Obama on Letterman....

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Iowa_Flames_Fan

I guess what I'm saying, Azure, is this: be sure you're backing the right horse here. There may not be any good guys in this fight (I remain cynically convinced that there aren't--certainly not congressional Democrats). But there are bad guys--and it's pretty easy to see who they are.

Have I ever used any of the talking points Hannity or Beck use?

No. So why do you keep bringing it up?

[Gozer]

Originally Posted by Azure

Uh, if you don't have insurance, you pay for the health care, all of it, when you need it.

That is a risk you take. Like not having car insurance. Get into a wreck? You pay for it out of your own pocket.

Which is why I don't see the fine as anything else than a backhanded way by the government to force people into public insurance.

If you don't want to be insured, fine, but you can't opt out of having to help out with the costs of the uninsured. Thus, the fine.

I'm not sure how I can make it any more clear.

[Flame Of Liberty]

Isn't Obama basicaly trying to create a new Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac of healthcare? Public insurer with "subprime patients" instead of subprime mortgages - the ones that cannot afford higher private insurance (and are likely to stop paying altogether) and are more likely to require expensive care (life style, poor eating habits etc).

Sure that's not going to blow up in his face, heck it's not even going to cost a penny extra!

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Iowa_Flames_Fan

You are not refused treatment, but you do have to pay the premiums if they're charged. Alberta doesn't have a premium any more, but that's a relatively recent development.

That is what I'm wondering. Are you refused treatment? Is someone without a health care card refused treatment?

Were the people who didn't pay the premium or apply for Alberta Health Care subject to a fine?

I have been in situations before where I didn't have my health care card and I was refused treatment. In fact, at the local clinic they won't even talk to you, barring a major emergency, unless you have your health care card.

If you come running into a hospital in the US with your leg cut off, they'll treat you. With or without insurance. Problem is paying for it afterwords. Because of the idea of giving people a choice, if you don't have insurance, you pay for the health care out of your own pocket. Have insurance? You're covered.

But by forcing people to get health care or being subject to a fine, all they're doing is forcing people into the public option. Assuming of course that nothing is done to the private side of the equation in regards to fixing certain insurance practices.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Gozer

If you don't want to be insured, fine, but you can't opt out of having to help out with the costs of the uninsured. Thus, the fine.

I'm not sure how I can make it any more clear.

So, more taxes. Nevermind the fact that the US middle class already pays more taxes than the middle class does here in Canada, despite their screwed up and very lacking social services, you have no problem with just more taxes being forced upon the people?

If you don't want to be insured, you run the risk of having to pay for the health care out of your OWN pocket. Nobody else is going to pay for it. Assuming there still is a private option.

Now, if Obamacare is supposed to cover every single person in the United States, then yes, forcing people to pay for insurance is a different story.

[Iowa_Flames_Fan]

Originally Posted by Azure

Uh, if you don't have insurance, you pay for the health care, all of it, when you need it.

That is a risk you take. Like not having car insurance. Get into a wreck? You pay for it out of your own pocket.

Which is why I don't see the fine as anything else than a backhanded way by the government to force people into public insurance.

The uninsured actually pose a great public risk in that sense, because most of them would become bankrupt if they were in a car crash or became seriously ill. The result is that the cost of their urgent care (which they are entitled to receive) is borne by the public, and that becomes highly cumbersome to the system.

This is the "illegal immigrant" problem in the U.S.--which is actually a pretty big problem, even if congressional republicans utterly fail to understand it. Illegal immigrants generally don't carry health insurance, and aren't offered benefits of any kind through their employer. However, they do (like other humans) occasionally get sick or injured, meaning that they go to emergency rooms in public and private hospitals, where they must be provided with urgent care that is billed by those hospitals but paid for by the taxpayer.

Most people have no problem accepting that these people represent a burden to the health-care system. What becomes the issue is when (like you) a person claims the "right" to not carry health insurance at all, and to assume the risk themselves. Well, unless you're very wealthy, you can't reasonably assume that risk--and the result is that you are asking taxpayers and people with insurance to help carry the burden of that risk with higher premiums and taxes. In other words: people who opt not to carry health insurance (or who can't afford it--that's another issue) are a burden to the health care system, even if they don't intend to be.

So... yeah. It's unfair. And you shouldn't be allowed to do it. I shouldn't have to be using my own tax money and insurance premiums to make sure that you can get your chest cracked open in an American E.R. The simplest solution is if there is a public insurance option that is available to you for the provision of basic care.

Now there are two types--those who can't afford insurance, and those who don't want it. Obviously, these cases call for different solutions, but it's clearly not acceptable to keep asking everyone else to pay for their risk (don't forget that in insurance terms, risk translates into cost) without asking them to start paying for it themselves, or finding some more equitable way to distribute that risk.

[Iowa_Flames_Fan]

Originally Posted by Azure

That is what I'm wondering. Are you refused treatment? Is someone without a health care card refused treatment?

No. I also have gone without a health care card (you should be in the system anyway), since it took three months to get on Alberta Health.

You can get any treatment you want without an Alberta Health card. You do, however, have to pay for it.

[Iowa_Flames_Fan]

Originally Posted by Azure

Have I ever used any of the talking points Hannity or Beck use?

No. So why do you keep bringing it up?

Well, the mathematical reasoning you were using before seemed a little specious... that's all I'm saying.

[Iowa_Flames_Fan]

Originally Posted by Azure

So, more taxes. Nevermind the fact that the US middle class already pays more taxes than the middle class does here in Canada, despite their screwed up and very lacking social services, you have no problem with just more taxes being forced upon the people?

They only pay more tax if you include health care premiums. Which I do--it's hard to see that as anything but a tax. But I think you'll agree that for most people it's simply a question of money--that is, most people would rather pay 800 dollars more a year in taxes while paying 1400 less a year in premiums. If those were the choices, my guess is that any opposition to a "tax increase" (which hasn't been proposed, incidentally) would evaporate.

[Gozer]

Originally Posted by Azure

If you come running into a hospital in the US with your leg cut off, they'll treat you. With or without insurance. Problem is paying for it afterwords. Because of the idea of giving people a choice, if you don't have insurance, you pay for the health care out of your own pocket.

GAPING LOGICAL FLAW ALERT!

GAPING LOGICAL FLAW ALERT!

Originally Posted by Azure

But by forcing people to get health care or being subject to a fine, all they're doing is forcing people into the public option. Assuming of course that nothing is done to the private side of the equation in regards to fixing certain insurance practices.

A reasonable conclusion if it wasn't based on a gaping logical flaw.

Insurance is a byproduct of wealth, generally the more wealth you have the more insurance you have (health, car, fire, theft, collision, life).

Those that are not insured (in super-duper rare cases) are not wealthy.

Those people sometimes can't pay their bills. Therefore, a system has to be set up so everyone pays for it equitably. Those that chose not to be insured should still help with the costs of those that can't afford to pay their bills.

Do you grasp this concept? Am I not explaining it well?

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Iowa_Flames_Fan

The uninsured actually pose a great public risk in that sense, because most of them would become bankrupt if they were in a car crash or became seriously ill. The result is that the cost of their urgent care (which they are entitled to receive) is borne by the public, and that becomes highly cumbersome to the system.

It would only be borne by the public if the guy can't actually pay for it. Which, if he has to have emergency heart surgery, he won't be able too.

My problem is that some people feel, including some here on CP, that adding a public option will increase the competition and help lower the costs of obtaining private insurance. Which we would all agree is a good thing.

But, if the majority of the people without health care are those that can't afford it, making them subject to a fine will only force them to buy public health care. Because the government WILL provide the cheaper option. Which, might be a good thing. Except for the fact that it does nothing in regards to creating competition between the private and public systems.

The result? A Medicare style system that costs billions more than it should because there is no competition in place to lower those costs. And the result of that? Billions more that the taxpayer has to pay for.

The only way you can force people into paying for insurance is through a method like the one we have here in Canada. Where the majority of the coverage is public. Even if you refuse to pay for your premiums(which some provinces still have)....you still help pay for health care. And even WITH that in place, we're still running a health care deficit. But at least to cover 30 million people we're only paying $5000/person, as opposed to Medicare, which costs $10,000/person.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Iowa_Flames_Fan

No. I also have gone without a health care card (you should be in the system anyway), since it took three months to get on Alberta Health.

You can get any treatment you want without an Alberta Health card. You do, however, have to pay for it.

Pay for it through taxes? Or pay through it some other way? How do Americans pay for treatment here if they don't have insurance?

I have been refused treatment in Manitoba because I didn't have my health care card.

In fact, that is the first thing they ask for, even if you're sitting there with a gash on your head.

[Gozer]

Originally Posted by Azure

So, more taxes. Nevermind the fact that the US middle class already pays more taxes than the middle class does here in Canada, despite their screwed up and very lacking social services, you have no problem with just more taxes being forced upon the people?

Hi Glenn Beck!

So nice of you to simplify the issues!

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Gozer

Those people sometimes can't pay their bills. Therefore, a system has to be set up so everyone pays for it equitably. Those that chose not to be insured should still help with the costs of those that can't afford to pay their bills.

Do you grasp this concept? Am I not explaining it well?

I get the concept, but I think it only more cost efficient for the country as a whole when the majority of the coverage is public.

I had an argument today with someone about the runaway cost of Medicare. Their point was that Medicare had nothing to compete with, therefore the costs were going through the roof. I really don't completely understand that, but that is what they said.

I do understand a public and private system competing with each other to lower the costs. But that won't work if the government is forcing people to buy insurance and then through subsidizing health care they offer it for a lot cheaper than what the private insurance companies can offer it for. Therefore there is no real competition, and therefore your government run program turns into Medicare version 2.

Well, at least according to their logic.

[Gozer]

Originally Posted by Azure

But, if the majority of the people without health care are those that can't afford it, making them subject to a fine will only force them to buy public health care.

Those that cannot afford health care would not be subject to a fine.

You build these grand cases on such specious reasoning.

[Gozer]

The essence is really quite simple: regulation of insurers, so that they can’t cherry-pick only the healthy, and subsidies, so that all Americans can afford insurance.

Everything else is about making that core work. Individual mandates are a way to prevent gaming of the system by people who don’t sign up until they’re sick; employer mandates a way to hold down the on-budget costs by preventing a rush by employers to drop insurance; the public option a way to create effective competition and hold costs down further.

But what it means for the individual will be that insurers can’t reject you, and if your income is relatively low, the government will help pay your premiums.

That’s it. Any commentator who whines that he just doesn’t understand it is basically saying that he doesn’t want to understand it.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Gozer

Those that cannot afford health care would not be subject to a fine.

You build these grand cases on such specious reasoning.

Assuming by saying they can't afford it, you mean they can't afford public coverage.

Which apparently won't be so costly as private coverage, remember?

In fact, the whole point of this plan is to add an option that people can afford. Because most of those people without health care don't have it because they can't afford it.

Should I assume that nobody will be fined because they'll all just claim that they can't afford health care, and therefore will get tax credits?

Imagine how that will turn out.

EDIT: I suppose they will use some sort of poverty number to figure that out. Still doesn't explain my problem above.

[Gozer]

Originally Posted by Azure

I do understand a public and private system competing with each other to lower the costs. But that won't work if the government is forcing people to buy insurance and then through subsidizing health care they offer it for a lot cheaper than what the private insurance companies can offer it for.

They are subsidizing private insurance with a "fallback" gov't option. You should know that no one enrolls in a gov't program when there is a viable private option.

I think that is a mistake and your fears are back-asswards, but this comment of yours is not founded in reality.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Gozer

They are subsidizing private insurance with a "fallback" gov't option. You should know that no one enrolls in a gov't program when there is a viable private option.

Care to explain that more?

If they just want to subsidize private insurance and make it more cost effective, why even add a public option? Assuming, that like you said nobody goes with the government program when there is a viable, but highly subsidized program.

Also, who is supposed to pay the cost of subsidizing private health care?

[Gozer]

Originally Posted by Azure

Assuming by saying they can't afford it, you mean they can't afford public coverage.

Right.

Originally Posted by Azure

Which apparently won't be so costly as private coverage, remember?

I'm with ya.

If a consumer can't afford the public option (based on income) then they won't be fined for not having insurance. That is fact.
They will also have the option of having subsidized private (or public) insurance.

Originally Posted by Azure

In fact, the whole point of this plan is to add an option that people can afford. Because most of those people without health care don't have it because they can't afford it.

?

So they shouldn't try?

Originally Posted by Azure

Should I assume that nobody will be fined because they'll all just claim that they can't afford health care, and therefore will get tax credits?
Imagine how that will turn out.

Seems like a rather ridiculous assumption, but sure.

Then there is no new taxes and the premise for your outrage is exposed as silly.

I happen to think many of these people will just pay the fine because they have money and are lazy. I also think this will enable millions of Americans to afford health care - something I consider a basic human right in the richest country in the world. But you keep raging on about lies and deceit from Obama.