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Yeah.Yeah?Nobody has ever claimed that " no one should have to pay".
As a diabetic you should not have to pay for insulin.
As a diabetic you should not have to pay for insulin. My Mam gets hers free. She has paid taxes all her life and for that she expects to be looked after. She also gets eye tests ,chiropody and other prescriptions "free".
Of course it isnt free but healthcare is a lottery and it is more just when everyone contributes for the common good. Its wrong that you should be penalised for ill health.
Why did you distort the meaning of my post to create a false impression ? Particularly when I clarify that people do have to pay and explain how they pay.
Because that part is irrelevant, and just a dodge. Of course when you say that they shouldn't have to pay, you mean that taxpayers have to pay. That's obvious. It's an argument you have all typed up for people who say you think health care is free. It didn't apply to my post.
I'm specifically asking you to defend (or abandon) your claim that diabetics shouldn't have to pay for insulin. Why shouldn't they?
You just dont get it. We are talking two different languages.
Try this.
You pay for your health insurance. You might not get sick. But other members of the scheme do and your contributions help towards their treatment. Money is pooled and all members of the scheme are covered. That is the nature of insurance. Those without a problem subsidise those with problems. There seem to be exemptions when it comes to essential treatment like insulin.
The NHS is a large scale insurance scheme that is better than private insurance. We pay in a small amount in our taxes every month and for that small contribution we enjoy cradle to grave treatment. Everybody is covered. Rich and poor.
We dont need a degree in mathematics to work out if we can afford a new hip. We dont get presented with a huge bill when we leave hospital.We get a rehab schedule including drugs (no charge) physio dates (no charge), crutches (no charge), dressings (no charge) and other follow up treatment (no charge).
We arent chased through the courts for money owed to corporations and our homes are not repossessed because we are not covered..
So in light of that your obsession with making Ray pay for his insulin is misplaced. It would not register with a UK diabetic who has, or will, pay for their medication through taxation. The tax is actually called National Insurance and the scheme is demonstrably better than any exploitative scheme you have in the US.
So Ray shouldnt have to pay for insulin because the rest of the world has proven that there is a better way.
I have highlighted that so that you are in no doubt about my views on this.
Try and think of it without using the word free. It is a lot easier to get your head around it.
Dear Tommy Tainant
What the Cooperative group structure is finding
is that most of the Primary Care as well as standardized costs of hospitalization
can be paid by individuals for themselves, without being affected by the health and costs of others. (The way the coops are able to do this, is by paying primary care and network providers on a retainer system, for 1500 members per regional chapter, where the distribution of higher-cost patients never concentrated all in one place still allows predictable costs to stay uniformly low. So this does NOT require pooling everyone over large populations, but only takes 1500 to get the same discounts as a larger group. And organizing 1500 per region ensures that there is never a high concentration of any one disease or excess cost, so the providers are able to take the risk, not the patients, who only pay a uniform rate for just the services they use.)
For the higher "catastrophic" insurance, the insurance companies, that agree to sell plans to Cooperatives
at discount rates, take the risk without jacking up the costs where the Cooperatives are nonprofit.
So this is no longer necessary to "spread the risk" to other members paying.
For the low-income clients receiving services paid for through federal clinics paid by taxes,
this is kept to a minimum, because the majority of health care can be managed the other ways.
The nonprofit Cooperative model I looked at also keeps rates so low,
that just adding $3 a month funds an additional nonprofit fund that can
cover incidental costs such as economic lapses affecting ability to pay.
That's still saves more money than having no safety net where such people end up on poverty rolls at taxpayer expense.
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