I also resent the government telling me that I have to enter into a contract with a private corporation, and provide them with the most personal of details, against my will. Not only is the Massachusetts mandate unprecedented, its a bad idea and bad law. There are public programs that I may be eligible for, but I refuse to accept charity from anyone, be it a state or a private group. I’ve seen enough to know that there are too many people in this world who are far worse off than me, and I will not accept a penny as long as there is a child going to bed hungry tonight somewhere in this world.
I might not be the smartest guy in any room I walk into, but I’m at the very least well educated. I’ve looked at the costs, I’ve looked at the benefits, and I’ve decided that it just doesn’t work for me right now. I will take my chances. Know what? The government, and the health insurance companies, want to take my chances themselves. Am I only one major illness away from bankruptcy? Sure I am, but I know, the government knows, and the fat cats in their plush offices at the insurance companies all know that the odds of me getting a major illness are extremely unlikely.
I’m not invincible. I can be hit by that bus. I can be diagnosed with cancer. I can slip on my nephew’s matchbox car and crack open my skull. I can also use what’s inside that skull to decide what is best for me. I decide that means taking the money I could be paying in health insurance premiums and putting it elsewhere.
As we finally come to a vote on a health care reform bill, I, as a Democrat who normally favors a strong government to assist the least among us, ask those who represent us to do away with the personal mandate. The intentions are noble, but so were those of every other brick in the proverbial road to hell.
Because as you don’t know, if unfortunately it were to happen that “I can be diagnosed with cancer. I can slip on my nephew’s matchbox car and crack open my skull.” I (any my fellow policyholders) would be paying for your care.
I don’t care who I eventually get insured by, so long as my rates are 1) not being subsidized by taxpayers (beyond the normal redistribution inherent in any insurance plan), and 2) that I can afford it.
…which is a tax deductible expense, you’re getting “taxpayer subsidized” health insurance. Do you plan on declining any employer sponsored health insurance and pay the tax penalty?
Do you go for physicals? Not necessarily every year, but maybe even once every couple of years?
Not since high school, when I had to get a form signed to play sports. If I’m sick then I’ll go to the doctors. Since I’m not, I won’t waste my time or money to have a doctor tell me what I already know.
“If I’m sick then I’ll go to the doctors[sic].” Give me a break. So you know without a doubt, just because you think you have no symptoms, that you’re perfectly healthy?
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p>You are perhaps well intentioned, but you’re either so naive it’s embarrassing or you’re a spoiled 15-year-old who feels entitled to take everything from society without giving anything back.
So would you be willing to sign a waiver, were one to exist, that stated that absolutely no taxpayer money will be used for your clinical care under any circumstances? That means, you get smashed by the bus, you pay the entire freight–all of it. No free care pool dipping for the hospital that provides you care, and your pay will be garnished for as long as you work. And if you work under the table and continue to be uinsured, then you will continue to be ineligible for any taxpayer-underwritten care. If you are unable to work, too, because of your run-in with the bus, you will NOT receive any taxpayer-subsidized benefits at all–none. Moreover, you will carry the debt of your care on your credit report until the debt is discharged.
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p>What say you? Got a pen? How about a refrigerator box?
I would happily sign one. I don’t expect or want – and indeed I am breaking the law to avoid – any one else to pay my bills.
Would that were the reality, though. The fact is that should something catastrophic happen to you, I and other taxpayers would end up footing some of your expenses, so your bravado is hollow, at best.
and there is still a percentage of us uninsured.
Sure we did. And until there’s major reform, we will continue to pay for you. And you’ll depend upon us to do that. Lovely.
First of all we would all “have” to pay for your care but secondly did you really think lightiris would believe you? You are a great example of how a truly “open” system should work but unfortunately the downside is you could die and we don’t have the heart as a society to let you die. The answer for folks like you might be to create policies which are truly “catastrophic” medical policies where any care you want which essentially doesn’t keep you alive is paid for by “you”. The bad part of that type of insurance would be you lose your job and we’d end up paying for you anyway.
The commonwealth connector offers a number of “bare bones” plans which are quite affordable if you are in a low risk pool (i.e. under 30 and single)
I also read this as being opposed to the policy rather than a proclamation that he was going to violate the law. IF we insist on this being the policy then yes, everyone should buy in unless a waiver is granted based on income, but I think this is a horrible policy for many of the same reasons stated in the diary. Of course if single-payer were being seriously considered we wouldn’t have to wring our hands over this.
The point I was trying to make was “worthless”, hence the 3 from you?
A couple things. I personally consider it bad form to downrate people with whom I am exchanging comments. If you’re going to have a disagreement, then, in general, I think it’s a good idea to refrain from downrating. A pet peeve of mine.
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p>Having said that, you consistently rate comments as a “4” simply because that person disagrees with you. That person’s comment may not need any work at all, but you simply disagree. Same principle at play here. No, your comment is not worthless at all, but neither does mine need work. See?
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p>For the most part I give out 6s because I’m more about a shout-out than a slap across the face. When I give 3s, I generally give them to the habitually disruptive, shall we say, in conjunction with others. Rarely do I use a 4 because, in my view, “needs work” is simply another way of saying I disagree with you. “Worthless” pretty much says I disagree with you a lot, and in the case of disrupters, indicates troll.
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p>Does this all make perfect sense? No, I don’t think so, but it is what it is. I will gladly remove the 3 if that makes you feel better. I still reject your assessment, however, that my comment “needs work.” Ugh.
I reciprocated by also removing my rating, but I thought there was a bit of an edge to your tone which I was objecting to in that particular case. (I likewise would have accepted a 4 without comment if you thought I didn’t have a good position on this topic.) After a slew of 3s from PurpleMassGroup, followed by zeroes from billxi in our discussions of Gloucester I was thinking we have a couple of downraters. I confess it was your three on top of that that pushed me to write my diary about the use of ratings in general precisely because I didn’t expect it from you and I was starting to wonder what in the world was going on, that maybe I was becoming offensive, though I certainly didn’t think so.
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p>I’ve often wondered whether the ratings should be changed to 3, 4, 5, and 6 being strongly disagree, somewhat disagree, somewhat agree, and strongly agree respectively, with zero saved for the egregiously offensive. If the editors were to adopt that system there might be more threes, but I for one wouldn’t take them so harshly or personally. I actually share your pet peeve about downrating, though sometimes I get lazy.
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p>BTW, it appears you stuttered when hitting the post button.
with the idea of changing the descriptors to something along the lines of what you state. That make this thing a lot less personal.
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p>I don’t know what happened with the duplication. Hmm.
A couple things. I personally consider it bad form to downrate people with whom I am exchanging comments. If you’re going to have a disagreement, then, in general, I think it’s a good idea to refrain from downrating. A pet peeve of mine.
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p>Having said that, you consistently rate comments as a “4” simply because that person disagrees with you. That person’s comment may not need any work at all, but you simply disagree. Same principle at play here. No, your comment is not worthless at all, but neither does mine need work. See?
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p>For the most part I give out 6s because I’m more about a shout-out than a slap across the face. When I give 3s, I generally give them to the habitually disruptive, shall we say, in conjunction with others. Rarely do I use a 4 because, in my view, “needs work” is simply another way of saying I disagree with you. “Worthless” pretty much says I disagree with you a lot, and in the case of disrupters, indicates troll.
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p>Does this all make perfect sense? No, I don’t think so, but it is what it is. I will gladly remove the 3 if that makes you feel better. I still reject your assessment, however, that my comment “needs work.” Ugh.
Granted, I’d rather we pay through a progressive income tax rather than through insurance premiums, but everyone needs to pay their fair share and under a national health care plan your taxes would surely rise.
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p>The whole point of insurance is pooling risk – it’s going to cost $X.X trillion to provide health care to the population every year, we need to raise more than $X.X trillion to pay for that care and sock some away for a rainy day (although I hear your point about not raising that extra to line insurance company pockets).
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p>If you want to provide insurance to sick poor people, 20 something men who aren’t accessing health care need to subsidize it.
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p>
This isn’t about you it’s about society at large.
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p>It’s hard to get excited about the Obama/Baucus bill, or even the House bill, but what they accomplish is making everyone a health care voter. Once that happens, hopefully a more rational discussion can ensue and the next time it comes up we’ll get actual health care reform, but you’re going to have to pay then too…
There are too many that have this same philosophy. Whether or not you can or can’t pay, you think it’s a bad idea. If you can’t pay the insurance then you have to pay the smaller fine. That will at least be some money to cover an unexpected event. And they are all unexpected events. I too am a healthy person. I am active and have no chronic illnesses. While playing soccer, I suffered an unexpected injury. $10,000 for the surgery. $3,000 for physical therapy. $1,000 for the emergency room visit. I only had to pay $250 out of pocket. I have insurance. I have paid for it for 20 years. You can guess that I could have saved up $14,000 over those 20 years, but who does that? It’s like social security and medicare. You pay for a while and then you use it. My wife also had surgeries and other procedures so you can guess that it’s at least doubled what I would have had to pay. And then there’s the kids. My point is that the responsible person is the one who protects his and his family’s future. But it goes beyond that. I am not a burden on society when I do that. No one had to come to my rescue with Medicaid money or Mass Health money. You say yourself that you are one step away from being injured or sick. Do the right thing and get covered. No one goes out and plans an accident or illness. People who see doctors get sick just as much as those who don’t. You play the odds and we pay the bills.
I’m glad you have felt the $30,000 you have spent on insurance over the past 20 years has been a good investment. Why am I not allowed to decide it would be better to invest that money somewhere else, like in my business, the stock market, or elsewhere, and put away enough money to pay for my soccer injury?
Go to a lawyer and see if you can write up a “Do not treat” mandate. If the lawyer says it’s possible to do legally–though nearly impossible to practice logistically, since if you’re knocked out by that rogue bus you won’t be able to tell the ambulance to go away–have one drawn up. Sign it. Post it here.
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p>When UPS and Fed Ex are compared to the Post Office by Obama it is not an appropriate analogy.
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p>It would have to be that UPS and Fed Ex need to compete with the Post Office with one big difference… It would be free to mail anything anything at the post office and employers would have to pay for UPS and Fed Ex and pay an additional fine for using either business.
You’re being utterly absurd when you say that the us postal service would need to be “free” for it to be an accurate metaphor.
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p>The public option will cost real money for most people, just like private insurers do, the difference is it won’t have to make a profit margin and it’s mainly designed to insure good coverage is available everywhere.
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p>In fact, that’s exactly what the postal service does. I have to travel much further to ship something out with UPS/Fed Ex than I do the mail, which I can drop in the bucket down the street. The post office ensures good, reasonably-priced coverage is available to everyone around the country, which is exactly what a public option would do. It isn’t always better for what I want to do, and in those cases I choose the “private options” and send stuff out Fed Ex, but at least I have that baseline assured and a public option competing with the private ones to keep prices down.
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p>With the public option, the private market will be fine, even if it has to change some business practices — making less denials, covering people with preexisting conditions, etc. To pay for some of that, they may have to cut back on executive salaries or lay off many of the people who’s jobs are to find reasons to deny coverage.
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p>Similarly, Fed Ex and UPS do fine. In fact, an argument could be made that the US Postal Service helps companies like Fed Ex and UPS, because the Post Office sorts the bulk of mail, all the billions of letters, magazines and ads that get moved through the system every year that aren’t profitable. A lot of “unprofitable” people will choose the public option, almost certainly a disproportionate amount. So, in a lot of ways, the private companies should be thankful. As it will be with the public option health care, because a disproportionate amount of people who have preexisting conditions or are prone to sicknesses will likely choose the public option (according to the experts, anyway).
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p>At the end of the day, it isn’t up for debate that health insurance companies will make hundreds of millions off this health care reform bill. The real reason why they’ve been so aggressive in blocking the public option is because they want hundreds of millions more. Greed is what this is all about.
I live in a safe neighborhood, am unlikely to be robbed, and have no intention of setting my house on fire. I’ll happily sign something that says I don’t expect the police or fire department to help me so long as I can stop paying for their services.
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p>And then there are those schools. I’m not in public school. No kids there, either. Why should my property taxes go to pay for something that clearly doesn’t benefit me.
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p>You know, I rarely drive these days, and when I do my car has 4wd, so I don’t need well-maintained roads either. I’m pretty sure my car can handle a few bumps and I’ll pay the repairs if it can’t, but I’m tired of having to pay for road construction and maintenance.
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p>And as a pedestrian, I know when it’s safe or not safe to cross. Why do I have to pay for walk signals? It’s clearly not something I need, and the local taxes are really taking a chunk out of my wallet.
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p>…
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p>Ultimately the health insurance debate isn’t about who gets sick and who doesn’t, or who needs coverage and who doesn’t. It’s about what we as a society value. Do we value a community where everyone gets healthcare who needs it or would we prefer a place where medical treatment is only available for those who can pay for it, either out-of-pocket or with insurance?
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p>I hope that I never have to use the police or fire services, but I’m happy to pay for them, because I know and trust that if that unlikely day comes, they’ll do the same for me as they would for anyone else, no matter who I am or what I earn. I can’t say the same for health care. And that needs to change.
Police. Fire. Roads. Schools. You’re talking about analogues to single-payer, or (in the case of schools) a public option that competes with private options. But we’re not going to get any of that. We’re going to get a shitty bill that nibbles around the edges of the problem while making the insurance companies much, much better off. Feh.
Eury13’s comment is a perfectly good analogy in theory, and you toss it aside because your crystal ball has told you that in practice we’re not going to get that kind of result. You’re probably right, but negating apples=apples because we’re may get apples=oranges instead doesn’t make the original analogy wrong.
The police, fire, and school departments are all public agencies accountable to us. An insurance company is an office in Manhattan accountable to stockholders. David is right – they are analogous to single payer systems, not the private health insurance system we have now.
As noted by David above, the orginal analogy was “Police. Fire. Roads. Schools. You’re talking about analogues to single-payer, or (in the case of schools) a public option that competes with private options.”
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p>So it was an accurate analogy.
a “0” rating is reserved for material that is inappropriate to appear on the site — personal attacks and the like. My comment obviously does not fall within that category, so I’d respectfully suggest that you revise the rating.
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p>Thanks.
I thought I was deleting a rating I had given I felt was wrong (too low). I didn’t mean to post a zero. That would be very rude–in my short time at BMG, even through some of the worst back-and-forths (gay marriage, elections, etc.) I’ve read some wretched posts but I would never give anything a zero. I just wouldn’t rate it.
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p>Please accept my sincere apologies.
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p>karen
When the Government agrees to have the same plan for themselves as they want for ‘us’ I will start to listen. It’s like someone telling you that a mushroom is safe and insisting that you take the first bite.
I respectfully disagree with the thought that car insurance and health insurance can be compared. If so; the single payer would require that I also pay for everyone elses oil changes, tires, brakes etc.
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p>When is the last time the Government ran something better than the private sector? Why not start by making what we have better; start with tort reform. Look at it this way; you would have that with single payer. Ever think about a lawsuit against the feds…..
So many things wrong, so little time.
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p>(1) You don’t think a whole group’s action affects your car insurance premiums? Try living in Boston and then moving to, say, Framingham and notice your premiums lower. That’s not because of you.
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p>(2) The government wouldn’t be running health insurance. It would be paying for it, or sponsoring it if you prefer. Does that with veterans and senior citizens and has done a competent job–better than a private health insurance company would do, for damn sure. I wish I was older, for the first time in my life, so I could be eligible for government-sponsored health insurance.
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p>Besides, pretty much every social program the government has run since FDR has been run better by the private sector, because the private sector isn’t held accountable and only cares about short-term profits.
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p>(3) Civics 101: We elect the government; we ARE the government. If you don’t like the government, then use your rights as a citizen of the United States to change it: vote, write and call your legislators, run for office. But don’t pretend that the government is from another country and has no right to legislate.
When the Government tells you that a plan is for you and not for them you should wonder why.
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p> I want the Government on the same plan as me. Explain to me why the Government should have the right to mandate a system for me which is not mandatory for them?
I want to be on Congress’ plan as well. And if Congress had to be on our horrible plans you can bet there’d be better health insurance for all .
“(3) Civics 101: We elect the government; we ARE the government. If you don’t like the government, then use your rights as a citizen of the United States to change it: vote, write and call your legislators, run for office. But don’t pretend that the government is from another country and has no right to legislate.”
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p>STANDING OVATION!
“Besides, pretty much every social program the government has run since FDR has been run better by the private sector, because the private sector isn’t held accountable and only cares about short-term profits.”
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p>That should read:
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p>”Besides, pretty much every government-run social program since FDR would have failed under private sector ownership because the private sector isn’t held accountable and only cares about short-term profits.”
without a public option. It would be literally criminal to force people to pay the high premiums for lousy insurance that is currently the status quo. It would simply be a
a great big kiss to the insurance industry and that’s it. Not only will they get tons of more policy holders, but they will receive a fat check from the government for every preexisting condition they accept.
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p>I haven’t had to deal with the Mass mandate because I am covered by employer provided benefits. The only thing I have to do is show proof at tax time. I have been to Mass
Connector to check it out for my daughter after she graduated and did check out our family status should we ever need it. The price was RIDICULOUS. We certainly couldn’t afford it. We just happen to be lucky to have very low premiums for very lousy insurance, instead of very high premiums for very lousy insurance. I know that is rare.
and it’s even more absurd to feel lucky for that.
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p>Part of reform is reducing cost. If we don’t get that then it is nothing more than a taxpayer funded big win for special interests. Hurray!
to hell with your personal assessment of risks and benefits. You don’t want to buy into the health insurance pool? Fine. But don’t go to the hospital and jack up my premiums when you get hit by that bus.
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p>But of course no one would let that happen. So it’s time for you and every other Invincible Boy like you to pony up.
If I’m still lucid after getting hit and I can’t pay, or work out a payment plan with the hospital, I won’t accept treatment. I’ll let that happen as a consequence of a freely chosen action. Happy?
It doesn’t work. You’re a fine, upstanding guy that will never get sick. And if someone else injures you, you’ll get on a payment plan and make every single payment on time.
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p>But how many are as good as you? How many others will default on those payments? File for bankruptcy protection to get their medical bills discharged?
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p>Sorry. No deal. It’s immoral–and I think illegal–for someone to be denied care in an emergency situation. So the bills will be there.
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p>Maybe we could set up some sort of medical bonding system?
Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act
If you really want your health care reform (no preexisting conditions, this “public option” which I’m interpreting to mean free health care, sorry folks), the only thing that I can guarantee is that 20 years from now you will be 20 years older, and you’ll be looking at your “argument” in an entirely different light.
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p>Assuming you lead a healthy young lifestyle; but what happens when you flip off your mountain bike and break something? Or God forbid that lump that keeps bugging you is a tumor? Ever price out what someone with no insurance pays as a bill compared to someone covered by insurance? My wife had cancer surgery 5 years ago; bill from MGH that if I had no insurance was $30k; BCBS paid $8k. Guess where you’ll fit in for the payment scale. Want to bankrupt your future (or more likely have the rest of the posters on this board pay for you – that’s why they call it insurance).
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p>Reality is that if you want health care reform, you DO have to mandate everyone pay in; maybe you’re subsidizing now when you’re young, but when you’re older and this is significant (or when you have a family to consider rather than yourself) it’s the only way it can work.
Very well said Mike. I think that the biggest mistake we can make is to hurry this. Why such a rush when the plan is not to be implemented for 3 years. WShy not spend three years making a good plan and implement it quickly?
It’s been since the 60s that this country last passed fundamentally important health care legislation. Rushed? The ideas we’re now discussing have been hashed and rehashed for years now. Rushed?!? We’ve now spent about year on this current health care debate with no end in sight. RUSHED!?!??!?
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p>Are you out of your mind, sir?!!?
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p>The Republican cry for delay is actually a cry for denial. However, instead of denying coverage to one person this time, like their insurance company donors have been doing for decades now, they want to deny the entire American people from decent, affordable health care coverage for all. They know that once this reform passes, if its decent anyway, it will fundamentally transform politics in America. Delay it my ass!
he didn’t make a case for Congress to slow down, he made a case against opting out.
If part of Health Care Reform is elimination of pre-existing conditions (and no experience rating for those who are older or very ill) then you HAVE to have mandatory buy in (remember, it is an integral part of the Massachusetts model). Otherwise, why not just wait until you get that serious diagnosis and then sign up for insurance. I don’t care if you have private insurance companies or this panacea of public option, it won’t work unless everyone is part of the paying in pool. Cherrypicking works both ways.
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p>One thing that does concern me (and should give pause to those espousing this single payer/public option) is the right to recourse. Certainly private insurance companies can and do reject claims (think the first word taught to insurance underwriters when they’re young is “No”). However, you have the right to review boards and you also have the ability for government to get involved to brow beat “no” to “yes”. What happens though when the government is footing the bill / reviewing the claim? Who do you turn to then; that old bromide of “you can’t fight city hall” could prove true.
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p>As an aside, I had a client recount her experience recently battling Medicare in the course of caring for her ailing father. He was in a nursing home receiving physical therapy and reached a “plateau” stage in treatment; not getting better, but not getting worse. Under the Medicare rules, PT had to stop because he wasn’t showing any improvement. She approached the therapist to see if she could pay him directly herself to continue therapy and was told that if he accepted her money he would no longer be able to practice under Medicare. Further, since her father was in a nursing home, she was forbidden from bringing in anyone from the outside to provide treatment. I don’t think that my client was exactly enthralled with government run health care after that experience.
You also run the risk of contracting an infectious disease and getting everyone else sick. That is why you can be quarantined against your will if you get some illnesses. A requirement that you have health insurance — to make sure you stay healthy — can be justified along similar lines. It has nothing to do with the risks to yourself, and everything to do with the risks you pose to others.
1st, having no health insurance is irresponsible. Sorry, but it is. I don’t care what shape you’re in, an accident can happen anytime. You’re playing Roulette with your health — and it’s the Russian kind. Plus, if you do get unlucky, not only could it lead to your financial ruin, but also cost the system a great deal — to be picked up by taxpayers.
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p>2nd, I completely agree the mandate, as constituted, is a complete corporate giveaway. The solution isn’t, however, to be obtuse. The solution is a public option or single payer. Everyone must be covered, but we need not turn that coverage into a form of corporate welfare.
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p>3rd,
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p>I’m sorry, but this is asinine:
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p>
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p>Charity? It’s a freaking government program! Do you use the roads? Have you ever used any form of public education? Getting insurance through the Commonwealth Exchange, including any subsidies it would almost certainly offer you given your statements about your financials, is no more a “charity” than is any of our other government programs. We, in Massachusetts, have recognized that health care is a human right and made great efforts to get coverage close to 100%. Charity would be you getting hit by that bus and US taxpayers being forced to cover your expenses, because you won’t be able to afford it. Stubbornness is what you have, by refusing to even looking into your full options — something that, on aggregate, probably saves money for taxpayers as a whole.
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p>I’m sorry I have little patience for this ineptitude, but it’s just glaring. And stupid. And you could, one day, lose everything because of it. I’ve seen people die because they didn’t have access to health care in time to catch diseases before they grew out of control, before our health bill. It could happen to anyone, even you.
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p>Finally, why don’t you look into your options? Any individual earning less than $54k is eligible for at least some subsidy. And it ain’t charity.
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p>I absolutely implore you to go to the Connector website and find some kind of coverage, even if it’s the kind that mostly kicks in for disasters. Given your statements about your age and health, not to mention income, you can probably find something relatively affordable — perhaps not even much more than your tax penalty.
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p>Here’s the Connector’s website: https://www.mahealthconnector.org
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p>Here’s the affordability tool, to find out around how much you’d have to pay: https://www.mahealthconnector….
My question is simple Ryan. Please answer it without calling me names:
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p> Why is our government unwilling to have the same plan as they wish for the people to have?
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p>I want reform; It is needed.
My understanding is that the public option is essentially opening up to the rest of us the choice of plans that Congress and federal employees currently enjoy.
I almost didn’t respond to this because your tone and attitude turned me off so, but I’m not going to have you or anyone else call me inept and stupid and not respond.
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p>1 – I’ve already said I would like to have insurance, but I can’t afford it.
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p>2 – Pass a single payer system and I might change my approach. Until then I’m not being obtuse, I’m reacting to the facts as they exist.
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p>3 – It is charity. I have no problem paying my fair share for a government program. If I want to camp in a state park then I will pay the fee associated with it. If I can’t afford it I wont go. I don’t expect taxpayers to subsidize my camping trip because I’m broke.
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p>Finally, I know what my options are already. Don’t implore me to do anything. I don’t appreciate your condescension. And when people have to implore you not to call them names before they respond to your comments, it might be time to reevaluate your approach.
If you get hit by that bus, an ambulance will come. You will be brought to the hospital. It will likely cost taxpayers thousands — who’s going to get that bill?
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p>Getting insurance through the exchange is not charity. It’s a government program, one you would be paying into. You’re already paying the fine, I have a hard time believing that one of the options in the exchange won’t be affordable as the fine is pretty hefty and you claim to not have much funds. If you believe using government services is “charity,” please feel free to start reimbursing your home town and the state of Massachusetts for educating you — and start sending donations self-imposed fees to the state for using the roads.
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p>
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p>That sort of view is, as I said, stubborn and obtuse. It’s more faith than anything else. Plus, rejecting dialogue on a blog, of all places, is absolutely nonsensical.
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p>Why are you writing here if you aren’t willing to engage in dialogue? I spent a fair amount of effort digging up those links for you (the affordability tool was not actually that easy to find), so I hope you at least click those links and rethink your position.
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p>Finally, I have called you no names — I’ve just criticized your actions. Your reactions to my post, I’m afraid, are rather revealing. As the saying goes, if you can’t handle the heat, get out of the kitchen. What exactly where you expecting coming to a blog and flaunting disregard for your health or your willingness to force Massachusetts taxpayers to pick up the bulk of your costs to the system when something does, inevitably, happen to you?
As I said way up at the very top, I don’t care who insures me when I finally do get it. Should we eventually move to a single-payer system, or should I eventually go with another public option, I won’t consider that to be charity, just as I don’t consider going to a state park to be charity.
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p>What I do consider charity is when I get charged below market rate because I don’t make as much money as someone else. I pay the same tax rate for schools and roads as everyone else.
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p>Finally, I’m more than willing to engage in a dialogue with others on this topic. I just don’t want to hurt my neck looking up at you on your high horse (I’m uninsured, after all).
(with apologies to those who object to debate by anecdote)
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p>For many of us purchasing insurance is basically betting AGAINST probability. A few years ago I purchased a year’s worth of health insurance, albeit at a student rate, but I was unemployed and on a VERY limited budget. I was/am very healthy and I think I ended up getting a free flu shot and a couple of free trips to the university infirmary just to check on a couple of things out of the deal. Had I not been insured those things would have cost less than $100 total out of pocket, yet I spent several hundred dollars for insurance, the vast majority of which I feel was flushed down the drain at a time in my life when I didn’t have money to burn. I really do understand the legal and moral arguments for everybody to be insured as an abstract concept, but this experience really soured me on the idea of paying for something, the chance of which I’ll actually need is slight. For me it’s another argument for single-payer as it should be a tax-funded service like public safety and schools.
If you went to the doctors, you’re not walking in that door and playing less than a hundred bucks. Given that you went and had stuff done several times, you’re probably looking at close to a thousand dollars of expenses that you would have been charged out of pocket. That’s probably roughly what you paid for your student insurance.
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p>Plus, while your chance of needing something right now is slight, the chances rapidly expand as you get older. When you get insurance, you don’t pay in the year expecting to actually make use of it at more than the cost of what you put into it. You get insurance because, eventually, you’ll need it. You just don’t know when.
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p>If you paid for insurance for twenty years and, at some point in your 40s or 50s you get cancer, you may cost the system far more money in that year than you may have paid into the system for the previous 20 years. You can’t look at insurance as getting something huge in return for your money that year (other than peace of mind)… that’s not what insurance is designed to do.
I paid NOTHING for the flu shot and two other visits because I was insured. It would have been less than $100 out of pocket if I had not been. On my first visit the posted rate was $15, which I assumed (as you appear to have) that such was the insurance-subsidized copay. When I was ready to pay I was asked about insurance and when I produced my card I was told I was all set. When I questioned the $15 posting I was told that was for those students without any kind of insurance. Ditto for the flu shot – free with insurance, but relatively little without.
with no Public Option to force premiums down, with the insurance premiums as high as they are now, there is one sure result from this.
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p>TENT CITY HERE WE COME!!!!!
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p>Only for us in that lovely middle class range, where you never qualify for a single subsidy, but continually scrape by paycheck to paycheck. There is NO WAY I could possibly scrape an extra $250/wk from our budget. I would literally be grasping from thin air. Although I don’t have to worry about that right now, because we have insurance, there are others that do. So exactly where is the money suppose to come from.
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p>Here’s a plan. Dump your house. Move into Tent City. We could create a really nice Tent City. We could even set up a huge pavilion tent in the center for gatherings. Anyone own a few acres of land. You should keep your car though so you can keep your job. Keep working to pay for those awesome billion dollar profits.
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p>WE NEED A PUBLIC OPTION!!!!
No public option, no mandate. The option is key in making sure this health care bill isn’t a complete corporate giveaway.