Government Involvement in Health Insurance & Mandated Minimum Standards

[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.

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.

Fair enough, and no bother at all... I was simply responding to specific public posts on a message board to make a general point in the overall discussion. That's kind of what I DO here.

 

[AVG-JOE]

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.

That's like saying once you put your money in the bank it belongs to the bank until it's used to pay a draft order for someone.

Does sharing a bank with one make you a meth dealer?

 

[KevinWestern]

Even early detection is not a guarantee that cancer will not kill you, therefore health care does not protect people from cancer.

With all due respect, your argument makes absolutely zero sense. What about Chemo therapy (for one of many examples)? Chemo therapy protects the body from cancer by serving as a tool that kills existing cancer, and preventing it from spreading. If the cancer stays in one place and remains dormant, the patient lives; if it spreads, the patient dies. Is it a guarantee that the chemo will win out? Of course not. But does it protect to some degree (and save people's lives)? Definitely.

Are you saying that because the Police Department cannot guarantee that a criminal will not kill you, therefore they do not protect people from criminals?

The statement "health care does not protect people from cancer" is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.

 

[AVG-JOE]

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.

I do not believe your story.

No doctor is going to charge you 'about the same as a co-pay' and call it good. Not if the next guy walks in with a little card in his wallet authorizing that same doctor to bill some corporation an additional amount for the same service.

They'll do the fucking paperwork with a smile and charge you enough to cover the difference for your work.

 

[AVG-JOE]

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?

Then you are a fool and discussing this with you is without point, sans the use of your posts to more efficiently express my own thoughts.

 

[KevinWestern]

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?

I want to stop paying taxes to the police department and fire department because I'm going to buy my own fire protection tools, and I have a gun which will protect me and my family from criminals. Would you support this?

 

[AVG-JOE]

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.

The only way to control the costs of health care services that are government funded is to build clinics and hire doctors and staff on salary and open the doors.

Can you imagine how fucked up our budget outlook would be if we were paying teachers on a per student / per test basis instead of on salary?

The teachers union is a bunch of limp-dicked pussies compared to the American Medical Association.

 

[Oddball]

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.

The only way to control the costs of health care services that are government funded is to build clinics and hire doctors and staff on salary and open the doors.

Yes...We all know how well that's working out for the Post Office.

Can you imagine how fucked up our budget outlook would be if we were paying teachers on a per student / per test basis instead of on salary?

Yes, I can imagine that...But such a model would need to be working in a truly free market environment, rather than under the paradigm of a gubmint monopoly.

 

[Dont Taz Me Bro]

That's a lame-ass argument

Only to someone who doesn't understand the concept of individual liberties. The government has no Constitutional authority to order insurance companies to cover anything.

And THAT'S a lame ass argument because that's EXACTLY what our government has been doing since its inception - regulating shit.

The government does a lot of things it's not Constitutionally allowed to do and they get away with it because of people like you who cheer them on due to your own personal greed and envy. The government is the reason why we have expensive health care in the first place and your solution is to give them more of a role.

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

Only to someone who doesn't understand the concept of individual liberties. The government has no Constitutional authority to order insurance companies to cover anything.

And THAT'S a lame ass argument because that's EXACTLY what our government has been doing since its inception - regulating shit.

The government does a lot of things it's not Constitutionally allowed to do and they get away with it because of people like you who cheer them on due to your own personal greed and envy. The government is the reason why we have expensive health care in the first place and your solution is to give them more of a role.

Jesus Christ, did grade school get out?

 

[Quantum Windbag]

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

I see your problem, you think that throwing in a fact, or two, means they are telling the truth. Politicians are a lot better at lying than that.

"It’s not enough to be able to lie with a straight face; anybody with enough gall to raise on a busted flush can do that. The first way to lie artistically is to tell the truth — but not all of it. The second way involves telling the truth, too, but is harder: Tell the exact truth and maybe all of it…but tell it so unconvincingly that your listener is sure you are lying." ~Lazarus Long

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

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

I see your problem, you think that throwing in a fact, or two, means they are telling the truth. Politicians are a lot better at lying than that.

"It’s not enough to be able to lie with a straight face; anybody with enough gall to raise on a busted flush can do that. The first way to lie artistically is to tell the truth — but not all of it. The second way involves telling the truth, too, but is harder: Tell the exact truth and maybe all of it…but tell it so unconvincingly that your listener is sure you are lying." ~Lazarus Long

Quantum Windbag - USMB House Misanthropic Troglodyte

 

[Quantum Windbag]

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.

My goal is to get the government out of health care. They can feel free to set standards and regulate safety, but they have no business beyond that.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

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.

That's like saying once you put your money in the bank it belongs to the bank until it's used to pay a draft order for someone.

Does sharing a bank with one make you a meth dealer?

No it isn't. When you but your money into a bank it is done with the understanding that you can demand it back at any time, once you pay the insurance company the money is theirs, and you can never get it back. If, by some misfortune, you get sick and need them to pay, they do so, but they do it with their money. If you never get sick you never see the money again. Ever.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Even early detection is not a guarantee that cancer will not kill you, therefore health care does not protect people from cancer.

With all due respect, your argument makes absolutely zero sense. What about Chemo therapy (for one of many examples)? Chemo therapy protects the body from cancer by serving as a tool that kills existing cancer, and preventing it from spreading. If the cancer stays in one place and remains dormant, the patient lives; if it spreads, the patient dies. Is it a guarantee that the chemo will win out? Of course not. But does it protect to some degree (and save people's lives)? Definitely.

Are you saying that because the Police Department cannot guarantee that a criminal will not kill you, therefore they do not protect people from criminals?

The statement "health care does not protect people from cancer" is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.

If it protected people from cancer they would not get it. If chemo protected you from cancer no one who got chemo would die from cancer. Chemo treats cancer, it doesn't protect you. If you want to argue that, ultimately, doctors try to protect people from cancer, feel free, but they do not succeed.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

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.

I do not believe your story.

No doctor is going to charge you 'about the same as a co-pay' and call it good. Not if the next guy walks in with a little card in his wallet authorizing that same doctor to bill some corporation an additional amount for the same service.

They'll do the fucking paperwork with a smile and charge you enough to cover the difference for your work.

You think doctors are all out to get money from people? $50 for an office visit usually covers it, mostly because it saves them a lot of paperwork. No one does paperwork with a smile.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

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?

I want to stop paying taxes to the police department and fire department because I'm going to buy my own fire protection tools, and I have a gun which will protect me and my family from criminals. Would you support this?

Doesn't matter if I support it or not. If I end up on the jury I would vote not guilty though.

 

[Care4all]

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.

That's like saying once you put your money in the bank it belongs to the bank until it's used to pay a draft order for someone.

Does sharing a bank with one make you a meth dealer?

No it isn't. When you but your money into a bank it is done with the understanding that you can demand it back at any time, once you pay the insurance company the money is theirs, and you can never get it back. If, by some misfortune, you get sick and need them to pay, they do so, but they do it with their money. If you never get sick you never see the money again. Ever.

Okay.

So, the argument of others, and even you I believe, that YOU are being forced to pay for the birth control pills of others falls FLAT, does it not?

No one on the Insurance plan policy is paying for anyone elses medications or health care needs, correct?

Not even the church who pays for a portion of the health care insurance for their employees as part of their employee compensation, are paying for those birth control pills or vasectomies or Viagra or tubal ligation or treatment for venereal disease of others, correct?

 

[Rockhard10]

opinion,not shared by the vast majority of legal scholars

 

[dblack]

I'm not sure why there's a preoccupation with being forced to buy someone else's birth control. Isn't being forced to buy a product you don't want egregious enough? Why should government be able to tell my what kind of insurance I can by, or that I MUST buy it?