn]

The mandate is the only way corporatist healthcare will work. There is no free market healthcare system, and with the mandate there is even less of a pseudo one. You seem to be conflating free market healthcare with the American healthcare system of the past several decades. At best we have had a mixed system for decades, with various levels of corporate-government collusion.

This colluded system hasn't worked, so the only way to uphold it is to force people to participate in it. Calling that "making privatized care work" makes no sense at all...it doesn't work and its not privatized.

The only way to get rid of corporatist health care is to do what almost every other industrialized nation does. Strong state funding of single-payer universal health care, instead of insurance based health care tied to employment.

Government health care isn't the opposite of corporatist health care. Please look up the term.

You are living in some kind of fantasy world if you believe government non-intervention would lead to corporations becoming health care stewards. Insurance companies are not in the healthcare business. They are in the PROFIT business.

We don't want or expect anyone to be our "health care stewards"; not the insurance companies, not the government. What we're arguing for is the freedom to decide for ourselves how to pay for our own health care and not be herded by the state toward some mandated "final solution".

THAT my naive friend is how a 'free market' works. Insurance companies are not in the healthcare business. They are in the PROFIT business. Denial of expensive treatments feed the bottom line.

Exactly. And government-run insurance would be, fundamentally, no different. Insurance is the problem, not the solution. What we need, more than anything, is the freedom to explore better alternatives. We need to remove the policies keeping us dependent on employer-provided health insurance. Replacing that with dependency on state-provided health insurance doesn't address the real problem.

OK, here is a 'final solution' for you libertarian child brains...

No mandate, BUT, if you don't have insurance, NO treatment. If you hack off half you leg chopping wood, DON'T go running to the hospital for treatment, exercise your freedom to explore better alternatives in your medicine cabinet, because I AM NOT GOING TO PAY FOR YOU. I already pay more for health insurance every year because of irresponsible moochers like you.

Every citizen with insurance will be issued a proof of insurance card. When an ambulance shows up at your car wreck, you better have your proof of insurance card on you, or the EMT's will be forbidden to treat moochers. DIE you little moocher. There is your freedom to explore better alternatives...

 

[PratchettFan]

What people lose sight of is that the purpose behind the mandate is to insure that people are not denied coverage on the basis of pre-existing conditions. If you require insurance carriers to cover pre-existing conditions without it, then people have no reason to buy insurance unless they get sick. You lose the entire financial base which pays for the people who truly need the coverage. Which means the insurance companies go out of business. So, of course the lobbied for it.

I haven't lost sight of it. It's the deal-with-the-devil at the heart of PPACA. The problem is that it starts with an irrational demand - the idea that we can just pass a law that will force the insurance companies to function as an arm of the welfare state. If we want to create a safety net for people who get stuck with expensive illnesses we should create one - or expand the ones we already have. Trying to 'draft' the insurance companies into providing this service is idiotic and can only be accomplished by the kind of corporatist collusion that the ACA embraces.

Oh, I agree. However, the only real solution for that is a government option which the republicans blocked. It was shoved off the table. The mandate, which is being delcared socialist, was in fact the brain child of the conservatives.

 

[dblack]

OK, here is a 'final solution' for you libertarian child brains...

No mandate, BUT, if you don't have insurance, NO treatment. If you hack off half you leg chopping wood, DON'T go running to the hospital for treatment, exercise your freedom to explore better alternatives in your medicine cabinet, because I AM NOT GOING TO PAY FOR YOU. I already pay more for health insurance every year because of irresponsible moochers like you.

Every citizen with insurance will be issued a proof of insurance card. When an ambulance shows up at your car wreck, you better have your proof of insurance card on you, or the EMT's will be forbidden to treat moochers. DIE you little moocher. There is your freedom to explore better alternatives...

Works up until the point where you want to force EMT's to join you in being a stingy prick. They might want to help anyway, and it's none of your business if they do.

 

[dblack]

What people lose sight of is that the purpose behind the mandate is to insure that people are not denied coverage on the basis of pre-existing conditions. If you require insurance carriers to cover pre-existing conditions without it, then people have no reason to buy insurance unless they get sick. You lose the entire financial base which pays for the people who truly need the coverage. Which means the insurance companies go out of business. So, of course the lobbied for it.

I haven't lost sight of it. It's the deal-with-the-devil at the heart of PPACA. The problem is that it starts with an irrational demand - the idea that we can just pass a law that will force the insurance companies to function as an arm of the welfare state. If we want to create a safety net for people who get stuck with expensive illnesses we should create one - or expand the ones we already have. Trying to 'draft' the insurance companies into providing this service is idiotic and can only be accomplished by the kind of corporatist collusion that the ACA embraces.

Oh, I agree. However, the only real solution for that is a government option which the republicans blocked. It was shoved off the table. The mandate, which is being delcared socialist, was in fact the brain child of the conservatives.

Yet it was the Democrats who voted for it. What gives?

 

[PratchettFan]

The mandate is the only way corporatist healthcare will work. There is no free market healthcare system, and with the mandate there is even less of a pseudo one. You seem to be conflating free market healthcare with the American healthcare system of the past several decades. At best we have had a mixed system for decades, with various levels of corporate-government collusion.

This colluded system hasn't worked, so the only way to uphold it is to force people to participate in it. Calling that "making privatized care work" makes no sense at all...it doesn't work and its not privatized.

The only way to get rid of corporatist health care is to do what almost every other industrialized nation does. Strong state funding of single-payer universal health care, instead of insurance based health care tied to employment.

Government health care isn't the opposite of corporatist health care. Please look up the term.

You are living in some kind of fantasy world if you believe government non-intervention would lead to corporations becoming health care stewards. Insurance companies are not in the healthcare business. They are in the PROFIT business.

We don't want or expect anyone to be our "health care stewards"; not the insurance companies, not the government. What we're arguing for is the freedom to decide for ourselves how to pay for our own health care and not be herded by the state toward some mandated "final solution".

THAT my naive friend is how a 'free market' works. Insurance companies are not in the healthcare business. They are in the PROFIT business. Denial of expensive treatments feed the bottom line.

Exactly. And government-run insurance would be, fundamentally, no different. Insurance is the problem, not the solution. What we need, more than anything, is the freedom to explore better alternatives. We need to remove the policies keeping us dependent on employer-provided health insurance. Replacing that with dependency on state-provided health insurance doesn't address the real problem.

Catastrophic illnesses today carry a price tag easily approaching $1 million. As an example, the young lady who picked up that flesh eating bacteria has probably already racked up well over a half million in medical expenses - and growing, and there is no way for anyone to plan for that. So unless you happen to carry that kind of cash around with you, the only alternative I can think of is to require hospitals and doctors to work for free. If not, you are left with insurance or the government. Unless, of course, we just say that if you get that sick and you are not rich, you should get on with the dying now.

Do you see another alternative?

 

[PratchettFan]

I haven't lost sight of it. It's the deal-with-the-devil at the heart of PPACA. The problem is that it starts with an irrational demand - the idea that we can just pass a law that will force the insurance companies to function as an arm of the welfare state. If we want to create a safety net for people who get stuck with expensive illnesses we should create one - or expand the ones we already have. Trying to 'draft' the insurance companies into providing this service is idiotic and can only be accomplished by the kind of corporatist collusion that the ACA embraces.

Oh, I agree. However, the only real solution for that is a government option which the republicans blocked. It was shoved off the table. The mandate, which is being delcared socialist, was in fact the brain child of the conservatives.

Yet it was the Democrats who voted for it. What gives?

What gives is politics. After getting their demands met they were then forced with the realization that if they voted for it they would be voting with the democrats. How would they use it as a political foorball if they did that? Of course, I am not saying they are unique. If the situation had been reversed, the democrats would have done the same thing.

In our system of government, the only people who are willing to go through the hassle of obtaining political office are the people who really want power. None of them are going to let something like solving a problem get in the way of their obtaining and retaining that power. If people think the situation is going to be different whether the democrats or republicans are in power, they are just kidding themselves.

 

[Bfgrn]

OK, here is a 'final solution' for you libertarian child brains...

No mandate, BUT, if you don't have insurance, NO treatment. If you hack off half you leg chopping wood, DON'T go running to the hospital for treatment, exercise your freedom to explore better alternatives in your medicine cabinet, because I AM NOT GOING TO PAY FOR YOU. I already pay more for health insurance every year because of irresponsible moochers like you.

Every citizen with insurance will be issued a proof of insurance card. When an ambulance shows up at your car wreck, you better have your proof of insurance card on you, or the EMT's will be forbidden to treat moochers. DIE you little moocher. There is your freedom to explore better alternatives...

Works up until the point where you want to force EMT's to join you in being a stingy prick. They might want to help anyway, and it's none of your business if they do.

I agree, but THEY better pay for any medical supplies they use to treat you moochers.

 

[dblack]

OK, here is a 'final solution' for you libertarian child brains...

No mandate, BUT, if you don't have insurance, NO treatment. If you hack off half you leg chopping wood, DON'T go running to the hospital for treatment, exercise your freedom to explore better alternatives in your medicine cabinet, because I AM NOT GOING TO PAY FOR YOU. I already pay more for health insurance every year because of irresponsible moochers like you.

Every citizen with insurance will be issued a proof of insurance card. When an ambulance shows up at your car wreck, you better have your proof of insurance card on you, or the EMT's will be forbidden to treat moochers. DIE you little moocher. There is your freedom to explore better alternatives...

Works up until the point where you want to force EMT's to join you in being a stingy prick. They might want to help anyway, and it's none of your business if they do.

I agree, but THEY better pay for any medical supplies they use to treat you moochers.

Well, I'm glad we could arrive at consensus. Do you want to write up the petition, or shall I?

 

[dblack]

In our system of government, the only people who are willing to go through the hassle of obtaining political office are the people who really want power. None of them are going to let something like solving a problem get in the way of their obtaining and retaining that power. If people think the situation is going to be different whether the democrats or republicans are in power, they are just kidding themselves.

Well said. But I don't think it's endemic to our system of government. I think it's a failure to limit government to the powers granted it by the Constitution.

 

[Bfgrn]

Works up until the point where you want to force EMT's to join you in being a stingy prick. They might want to help anyway, and it's none of your business if they do.

I agree, but THEY better pay for any medical supplies they use to treat you moochers.

Well, I'm glad we could arrive at consensus. Do you want to write up the petition, or shall I?

Go for it. While you're at it, make sure you have any EMT, doctor or nurse who treats moochers free of charge, fill out a form that charges them retail prices on any supplies they use.

 

[dblack]

I agree, but THEY better pay for any medical supplies they use to treat you moochers.

Well, I'm glad we could arrive at consensus. Do you want to write up the petition, or shall I?

Go for it. While you're at it, make sure you have any EMT, doctor or nurse who treats moochers free of charge, fill out a form that charges them retail prices on any supplies they use.

Why would we need a form???

 

[Bfgrn]

Well, I'm glad we could arrive at consensus. Do you want to write up the petition, or shall I?

Go for it. While you're at it, make sure you have any EMT, doctor or nurse who treats moochers free of charge, fill out a form that charges them retail prices on any supplies they use.

Why would we need a form???

To insure that there are no freebies for moochers. And no medical supplies at discount, otherwise the medical supply industry is subsidizing moochers.

 

[dblack]

Go for it. While you're at it, make sure you have any EMT, doctor or nurse who treats moochers free of charge, fill out a form that charges them retail prices on any supplies they use.

Why would we need a form???

To insure that there are no freebies for moochers. And no medical supplies at discount, otherwise the medical supply industry is subsidizing moochers.

And why shouldn't that be up the people and businesses involved? If hospitals or drug companies want to help the poor (aka "moochers"), why should government tell them they can't?

 

[Bfgrn]

Why would we need a form???

To insure that there are no freebies for moochers. And no medical supplies at discount, otherwise the medical supply industry is subsidizing moochers.

And why shouldn't that be up the people and businesses involved? If hospitals or drug companies want to help the poor (aka "moochers"), why should government tell them they can't?

If they want to help moochers, then they fill out the form. Pretty simple concept of accountability.

BTW, it is NOT the government who decides. It is the insurance companies who charge the insured more than $1,000 per year to treat moochers. As a person who PAYS, I should set the rules, not moochers like you.

But, you want to talk about how the framers of our Constitution handled that issue:

Our founding fathers did not subscribe to Adam Smith's 'invisible hand'. They believed in very heavy regulations and restrictions on corporations. They were men who held ethics as the most important attribute. They viewed being paid by the American people for their services as a privilege not a right. And they had no problem closing down any corporation that swindled the people, and holding owners and stockholder personally liable for any harm to the people they caused.

Early laws regulating corporations in America

*Corporations were required to have a clear purpose, to be fulfilled but not exceeded.

*Corporations’ licenses to do business were revocable by the state legislature if they exceeded or did not fulfill their chartered purpose(s).

*The state legislature could revoke a corporation’s charter if it misbehaved.

*The act of incorporation did not relieve corporate management or stockholders/owners of responsibility or liability for corporate acts.

*As a matter of course, corporation officers, directors, or agents couldn’t break the law and avoid punishment by claiming they were “just doing their job” when committing crimes but instead could be held criminally liable for violating the law.

*Directors of the corporation were required to come from among stockholders.

*Corporations had to have their headquarters and meetings in the state where their principal place of business was located.

*Corporation charters were granted for a specific period of time, such as twenty or thirty years (instead of being granted “in perpetuity,” as is now the practice).

*Corporations were prohibited from owning stock in other corporations, to prevent them from extending their power inappropriately.

*Corporations’ real estate holdings were limited to what was necessary to carry out their specific purpose(s).

*Corporations were prohibited from making any political contributions, direct or indirect.

*Corporations were prohibited from making charitable or civic donations outside of their specific purposes.

*State legislatures could set the rates that some monopoly corporations could charge for their products or services.

*All corporation records and documents were open to the legislature or the state attorney general.

The Early Role of Corporations in America

The Legacy of the Founding Parents

 

[Messageharold]

Works up until the point where you want to force EMT's to join you in being a stingy prick. They might want to help anyway, and it's none of your business if they do.

I agree, but THEY better pay for any medical supplies they use to treat you moochers.

Well, I'm glad we could arrive at consensus. Do you want to write up the petition, or shall I?

You do realize that if everyone had the financial resources that you people seem to have, there would be no "moochers" in this country. Read Proverbs: Blessed is the generous man for he shares his food with the poor.

 

[dblack]

To insure that there are no freebies for moochers. And no medical supplies at discount, otherwise the medical supply industry is subsidizing moochers.

And why shouldn't that be up the people and businesses involved? If hospitals or drug companies want to help the poor (aka "moochers"), why should government tell them they can't?

If they want to help moochers, then they fill out the form. Pretty simple concept of accountability.

Accountability to whom? If I own a business and I want to help the poor why in the hell should I have to ask the government for permission, or 'account' to them that I have done so?

BTW, it is NOT the government who decides. It is the insurance companies who charge the insured more than $1,000 per year to treat moochers. As a person who PAYS, I should set the rules, not moochers like you.

(I'm trying to ignore your stupid insults, but I'd appreciate it if you stopped calling me "moocher".)

As the person who PAYS, it's your right to choose whether to do business with a given insurance company (or doctor or hospital) or not. If you don't like their policies toward the indigent, don't do business with them. If you want to patronize only companies that take a hard line on deadbeats, do so. If, on the other hand, you prefer to associate with companies and professionals who are more generous, and you don't mind that that might cost a little more, then do that. Just don't try to force your preferences on others.

 

[PratchettFan]

In our system of government, the only people who are willing to go through the hassle of obtaining political office are the people who really want power. None of them are going to let something like solving a problem get in the way of their obtaining and retaining that power. If people think the situation is going to be different whether the democrats or republicans are in power, they are just kidding themselves.

Well said. But I don't think it's endemic to our system of government. I think it's a failure to limit government to the powers granted it by the Constitution.

Whose failure to limit? We are a republic. We elect people to do that for us. In terms of the judiciary, we either elect them at the lower levels or they are appointed by the people we elect. We are now back to the fact that the people we elect, almost by definition, are interested in power. So how do you go about limiting the power of the government? Short of armed rebellion, that is.

I think the FFs actually came up with a rather elegant solution to this. By having three branches, they spend so much time attempting to gain power over each other they have limited time to gain power over us. But it is not a perfect system.