Zone1 Should a bill be passed ?

[dblack]

I don't see any difference between having insurance companies control your medical care or the government.

Well, then let's talk about that. Because there is a very real difference. Do you seriously not understand that difference?

As for the government staying out of doctors' offices, that's up to YOU. If you keep acting like the government controls you. The government is not this giant monolith out to control the people.

And you keep acting like I control the government. I don't. I have very little influence on the government in fact.

The government is NOT the problem. It's the lies and propaganda being spoon fed to your people by right wing billionaires, under the guise of "free speech".

Yeah. Free speech sucks!

 

[Dragonlady]

Well, then let's talk about that. Because there is a very real difference. Do you seriously not understand that difference?

And you keep acting like I control the government. I don't. I have very little influence on the government in fact.

Yeah. Free speech sucks!

Quite frankly, I find the insurance companies are FAR worse than the government would ever be. My government has never denied me any care at all, or limited care for anyone. But every American I know with serious medical issues has been denied care by an insurance company that has decided they have a cheaper way to do it.

Your whole Big For-Profit medicine model is failing the people - badly. That was evident during the covid pandemic. Other than Italy, which was the first nation outside of China where the virus got a foothold, no other first world nation ran out of PPE for their health care workers. No other first world nation saw their medical system overwhelmed with the sick and dying.

The rest of the first world saw what happened in Italy and they prepared accordingly. Every hospital in Canada is electronically connected to the Provincial Ministry of Health via the single payor system. When China issued their warning to the world in early January, the Ministry requested that hospitals stock up on PPE, and the hospitals immediately sent their requirements to their Provincial Ministries, who passed these requirements on to the Federal Ministry, which placed our first PPE order - in JANUARY.

In January, Trump ordered the USA to sell all of it's PPE to China, keeping none for American hospitals, and then in March, when the virus hit the USA, he told the states to get their own - it wasn't a federal responsibility, pitting the states against one another in bidding wars for what little PPE was available.

 

[No Way]

How DARE other religions have major religious holidays in December!!!!

Happy Kwanza, dude.

 

[dblack]

Quite frankly, I find the insurance companies are FAR worse than the government would ever be.

You don't have to do business with the insurance companies. Certainly not with any particular insurance company. If you don't like the way an insurance company does business, you can tell them to piss off and find another. Or try something different altogether.

You have no choice with government. You'll get the solution the majority wants, like it or not.

 

[Greenbeard]

You don't have to do business with the insurance companies. Certainly not with any particular insurance company. If you don't like the way an insurance company does business, you can tell them to piss off and find another. Or try something different altogether.

If you get sick and don't like the way your insurer treats you, you have zero options in the absence of basic consumer protections (like the guaranteed issue and rating rules that enable people to defect to competitor insurers).

 

[dblack]

If you get sick and don't like the way your insurer treats you ...

The government should prosecute fraud aggressively. But what you want is a regulated market place, controlled by your employees to prevent unwanted competition. That's the problem.

 

[Greenbeard]

The government should prosecute fraud aggressively. But what you want is a regulated market place, controlled by your employees to prevent unwanted competition. That's the problem.

In the absence of a regulated marketplace, there is no competition. No insurer is competing for a buyer with preexisting conditions in the absence of a requirement to do so, so by definition any prospective customer who didn’t have a good experience with another insurer (I.e., a prospective customer with a claims history) is out of luck.

 

[dblack]

In the absence of a regulated marketplace, there is no competition.

Horseshit. All we need for a free market is property law and contract enforcement. What we don't need is a few dominant players in a market controlling said market with "regulations".

We need government to make insurance companies do what they promise, not to dictate coverage details, or mandate irrational requirements. eg. the demand that insurance companies sell policies that cover people who are already sick. That's like letting people bet on a horse race after it's over..

 

[Greenbeard]

We need government to make insurance companies do what they promise, not to dictate coverage details, or mandate irrational requirements. eg. the demand that insurance companies sell policies that cover people who are already sick. That's like letting people bet on a horse race after it's over..

Right, so in your world you can’t change insurers. There’s no defection for bad service, no way to vote with your feet to punish the incumbent. No competition at all.

 

[dblack]

Right, so in your world you can’t change insurers.

WTF... Where did I say that?

 

[Greenbeard]

WTF... Where did I say that?

The part where you deny people the ability to buy coverage from competing carriers. Trapping them with the incumbent means no competition. Have you not thought this through?

 

[dblack]

The part where you deny people the ability to buy coverage from competing carriers. Trapping them with the incumbent means no competition. Have you not thought this through?

I'm not "denying" anyone anything. I'm saying that insurance can't work like that. The only way such a delusional "system" can work is through force, ie government, mandates, taxes ... That's why the insurance companies decided to get in bed with government. That's why you're here.

 

[Greenbeard]

I'm not "denying" anyone anything.

You’re denying them the ability to defect to competitors. Sort of a fatal flaw in your “If you don't like the way an insurance company does business, you can tell them to piss off and find another” strategy.

A world in which you can’t switch insurers is, sadly, one with no competition.

 

[dblack]

You’re denying them the ability to defect to competitors.

No. I'm not. Your conception of how insurance works is delusional. It plays well with the rubes, but it can't work in a free market.

 

[beagle9]

Gee, what could possibly go wrong?

How do we fix it then ??

 

[Greenbeard]

No. I'm not. Your conception of how insurance works is delusional. It plays well with the rubes, but it can't work in a free market.

Where we differ is that I think a "free market" requires customers having the ability to ditch their incumbent insurer and buy from a competitor instead. If insurers can trap you in your incumbent plan, that's quite a sclerotic "market."

 

[beagle9]

Well, then let's talk about that. Because there is a very real difference. Do you seriously not understand that difference?

And you keep acting like I control the government. I don't. I have very little influence on the government in fact.

Yeah. Free speech sucks!

Ask her what government is she talking about ? The fact that we have two parties means that there is a definite choice between the two brands.

That's why one is always trying to destroy the other, and it all depends on how the destroyers become dependent on one brand or the other.

 

[dblack]

P

Where we differ is that I think a "free market" requires customers having the ability to ditch their incumbent insurer and buy from a competitor instead. If insurers can trap you in your incumbent plan, that's quite a sclerotic "market."

I think we differ more fundamentally than that. We seen to have different definitions for the terms we're using, like "free" and "market", or even "insurance", "ability", "customer", etc...

 

[beagle9]

Where we differ is that I think a "free market" requires customers having the ability to ditch their incumbent insurer and buy from a competitor instead. If insurers can trap you in your incumbent plan, that's quite a sclerotic "market."

They keep fighting this, and it's both parties doing it or it would have been changed by now. Right ??

 

[Greenbeard]

They keep fighting this, and it's both parties doing it or it would have been changed by now. Right ??

It was changed over a decade ago. Shoppers who want to switch insurers today don't have to worry about being denied the opportunity to do so.

https://www.cms.gov/cciio/resources/fact-sheets-and-faqs/downloads/faq_on_qhps_and_guaranteed_availability_6314.pdf