Obamacare

[Happy Monkey]

If you've got pre-existing conditions, get insurance before January. They'll repeal Obamacare before they have anything to replace it with.

And since the pre-existing condition support is a major cost factor, don't expect it to be in any eventual replacement.

[footfootfoot]

As I see the insurance industry there are a number of parallels between it and casino gambling. Essentially, insurance companies are betting you will be healthy and you are betting you will get sick. With actuarial tables insurance companies can predict with exceptional accuracy the likelihood of anyone making a claim and what that claim will cost them. That is one of the reasons that they want to be able to cherry pick their policy holders. Just as a casino will bar card counters and people with "photographic memories" an other people who win too often, insurance companies prefer healthy people over sick or sickness prone people. The house doesn't like to pay out.

The only way it works is when there is a preponderance of losers gambling against the house. Healthy people unlikely to get sick, betting that they will get sick, and unskilled gamblers betting that they will win.

Obamacare is essentially compelling the casinos to allow big winners, card counters, and other drains against the house to continue to gamble, while also compelling non gamblers to also bet against the house.

So the insurance companies have to take the sick people, but they are promised healthy, non-claim making people to offset their costs.

Frankly, I don't see where the government gets off compelling you to have health insurance. Auto insurance is optional in that if you don't want to have auto insurance you don't have to own a car.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by footfootfoot

Frankly, I don't see where the government gets off compelling you to have health insurance.

They don't compel you; they incentivize you, with subsidies and penalties; much more lenient than the auto insurance requirement. Classicman has been considering opting out.

Auto insurance is optional in that if you don't want to have auto insurance you don't have to own a car.

The reasoning for mandatory auto insurance and health insurance is identical, but there's no way to opt out of potentially needing medical care. How would that work? Some sort of "do not treat" tattoo if you're brought into the ER? Like a DNR but for everything?

[classicman]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

If you've got pre-existing conditions, get insurance before January. They'll repeal Obamacare before they have anything to replace it with.
And since the pre-existing condition support is a major cost factor, don't expect it to be in any eventual replacement.

I'm not worried. I find that about as likely as them rounding up 12,000,000 illegals, shipping them to Mexico and sending all the muslims back to the middle east. Not gonna happen.

[Happy Monkey]

You think that if they can't rely on Obama to veto, they'll vote no?

[eta] Though I suppose they can still rely on the filibuster in the Senate to block them.

[footfootfoot]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

They don't compel you; they incentivize you, with subsidies and penalties; much more lenient than the auto insurance requirement. Classicman has been considering opting out.The reasoning for mandatory auto insurance and health insurance is identical, but there's no way to opt out of potentially needing medical care. How would that work? Some sort of "do not treat" tattoo if you're brought into the ER? Like a DNR but for everything?

Some states don't have mandatory auto insurance. You don't opt out of potentially needing medical care, you are self insured.

[Clodfobble]

Only three states don't have mandatory auto insurance, New Hampshire, Virginia, and Mississippi. All have other financial requirements instead:

In New Hampshire vehicle owners must satisfy a personal responsibility requirement instead of paying monthly premiums, and prove that they are capable of paying in case of an accident. In Virginia vehicle owners may pay an uninsured motorist fee. In Mississippi vehicle owners may post bonds or cash.

The question remains, how to willfully choose not to treat those self-insured who don't have wads of cash in their pockets at the moment the piano falls on their head? There was a thread here awhile back about a fire department that watched a house burn down because the homeowners had refused to sign up and pay for the service (it was a remote area with no city taxes to pay for it.)

The outrage in response to that story was palpable--not to mention the homeowner himself was running back and forth screaming that he'd pay it now, he'd pay it--and they didn't even let someone die. We are a society that will treat people if they need medical care. That's a reality. So the rest of our decisions have to be based on that fact, and not pretend that it would ever go any other way when someone in severe need of medical care walks into a hospital.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Not letting a patient die is a far cry from the $2 million in bills classic man's son tallied up.

[Clodfobble]

What percentage of that was racked up in the first 4 weeks of keeping him alive, versus the therapy and recovery afterwards? My bet is it was about half. $1 million is still not a cost we can just absorb for the person who chooses not to pay for insurance.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Emergency care adds up fast, but millions ring a large bell with insurance companies. They don't give a rat's ass about people, only bottom line.

[Clodfobble]

Absolutely. Single payer is the only real way to go, IMHO. My only point is that allowing people to opt out completely is not a financially feasible system, because no one is ever really opted out.

[Clodfobble]

BTW, on the day after the election over 100,000 new people signed up for Obamacare, because as always, folks are going to whine about how awful it is right up until it looks like it's going to be taken away.

But it might not matter, because Trump actually has just decided he likes Obamacare:

http://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2016-37953528

[classicman]

Perhaps thats because the open enrollment just began and hundreds of thousands sign up every day now through the end of enrollment because - well because they have to.

[xoxoxoBruce]

You don't have to...

[BigV]

Doc says you're gonna die.















In debtor's prison.