>You keep saying killed, but there is a difference between letting people die and killing them.
Using dubious legalese to deny a life saving claim that happens to cost say $200,000 that you took premiums for is pretty close. If you pay out of pocket, it might save your life, but you're bankrupt, your children get no inheritance, and you probably lose your house. That's a pretty insidious act for profit IMO.
>Voters are widely split on healthcare reform and have no consensus beyond the fact that they want it. I want healthcare reform too, but probably dont agree with you on what that means. I don't that that justifies a consequentialist claim that the other is a killer, let alone reprisal.
I think the easiest step would be to drop the Medicaid age from 65 to 60. Drop it 5 years every 5 years or so. The lower it goes, the cheaper that bracket will be. I don't know why any politician hasn't suggested this, but I can guess.
Fun fact: the ACA originally had an opt-in to Medicare that you could pay for from age 55 but it was removed at the behest of then Senator Joe Liebermann from Connecticut. Liebermann has taken millions in contributions from insurance companies over the years and Connecticut is the home of Aetna IIRC.
Another fun fact: unexpected medical debt was the number one cause of bankruptcy in Australia prior to the introduction of Medicare in the 1980s.
Depends on the state. Even if they can't take it directly, you still have to pay the mortgage, the property tax, the insurance, all the maintenance and upkeep with a new $200,000 bill and probably not having worked for a few months for recovery. I'm not sure how sustainable that is for regular people.
There's nothing in the Bankruptcy Code that treats medical debt differently from other unsecured debt.
EDIT: I should clarify that it is nuanced. Medical debt is unlikely to draw unwanted scrutiny from the US Trustee/BR Administrator and of course it doesn't leave the debtor with any assets arising from the debt. Regarding house loss that is far more dependent upon the state you're in than the debt you have. For ex., homestead exemptions will protect the home from most unsecured debt. Further nuance is beyond HN's scope.
I dont want state funded single player Medicaid for all, and would vote against it. I think my united healthcare plan is better (somewhat ironically).
Instead, I think medicaid should be offered, at cost, as a non-profit public option to all ages. This was discussed briefly during the Obama healthcare debates, but broadly rejected by left who wanted to eliminate private options. We got compulsory private healthcare instead, but I think it is still the best option. Give everyone a non-profit option with a national pool size.
> This was discussed briefly during the Obama healthcare debates, but broadly rejected by left who wanted to eliminate private options.
As someone who voluteered in this field during that time, this is just a repetition of right wing propaganda. There was no serious movement to eliminate private options. Every country with a single-payer system that I'm aware of has private options as well, they just aren't popular because they aren't good or necessary. Right wing extremists want to present this as eliminating options, but in reality, it's just people not choosing private options when they have other options, because private options suck.
The real reason the left rejected a the "compromise" of non-profit options is that it still requires people who don't have money to pay for insurance. Simply slapping a non-profit label on an insurance company doesn't fix anything.
Note that non-profit health insurance companies exist already, and have solved exactly zero of America's health insurance problems.
you already knew this when you made your post, but the calculus changes a little bit when there is a positive financial incentive to letting people die
> You keep saying killed, but there is a difference between letting people die and killing them.
There's also a difference between letting people die for whom you have no responsibility, and actively taking on the responsibility to prevent deaths in exchange for profit, and then letting the people whose lives you're responsible for die.
If you don't want to be held responsible when you let people die, don't take on that responsibility by becoming a health insurer.
Health insurers actually did worse than that: when other people wanted to take on the responsibility (i.e. single-payer healthcare) they actively blocked them from saving lives so they could go on profiting.
If this isn't "murder" or "killing" in your eyes, then maybe we just need a new word for the callous abdication of responsibilities that you signed up to provide for profit, when doing so results in the deaths of thousands.
> If this isn't "murder" or "killing" in your eyes, then maybe we just need a new word for the callous abdication of responsibilities that you signed up to provide for profit, when doing so results in the deaths of thousands.
We already have a word for that, it's called "capitalism".
>You keep saying killed, but there is a difference between letting people die and killing them.
Using dubious legalese to deny a life saving claim that happens to cost say $200,000 that you took premiums for is pretty close. If you pay out of pocket, it might save your life, but you're bankrupt, your children get no inheritance, and you probably lose your house. That's a pretty insidious act for profit IMO.
>Voters are widely split on healthcare reform and have no consensus beyond the fact that they want it. I want healthcare reform too, but probably dont agree with you on what that means. I don't that that justifies a consequentialist claim that the other is a killer, let alone reprisal.
I think the easiest step would be to drop the Medicaid age from 65 to 60. Drop it 5 years every 5 years or so. The lower it goes, the cheaper that bracket will be. I don't know why any politician hasn't suggested this, but I can guess.
Fun fact: the ACA originally had an opt-in to Medicare that you could pay for from age 55 but it was removed at the behest of then Senator Joe Liebermann from Connecticut. Liebermann has taken millions in contributions from insurance companies over the years and Connecticut is the home of Aetna IIRC.
Another fun fact: unexpected medical debt was the number one cause of bankruptcy in Australia prior to the introduction of Medicare in the 1980s.
You can save your house in a medical bankruptcy.
Depends on the state. Even if they can't take it directly, you still have to pay the mortgage, the property tax, the insurance, all the maintenance and upkeep with a new $200,000 bill and probably not having worked for a few months for recovery. I'm not sure how sustainable that is for regular people.
There's nothing in the Bankruptcy Code that treats medical debt differently from other unsecured debt.
EDIT: I should clarify that it is nuanced. Medical debt is unlikely to draw unwanted scrutiny from the US Trustee/BR Administrator and of course it doesn't leave the debtor with any assets arising from the debt. Regarding house loss that is far more dependent upon the state you're in than the debt you have. For ex., homestead exemptions will protect the home from most unsecured debt. Further nuance is beyond HN's scope.
I dont want state funded single player Medicaid for all, and would vote against it. I think my united healthcare plan is better (somewhat ironically).
Instead, I think medicaid should be offered, at cost, as a non-profit public option to all ages. This was discussed briefly during the Obama healthcare debates, but broadly rejected by left who wanted to eliminate private options. We got compulsory private healthcare instead, but I think it is still the best option. Give everyone a non-profit option with a national pool size.
> This was discussed briefly during the Obama healthcare debates, but broadly rejected by left who wanted to eliminate private options.
As someone who voluteered in this field during that time, this is just a repetition of right wing propaganda. There was no serious movement to eliminate private options. Every country with a single-payer system that I'm aware of has private options as well, they just aren't popular because they aren't good or necessary. Right wing extremists want to present this as eliminating options, but in reality, it's just people not choosing private options when they have other options, because private options suck.
The real reason the left rejected a the "compromise" of non-profit options is that it still requires people who don't have money to pay for insurance. Simply slapping a non-profit label on an insurance company doesn't fix anything.
Note that non-profit health insurance companies exist already, and have solved exactly zero of America's health insurance problems.
12 replies →
you already knew this when you made your post, but the calculus changes a little bit when there is a positive financial incentive to letting people die
> You keep saying killed, but there is a difference between letting people die and killing them.
There's also a difference between letting people die for whom you have no responsibility, and actively taking on the responsibility to prevent deaths in exchange for profit, and then letting the people whose lives you're responsible for die.
If you don't want to be held responsible when you let people die, don't take on that responsibility by becoming a health insurer.
Health insurers actually did worse than that: when other people wanted to take on the responsibility (i.e. single-payer healthcare) they actively blocked them from saving lives so they could go on profiting.
If this isn't "murder" or "killing" in your eyes, then maybe we just need a new word for the callous abdication of responsibilities that you signed up to provide for profit, when doing so results in the deaths of thousands.
> If this isn't "murder" or "killing" in your eyes, then maybe we just need a new word for the callous abdication of responsibilities that you signed up to provide for profit, when doing so results in the deaths of thousands.
We already have a word for that, it's called "capitalism".
[flagged]