If you care a great deal, I’ll give you an account number you can use to make a deposit.
[Note to Self: Send this Alert to the folks at Commonwealth. Also to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. CC Uwe Reinhardt as well. You never know what they might do. They certainly talk about this topic a lot.]
While you’re thinking about the initial question, here are a few follow-up questions:
Do you care whether I have life insurance?
What about disability insurance?
Homeowner’s insurance?
Auto casualty?
Auto liability?
What about retirement insurance? (A pension or savings plan.)
Do you care whether I keep my money at an FDIC-insured institution?
Or whether I bought an extended warranty on my car?
Or whether I bought travel insurance before taking my scuba diving trip to Palau? (It pays off if you get sick and can’t go.)
I’m sure there are busybodies who would like to run everyone else’s life. But society as a whole has taken a more rational approach. We basically don’t care whether people insure to protect their own assets (at least we don’t care enough to make them do so). But we do care about events that could create external costs for other people.
Through Social Security, we force people to pay for life insurance benefitting dependent children (who could potentially become wards of the state) but not for a working-age spouse. All but three states force people to have auto liability insurance (covering harm to others) but not casualty insurance (covering one’s own car). We basically don’t care whether people insure their own homes, but we force them to contribute to retirement and disability schemes to prevent their accidental dependency on all the rest of us.
Here is the principle: government intervenes in those insurance markets where people’s choice to insure or not insure imposes potential costs on others. Because of our basic human generosity, we’re not going to allow people to starve or live in destitution. So when people don’t insure for retirement, disability, etc., society is going to step in and help (where help is needed) anyway. Implicitly, we have a social contract that socializes the downside of certain risks. If we allow the upside to be left to individual choice, we will have privatized the gains and socialized the losses. When people don’t bear the social cost of their risk-taking, they will take more risks than they would otherwise.
Another way to think about the problem is in terms of the opportunity to become a free rider on other peoples’ generosity. Consider the person who has no life insurance (for dependent children), no disability insurance and no retirement savings program. Because he is not paying premiums or saving for retirement, he can consume all of his income and enjoy a higher standard of living than his cohorts. But if he bets wrong (dies too early, becomes disabled, reaches retirement with no assets), he is counting on everyone else to help him out.
How does all of this apply to health? Considering all of the trees that have been felled to facilitate health policy writing, you would expect an exhaustive literature. But aside from Robin Hanson’s thesis that health care is different (which I’ll save for another day), there is almost nothing!
I’m not kidding. There is virtually nowhere you can go to find a rational, well-thought-out, consistent analysis of why you should care whether or not I have health insurance.
After you finish reeling from that revelation, allow me to partially fill the intellectual void.
If we are concerned that the uninsured will impose an external cost on the rest of us, there is a simple remedy. Impose upon them a fine equal to the expected cost of any unpaid medical bills they might occur. Elsewhere, we have estimated that the full time uninsured get about $1,500 per person in free care, on the average. So the appropriate fine is $1,500.
Note, however, that uninsured middle-income families are already paying higher taxes (probably in the range of $1,500) because they do not have the tax subsidized insurance their neighbors probably have. So far from being free riders, these families appear to be paying their own way. Of course, the extra taxes the uninsured pay tend to go to Washington, D.C., while uncompensated care tends to be delivered locally. This mismatch of revenue and expense is not caused by the uninsured, however. It is the result of government not having its act together.
Note: The above argument applies to middle-income families. It doesn’t work very well for people who have assets—say, $1 million or more, and that’s about 1 in every 30 people. Also, the argument becomes weaker the lower a household’s income. People who cannot afford health insurance anyway are not willful free riders. They are not making choices that impose new costs on others. So there is no obvious social reason to force them to insure. They will need health care from time to time, however.
What is the best way to get health care to people with low incomes and few assets? The answer is not Medicaid. Nor is it SCHIP. Nor is it any other system, inappropriately modeled on the “insurance” approach to health care. More on this in the future.
Bottom line: aside from the need to coordinate government revenue and expenses that relate to the uninsured, it’s not at all clear why you should care whether I have health insurance.
If I have overlooked something, I invite readers to weigh in.
John C. Goodman, PhD, is president and CEO of the National Center for Policy Analysis. He is also the Kellye Wright Fellow in health care. His Health Policy Blog is considered among the top conservative health care blogs where health care problems are discussed by top health policy experts from all sides of the political spectrum.
Categories: Uncategorized
Yes I care whether you have all of the items you mentioned. Why? Because in this country, people are taken care whether or not they have these thing. The insured pay more and higher insurance premiums because some don’t have insurance. Car insurance? I have to pay over $100 per car every year for the “Uninsured Motorist Fund” in Michigan where everyone is suppose to have insurance but don’t. No job or form of retirement? Well just look at all the transfer payments to the chronically unemployed, even talk about 401K seizures by government to make retirement a reality and more fair for the not-so-well off (chronically unemployed). It seems no matter what we do right, others will do wrong and the rest of us end up paying for their mistakes. So yes I do care if you are a responsible person.
problem is mainly for the poor people.they didn’t get work and for them a better health care is a night mare
What an extraordinarily insightful and indepth response response. You could not be more on target.
I quite agreed with your response, I just wanted to add more comments to your topic of the subject matter. Most industrialized world has free medical care for their citizens. I believe we are doing the same thing, but not enough to cover most poor citizens of this country. I also believe that our government can increase health care clinic in big cities and rural areas, and also provided free medication for our citizen it will help a lot and in the long run it will reduce the health cost. I also believe that the preventive medicine is the key to reducing medical cost. It is true that some patients can see the doctor, but sometimes they have no money to fill their prescriptions. I am sure our government can make provision for generic medicine to cover this kind of cost. It would be the kind of money that is well spent, and the productivity of the work place would increase in the long run. It is a win win situation for all of us if our government can make a provision to increase health care clinics around the country for easy access to medical care
“We seem to understand the danger of farming our defense out to greedy for profit corporations, no-one in their right minds would disband the US Armed Forces, and put it all in the hands of Halliburton, hoping for the best. But in health and education, we appear to have done just that. None of these main ‘tripod’ societal needs should be for profit. Our country cannot afford it.”
Congrats on the time traveling Destinkeys, how do you like the future so far? Miss 1920 much?
90% of Education has been provided by government and it has been a major failure, we have to move to private and accountable education before we lose any more generations of kids.
Majority of Healthcare is also provided by the government, both care and insurance.
What is this imaginary private for profit sector providing education and health you made up?
Any society rises or falls depending on how well supported it is. No nation can survive without its’ populace healthy, educated and well defended. At least, not ‘survival’ that anyone would want to live through. Unfortunately, in the USA, only the defense of the country is not allowed to fall into the hands of private, for-profit hands (and even that is beginning to happen). In a society of ‘we the people’, our government’s primary job, maybe even it’s MAIN job, is to ensure the safety, health and overall education of its’ populace. We seem to understand the danger of farming our defense out to greedy for profit corporations, no-one in their right minds would disband the US Armed Forces, and put it all in the hands of Halliburton, hoping for the best. But in health and education, we appear to have done just that. None of these main ‘tripod’ societal needs should be for profit. Our country cannot afford it.
“Let the oil companies save the expense of trying to establish their own defense forces, by making them pay the US navy for their services. This will easily bring in a TR!LL!ON $$$ per annum.”
always amusing watching liberals and their half whit ideas chased over the ledge by equally clueless liberals. If only the ledge was higher the problem of liberalism would be solved.
1 trillion from protecting oil shipments, really now? The entire oil industry is around 3 trillion a year. Why would Canada pay our navy to protect their pipelines? Why would domestic producers pay our navy for protection? How could someone think there is a billion to be made off protecting oil shipments let alone a trillion?
Margalit and John you really don’t grasp how far from reality this is? Explains a lot of your opinions actually.
1 trillion from pot, that number is almost as stupid as the navy collecting 1 trillion. How much are we going to lose from accidents and deaths from people driving high? Or are you claiming Alcohol has no cost? Is smoking pot good for your lungs, i must have missed that study where it lowers health cost long term. And we all know how much more productive high workers are.
Care to back up the 4 trillion for Iraq war number, that might have taken first place for ignorant comments. Since we are magically undoing the war what about all the jobs created from building tanks and Humvees, all the salaries paid public and private. What would these people have been doing through two recessions exactly?
And the 34 million people still living under the rule of a mass murder, sorry your life isn’t important our poor need a new xbox and bigger free housing?
“Universal health care will decrease the burden on large corporations,”
Yes becuase in clueless liberal land a tax you can’t control is always preferable over an expense you can. Please lets tax business advise from the clown that doesn’t know the difference between a billion and a trillion, what could go wring there?
“If you want to see what a purely free enterprise health care system is like, go spend a few years in Somalia.”
Sure and if you want to see Government healthcare go to North Korea
http://t.co/h2LWCorN
Me, too.
If you want to see what a purely free enterprise health care system is like, go spend a few years in Somalia. The Somalians are experts in the arts of waging pointless wars and ignoring sick people who can’t pay.
Also, regarding the remark supra, that the country took care of sick poor people 100 years ago : the author of that statement would do well to pick up the works of Jane Addams, Lincoln Steffens, or the non-fiction of Upton Sinclair and Samuel Hopkins Adams. They lived through the early 20th Century and described the horrific neglect and mistreatment of the poor and indigent people of those days.
I don’t know who you are, but I like you….
Mr. Lane is edging back to the conversation about what to do with all those poor people. Mr. Ogden worries about the national budget. The big question is how we meet both concerns ?
We have wasted a TR!LL!ON $$$ on richard nixon’s failed War On Marijuana. Legalizing and taxing the stuff would make a huge difference in our national finances, besides dramatically cutting the income (and ability to buy assault weapons) Mexican gangsters make.
We squandered $$$4TR!LL!ON in the Bush crime family’s OFF BUDGET Iraq Fiasco II, and continue to waste $1 B!LL!ON/day there for no good purpose. We could make a huge difference in our national finances if we followed our allies out. The savings would be even more if we ended the Bush crime family’s failed Afghanistan Fiasco. In the end, by staying on focus, Obama caught bin laden. Now we can go.
The US navy ensures both allies and enemies alike of the safe transfer of oil from the ports of the Middle East, Alaska, Indonesia, Mexico and Venezuela. Without this protection, the oil companies would have to arrange for their own security. Let the oil companies save the expense of trying to establish their own defense forces, by making them pay the US navy for their services. This will easily bring in a TR!LL!ON $$$ per annum.
We spent a couple of TR!LL!ON $$$ bailing out Wall Street, and put several more TR!LL!ONs at risk to prop up ‘vital’ banks. We could have arrested, charged, held in custody as high risks for flight, tried, convicted, and, imprisoned the scores of bankers who engaged in the massive securities fraud that precipitated the crisis, and who put federally guaranteed deposits at grave risk. One felony and one gross misdemeanor. That would have prevented future generations of greed-driven pencil pushers and bean counters from doing it again, although some business men will commit crime no matter what. It’s in their nature.
The convictions would enable the banks to strip the malfeasor’s of their funds, which B!LL!ONS of $$$ would have greatly aided our national finances.
Finally, whereas both poverty and wealth appear to be heritable, and whereas the US has contended since 1776 that all men are created equal, and whereas the lack of a Federal Estate Tax tends to make men increasingly less equal, and whereas estates are windfalls for the heirs, and whereas the national finances need annother revenue stream, it is advisable that the nation re-institute the Federal Estate Tax as it was before 2001.
Do all these things and the US will be so well funded that the cost of a single payor universal health care system will not be a problem. Universal health care will decrease the burden on large corporations, allowing them to expand their work forces, further increasing the revenue stream.
What won’t work is continually pinch pennies, downsize, coddle corporate criminals, engagein expensive military projects that have no point, and police projects that are counter-productive. To deny health care coverage for Americans because you want to squander money on failed republican policies is worse than immoral, it is stupid.
This is in response to the initial question of why do I care if the next man is insured. I would say “I don’t” if we lived in a society where our actions did not impact other people. I choose to pay for health insurance because I prefer to have the security of knowing that if anything does happen I have the support provided by insurance. However, there are a few that think they are the picture of health and paying insurance premiums for services never utilized is a waste. Then there are others whose jobs don’t offer coverage and purchasing a private policy is far too expensive. Both will cause me a raise in premiums when life happens and perhaps that man that is the picture of health suddenly develops prostate cancer because he didn’t get preventive screenings or the man that could not afford private insurance is in an unexpected accident at work. Mr. Goodman suggests imposing fines on these individuals, which is not practical. A poll conducted by Harris Interactive reported that 34% of Americans have no retirement savings and 27% have no personal savings. Fining people would be a joke; they would not have monies to pay the fine. These are two different extremes, one chose not to insure by choice and one by force, yet the end results will yield the same. Both of these individuals will expect and probably receive treatment at the expense of those that are insured.
http://www.harrisinteractive.com/NewsRoom/HarrisPolls/tabid/447/mid/1508/articleId/684/ctl/ReadCustom%20Default/Default.aspx
At risk of taking your crown why is it you are always the last comment saved only by some spam? Do you project much John? Speaking of trolling I comment on the subject you run your mouth on trolling, again, project much? 2:26 am you must be really rich with nothing but time to kill.
Thanks for the healthy dose if iron(y) to start the day
Repeating my comment from another thread in January…
https://thehealthcareblog.com/blog/2011/04/21/and-the-worst-health-care-system-in-the-world-isae/comment-page-1/#comment-53798
Wow! Almost ninety comments.
It’s called The Last Word Game.
Reason and logic are not part of the equation.
Whoever has the last word wins.
For those who haven’t figured it out yet, nate always wins.
Most trolls are innocent of any sense of reason and he is no exception. He seems to be a deeply wounded individual, incapable of compromise, courtesy or sincere apology. However, I think he must be very successful in his work because, as seen here, he stays on task with unrelenting energy and determination. That level of commitment takes exceptional dedication.
Okay, sir.
Your turn…
The political question is not whether skinflints can save a buck, or whether resources are finite. The political question is whether it is in the best interests of the nation to finance a minimum health care program. The host of this blog may feel that destitute people deserve to suffer, but the vast majority of the people of this nation disagree.
As to Mr. Goodwin’s inquiry as to whether anyone cares if he has insurance, I only care self-centered people act in such a way as to make themselves as inexpensive to treat as possible. You see, their consumption of medical care raises the price of mine. Therefore, Messers Goodman and Ogden, act toward the rest of us the way you hope to be treated. Excercise, good diet, abstinence from unhealthy and dangerous activities will help.
Before I leave, I should remind the cheapskates who are willing to cut poor people off, read those dollars in your pockets. You will notice that those dollars have the name of the owner clearly printed upon them. While you may (temporarily) manage some dollars, the dollar itself is the property of the US, and always has been. Nations have always retained the right to use the national currency as has been viewed as vital. Individuals must bow to this law, or suffer the consequences.
If you don’t like it, that’s just too dam’ bad.
Thank You!
Yes, Nate. I do understand.
I just want people to stop saying “in a world of finite resources, we have to ration care”. I want them to be honest and say “we don’t want to spend our money on your care. Period.” Let’s see how that goes over….
Ever see the M*A*S*H episode when Hawkeye and BJ feign a fight to humor Frank Burns for his birthday and they end up really fighting, and BJ’s beef is Hawkeye has to always have the last word, so when they make up, BJ says “thank you”?
You’re welcome. NOT! It is not strictly a cash interpretation. May you never know the pain of having a care procedure delayed in a hospital because something was in short supply. Honestly and seriously!!!
so you satill don’t grasp that money doesn’t grow on trees? Money is not infinite, despite the way you spend it
My dear Dr. D., I completely agree with your final comment, those LIMITED resources being cash on hand.
I knew we were in agreement the whole time 🙂
“Pay them [doctors] more and you will have plenty”. My god woman, you are on a roll today!!! Who in god’s name is going to support this in DC? And would any doctor believe the pay would be seen?
I’m done at this thread because the absurd that does spark some humorous response will degrade to outrage sooner than later. I just leave with this to try to bring back the readers to the point of the posting (you know, what that guy Goodman said at the top about whether you should be concerned about having insurance), it will come to whoever has the access to the LIMITED resources this country distributes will survive. And it will not come down to universal health care, it will come down to who you know, how much you have, and why you should even be in the g-damn line in the first place.
And NO politician will have any worries, as things stand now. Good day, good evening, and good night!
I am starting to gain a new appreciation for conservative methods of debate. I don’t watch Fox news, so this is rather new to me…
First Dr. D. who is asserting that because supply is not infinite, it must somehow be limited. Are there only two forms of availability: infinite and limited? Is adequate or sufficient even a possibility?
How many empty hospital beds do we have? How many MRIs, CTs and all that fancy machinery sitting idle for hours every day? How many fully qualified students are not accepted into medical school each year? How many foreign trained physicians lingering on the sidelines?
Then Nate, quoting 15 people dead from either artificially created shortages of drugs by speculators, or “manufacturing glitches”, as proof that there is a shortage of health care resources.
Shortage of PCPs? Pay them more and you will have plenty. Same for rural health. It’s all about the money.
And then comes the suggestion that asking that wealth be more equitably distributed in this country is tantamount to killing 100% of billionaires and taking all their money (wow!!), and since killing all billionaires and taking their money will not resolve our problems, then by definition, creating a more equitable and prosperous and productive society, like we used to have when America was the uncontested global economy leader (and growing), will not have any effects either.
Are you guys serious?
per Ms G-A’s 10/10 12:29 comment:
“Health care resources are not limited in any way in this country.”
Wow, I don’t even know how to respond to such an extremist interpretation, other than remind at least readers grounded in the reality I seem to share with those who are clinicians that there are not infinite supplies of drugs, supplies, oh, and bodies to fill as providers. I know I have said some questionable outrageous things in my time here, as not everyone appreciates or agrees with my perspectives as a provider, but that above statement is just absurd to read.
Get away from the computer screen and interact amongst the people, ma’am, you might see that reality is a bit different than what the silicon based life forms are claiming!!
Kill all the Billionaires and take 100% of their money, it was said tongue in cheeck but I could see you actually advocating for it.
Kill the rich and it pays the bills for one year, what do we do the second year? Ah thats right in Liberal Math you just count them a second time, then a thrid, and so on.
“And one more thing: Health care resources are not limited in any way in this country.”
15 dead people would disagree with you….if they weren’t dead.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/09/23/earlyshow/health/main20110587.shtml
PCP resources are limited.
Flu Shots most years
Rural areas we have limits on care available
“The money to pay for those resources is limited because most of our money is extracted from society at large and hoarded away by a small number of thieves.”
Really? The total wealth of all these thieves would only pay for current social programs for a year or two. Do you notice every time you make these outlandish claims it bites you in the backside? Get the facts not the propoganda.
I would suggest you watch this, it will disprove a lot of what you believe.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=661pi6K-8WQ&feature=player_embedded
Dr. D.,
What is it exactly in the sentence “Society should intervene there and help him out” implies that we should place him on a beach and feed him fish all day long?
Did it ever occur to you that “help him out” could mean teaching him how to fish? Or is the specter of having to throw a few fish his way, while he is learning, too frightening for you?
Obviously he cannot learn on his own. Is it better to lock him up somewhere and feed him for the rest of his life? Or is it better to invest a little and turn him into a “productive member of society”, a.k.a. those cheap laborers that make it possible for the 1% to harvest boatloads of fish in return for a meal a day?
Ignoring him won’t make him go away.
And one more thing: Health care resources are not limited in any way in this country. The money to pay for those resources is limited because most of our money is extracted from society at large and hoarded away by a small number of thieves.
does anyone have data on the number of hours an overpaid american doctor works compared to those in say Greece, France, or UK?
Would also be curious to see how length of carrier compares and pension.
“I have included a link to an interview with a former Cigna VP”
LOL could you be any more naive? This fraud has been discredited for years now, how could you still fall for this? Did you even notice what Mr. Potter did while there?
“I was head of corporate communications and that was the ultimate PR job.”
He wrote press releases and stood in front of a camera. His knowledge of actual insurance and how the business is ran was right around the same level as yours.
Now lets call you out on your other lies you seem to have skipped over;
“These same companies are purging their employer plans that are costing too much,”
Seeing as how you feel for the CIGNA VP of communications maybe you really have had your head buried in the ground since the 90s. This claim hasn’t been true for 10+ years, why are you bringing it up now?
” it is clear that a free market health insurance industry will never work.”
When have we had a free market health insurance industry and when did it fail to work and in which way?
You have already walked back a one ridiculous claim about providers working only for the greater good now start walking back the rest.
“…not to the degree most are today [regarding reimbursements alone, Ms Stephanie?]. People here are blurring what people make in income versus how they invest it for further income outside of patient care and then try to say that any doctor making over set amount is just being greedy. Show me the majority of doctors doing daily clinical care in primary care, pediatrics, psychiatry, and other select specialties that have a lot of patient care flow in the office are making larger incomes, when in fact, they are not making more money, they are getting lower reimbursements and are running the risk of poor choices by seeing more patients per day to balance the losses. But, we don’t want to example the specifics to the income stream, because that might take away from the premise being falsely promoted here, eh?
So, per Stephanie’s definition, what is “paid well” versus “obscene wealth”?
Careful treading onto this ice flow, Ma’am.
“Society should intevene there and help him out” [the stoner]. Again, you basically are telling us everyone needs to sit on the beach or dock and wait for the fish, then when we call you on it, you then double talk that we should fish for ourselves. Do you read what you write?
It is about people helping others to help themselves. If you did clinical care and work with impovershed people, more and more are just coming in expecting, not even asking anymore, for handouts and entitlements that they claim they deserve, and people like you advocate for this dependency like it is doing a justifiable service?
We are in trouble as a culture, folks, and when Obama says we are getting soft, while part of that comment is to deflect attention away from him , he is not too off base in the comment when interpreted by those without a partisan agenda. This minimum wage issue is getting a bit off topic though, so I would advise to step back and read the thread to decide how this relates to the insurance topic, ’cause I don’t fully see the transition.
Again, that damn gorilla in the room currently just sitting quietly in the chair in the corner reading the paper. You all don’t want to address responsible life expectancy in this culture, do you? People are going to retire at 65 and expect to live off of ponzi pensions for 20 or more years, using up limited health care resources along the way?
If this is your reality, Ms G-A, I won’t ask what is the color of the sky in your world, because darkness really doesn’t have color, just various shades of gray that darken as the time progresses.
I have never been accused of pot-stirring, but I think I might be guilty of it today! Clearly I have hit a few nerves and will admit to two shortcomings of my earlier post: I failed to link a resource that supports my position and I failed to take into account that folks out here might not be able to have an adult debate without resorting to name-calling. Not much I can do about the latter, so let me try to correct the previous:
I am not in favor of physicians and other healthcare providers donating their skills purely for altruism’s sake. I believe they should be paid well, but not to the degree most are today. The way the system is set up currently encourages the shift from providing a service to people in order to improve health to encouraging fraud, utilizing technology simply to increase profits, and refusing to care for folks whose “insurance plan” or lack thereof does not reimburse at an acceptable rate. The current health insurance and government reimbursement system has propagated much of this type of immoral behavior among practitioners.
For-profit health insurers have set the stage for this by doing the same at their level. I have included a link to an interview with a former Cigna VP who apparently has had a change in perspective and is speaking out about business as usual in healthcare insurance corporations.
By the say, John’s link above to the article about social capital is absolutely dead on. Research has shown that social capital is positively linked to health outcomes.
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/07102009/watch2.html
Here’s a four-year-old article that might perk things up a bit…
http://reason.com/archives/2007/10/05/the-secrets-of-intangible-weal
To all those who are anguishing over whether or not you should still come here, what with all the “sniping” and “trolling” from those who have the audacity to disagree with you: you really don’t want to miss this discussion. It is of historical importance. You thought Marxism had already been litigated? Well, you would be wrong. We’re still trying to decide, right here on this comment thread, whether the “rich” really own what they have, or whether they “plundered” it; whether the poor are employed, or “exploited”; why we allow the “capitalist” to capture the excess “value” of the laborer; what is the appropriate level of “profit” a business should be allowed to have — and so on.
Apparently, it actually is 1957.
“Much for the same reason SSI was created,”
But SSI has failed to do this. It has failed miserably. The poor can’t live on their SSI, the system is broke and future generations will get at most 70% likely much less which means they can’t live on it. The early collection rules allow people to retire to early and collect less then they need, they should be forced to wait until full age. With SSI such a failure why would we undertake another similar program sure to fail just as bad if not worse?
” it is clear that a free market health insurance industry will never work.”
How do you know this? Its never been tried so what do you have to base this claim on? On the opther hand we have countless examples of failed social health insurance so it can be said that public health insurance will never work.
“No other discipline that exists purely for “the greater good” is a for-profit schema.”
Healthcare never existed for the greater good, it existed so providers can make a living just like any other business. The only profession that comes close to existing purely for the greater good would be some select groups of monks, nuns, priest etc.
How is a farmer any different from a doctor in regards to what they provide and its necessitity in life?
“It’s a business for them and that is propagated by insurance companies”
Wow, this is a stretch, how does health insurance propagate for profit medicine? Long before health insurance ever existed doctors where making a profit
“These same companies are purging their employer plans that are costing too much,”
Anything to back this up? Curious how this happens when small group is guarantee issue. Your a raving nut and full of BS.
“How did we get from $0.50 to $7.25?”
The same way we got from 1957 to 2011. Time flies when you’re having fun….
I agree with the author’s right to not utilize healthcare coverage. He can also opt to not utilize social security benefits even though he is most likely contributing to the system.
Much for the same reason SSI was created, America is at the point of transforming healthcare to protect the uninsured and the underinsured. If we look at the provision of healthcare as a moral imperative, it is clear that a free market health insurance industry will never work. If we subscribe to the idea that access to affordable health care is a right of all human beings, we need to remove money from the equation. No other discipline that exists purely for “the greater good” is a for-profit schema. Most physicians talk the talk: They entered the profession in order to help people. Some may even walk the talk by working with people who can’t afford payments all at once or even, providing care free of charge. Most don’t. It’s a business for them and that is propagated by insurance companies and by the spineless politicians who listen to lobbyists instead of individual constituents.
For Americans who hold to the belief that the provision of healthcare is a moral imperative, it is reprehensible to see what is happening to our fellow human beings. Insurance companies actively working to increase shareholder profit by streamlining their rescission and denial processes. These same companies are purging their employer plans that are costing too much, disregarding the human face of one employee who has been struck by cancer. The thought that simple concern for the almighty dollar drives this sort of immoral behavior is horrifying to most.
So, if this author does not want healthcare coverage, no one should force him. Like a previous commenter noted, personal responsibility comes into play at some point. However, if you believe that what is happening in the for-profit health insurance industry is immoral, get in line with me to take the dollar signs out of the provision of a human right.
Why does the government want to pay for care? It has been stealing it for 30 years. That must be cheaper.
Perhaps the goal is not to provide care, but to control care.
It is a crime to file a false police report.
It is an entitlement to go to the ER and whine, over and over and over again. You should be troubled.
“You don’t want to help?
I want to help those that need it, not those that are lazy and want everything handed to them.
“means that you already discounted the possibility of losing money.”
No it means I was keeping it simple so even a liberal that hasn’t ran a business can answer the question, which apparently still can’t be answered. Basically we found the flawed logic of your plan, it can’t account for businesses losing money. Something very common in life. Take bars and food for example. Appears your plan doesn’t work for the majority of businesses.
“what type of work is not worth $7.25 per hour?”
Picking up dog dirt, trash cleanup in the desert and along roads, handing out those annoying advertisements on street corners or sticking on my door, opening mail, stuffing envelopes, hostess, blogger for huffington post, fast food cashier if you can’t count or speak english, or fast food cook if you can’t roll my burrito correctly(almost everyone at Del Taco), people that empty trash cans at the airport while talking on their cell phone the entire time, people at the food court that pick up the trays, weeding, dog walking.
This is what we lost, people use to work their way up, now they expect the government to hand it to them paid for by someone else.
“Cruz: Well, that’s right. And that’s an incredibly kind comparison. Marco and I share a very similar personal story, which is that my dad is from Cuba, he was born there, he grew up there, and he was imprisoned and tortured in Cuba as a teenager when he was 17. And he fled Cuba, he came to the United States. When he was 18, he showed up in Austin. Had no money, didn’t speak English, had 100 dollars sewn into his underwear, and he went and got a job as a dishwasher making 50 cents an hour. And he worked 7 days a week and he paid his way through school at the University of Texas. And I’ll tell you, Robert, when I was a kid my dad used to say to me all the time, “when we faced depression in Cuba, I had a place to flee to. If we lose our freedom here, where do we go?” And there’s no question that better explains why it is I’m running for Senate than that question right there.”
How did we get from $0.50 to $7.25? If people could work for $0.50 an hour and make it through school why do we need $7.25 an hour plus tax credits plus pell grants, plus food stamps, and they still can’t move up?
Thanks, Bobby. I’ll look it up.
“every time you help someone you take it from someone else”
True. And the point is? You don’t want to help? There is a price to maintain a functioning “society” which allows you to create a business, run it successfully and make boatloads of money. And the price is not optional.
“deduct the value of placing your capital at risk” means that you already discounted the possibility of losing money. That’s why you are entitled to some profit. Interesting Obama jab, but irrelevant.
Your argument about the $5 can be taken to other absurd numbers such as 10 $1 per hour workers. My problem remains: what type of work is not worth $7.25 per hour? And no, splitting one position into 2 or more does not