ces wrote:
3. "The price one pays at a hospital (or doctor office) is much less if you have insurance"
I guess so. But there is no free ride. For you or for the hospital. If you offer to pay cash up front for big ticket services you, as an individual, can negotiate "usual and customary" pricing.... basically the price that the networks pay providers.
Do you have any documentation on that?
ces wrote:
4. "risk is being spread among many insured in case of a catastrophe (such as fire insurance on your home)"
So much for Republican theory. And they know it doesn't work that way. You can't predict fire very well, so it is hard to cherry pick. You can predict health costs for an individual... so they are cherry picked by insurers.
The problem are the the Republican supported rules. If you or I were to run an insurance company and do the right thing... we would soon be removed or the insurance company would collapse out from under us. The rules are such that if you don't cherry pick, you have to charge more for your product and no one buys it. If an insurance company is stupid enough to attempt to really insure health risks, they will lost market share.
Let me restate that. If an insurance company is stupid enough to attempt to sell real insurance... they will be run out of business. They have to sell fake insurance.... essentially a buying club for health care services.
This is because of the Republican rules, and the Dumb "Johny Reb" voters that supply them with those extra votes to help screw the Johny Rebs and the rest of us. They Repubs have just enough clout, just enough money, and just enough stupid voters to be able to block any attempt to fix these rules.
Insurance is not a Republican theory. Insurance companies can predict the amount they will pay in claims. They hire underwriters (who are statisticians) who calculate these things based on prior claim history. Same principle applies to causality, life, and health insurance. Sometimes they take big loses on things like hurricanes, but that is why you often see them quit insuring property in high risk areas.
ces wrote:
5. "When there is a situation where everyone taking advantage of insurance benefits every single year, then it tends to encourage costly medical care and procedures."
This actually angers me. Are you for "death panels" or against "death panels"? Are you for "health care rationing" or against "health care rationing"?
The Repubs have no credible position on this. They throw these canards up tactically... the only consistency is they use them solely to fight change. There are death panels there is health care rationing. It is administered by insurance company claims processors. They call it "adjudicating a claim".
There death panels and health care rationing is vigorously protected by the Repubs. The protection is funded by insurance company lobbyists. It doesn't even cost them that much. They pay millions to protect billions.
I will repeat: There are death panels there is health care rationing. They aren't going away. They operate with great cruelty and unreasonableness. You think you have insurance. wait till you have a real illness. Then you will see what you really have. They don't look for pre-existing illness until you have real needs. They don't pay any attention to your lifetime million dollar cap until you get cancer. You have health care insurance until you really need it.
You haven't met the death panels and health care rationing, until you are sick... real sick, or until you lose your job.
I am not voicing an opinion about whether people are entitled to health care. I am just saying it is not really insurance in most cases, since almost everyone needs at least some health care every year, and almost everyone will eventually incur a lot of medical bills in the last year of the life. However, I do see things changing somewhat as deductables increase, and to some degree insurance is being used for more castrophic events, as opposed to for everyday events.
ces wrote:
6. GRRRRRRR!!!!!!! Why can't you see it?????????????
Since you take rather well-known non-partisan concepts and turn them into an emotional and partisan diatribe against Republicans at every turn, it is you can't see straight. None of my comments above are politically left or right, they are just the facts. A person who believes in universal health care for all people would not have any problem with what I said. Universal health care is not insurance, it is health care. Just like social security is not retirement "insurance", it is just retirement benefits.