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Tilted Cat Head
Administrator
Location: Manhattan, NY
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by jorgelito
Secondly, healthcare is a choice and people can make those choices based on risk. I disagree with you Jazz that people are "morons" if the elcet not to have healthcare. Even those that choose healthcare plans have choices of levels of service depending on their risks and needs. That makes sense.
I did not have healthcare for about 12 years. Why? Because I was young and at lower risk for medical problems. However, since I was young, I was at higher risk for accidents etc so I saved money in a separate account for emergencies. In other words, I was responsible.
When I got my job at Starbucks, they gave me health benefits even though I was part time. That is one of the reasons why I CHOSE to work there. It's a great company and fantastic corporate citizen. I could have CHOSEN to work other places but Starbucks had better benefits. I then chose a plan that fit my lifestyle (which was considerably cheaper than the family plan) so of course it makes sense to have CHOICE in selecting benefits that meet your needs and lifestyle.
I then decided to improve myself and went to college and as a result, got a job with even better benefits. We all have CHOICES to make and are responsible for ourselves. I came from a poor, immigrant family. But we worked hard, acted responsibly and deferred gratification. I worked the shit jobs, moved up, kept moving up and made myself better. Everyone should have saved up at a minimum 6 months worth of expenses and put aside funds for emergencies too.
In between school and my job, I had to have have surgery on my hand. No insurance. I had to pay $7500 cash. I used my credit card and some of my savings. That's the way it goes. If I had insurance, they would have billed $25,000. As it was, they we're annoyed that I was a cash patient and had to do all these special things to "bill me correctly".
That right there is illustrative of what's wrong with healthcare. $7500 to $25,000 price difference is pretty significant. The only difference is if you pay or if the insurance company pays. If the insurance company paid, I would have paid $4,000 or more as a copay. Plus all the premiums and stuff I would have paid over the years (couple hundred bucks a month) add up. The difference between having insurance and not having insurance in this case would have been negligible.
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That's just what I mean by having the choice of paying into a system. The cost of premiums is not cheap and can make the difference for someone who is just making enough to make ends meet, and not making it at all.
Also, if someone uses the system more because say they are a higher risk, more active lifestyle and the like, same payments?
will, in the Great State of California who pays for motorists that are uninsured? Everyone else does. There is uninsured motorists insurance. What does that do for you? I've never really understood that. I always thought of it as "double dipping" my premium. It has always explained to me that it helps to cover those that don't have any insurance and do get into an accident. What does that mean too? Jazz? So in your plan why not invoke something along those lines?
Jazz has explained in other threads, higher risk is higher costs to the insurance companies. I do not wish to extend discussion of risk into the realm of fredweena's kids because that's the point of the UHC system right?
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