[rollei_list] Re: OT: Health Care Costs
- From: "Austin Franklin" <austin.franklin@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 12:05:43 -0500
Hi Eric,
I did answer that question. You just didn't like the answer. What I said
was YOU or anyone, would be subject to the same issue, if you had insurance.
Insurance, as it exists now, is capped. As I pointed out, a majority of
bankruptcies are due to paying health related debits. And, a majority of
those people HAD insurance. So...what good does insurance do you in that
circumstance?
And...if something costs millions of dollars, well, it shouldn't. Someone
is gouging, or these are procedures that people should pay for themselves.
Just because some procedure exists, doesn't mean it should be available to
everyone. Especially, when the costs that derive those procedures aren't
regulated. IF you want to regulate procedure availability you must also
regulate the costs of those procedures.
Thinking like yours is what's causing the problem. Somehow believing that
people are entitled to million dollar procedures (that can't afford it).
And second, that procedures (people believe they are entitled to) should
cost millions of dollars. It's just like the drug subsidy that is in the
current HCB. Instead of going after the cost of the drugs, they take money
from me, and give excessive profit to the drug manufacturer. If these
subsidies didn't exist, then the cost of the drugs would come down.
Instead, we thwart supply and demand, and give higher profits to special
groups.
Do you believe that the current HCB somehow magically provides for million
dollar procedures for all? Well, think again.
Also, I like this little special interest nugget, speaking of drug
companies. They provided $80B in subsidies as part of this HCB, but now
because of the obligations to the government as outlined in the HCB, they
stand to make 100 times that. Pretty good ROI.
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm actually for some form of "universal" health
care, something like welfare (and you can see how well that works). But
very limited. I'm also for catastrophic insurance at a reasonable rate.
I'm not for the government mandating that I buy a product. As far as I
know, that's unconstitutional. I am hoping we'll see what the Supreme Court
has to say about that soon enough.
Here are the current economics of my health insurance:
Premium per month: $1485 (no dental, no prescription)
Deductible: $3000/year
Cap: $150,000 family, $50k/individual
So...it only takes me about 7 years payback for me to be even, and able to
provide the same insurance coverage they provide, at least for that
subsequent year. Insurance is like playing the lottery. The providers are
guaranteed a profit. Someone may make off with more "money" than they put
in, but a huge percentage will not.
They claim that this HCB is supposed to provide 30M uninsured people with
insurance...OK...so $900B divided by 30M is $30,000 per "uninsured". Er,
OK...
Now, there is this IRS thing...the IRS is getting $10B as part of this HCB,
to enforce the penalty for not having insurance. But...if we are supposedly
insuring these 30M people...who are these people they are enforcing? 15,000
new IRS employees to police how many people?
This is supposed to be a HEALTH CARE bill, but everyone is talking about
HEALTH INSURANCE! The two need to be separated in order to clearly
discuss this. They are not, and I believe that is entirely intentional.
Let's say, for the sake of argument, that I had sufficient means to pay for
any and all health care that any mandated insurance were to cover. Should I
still be subject to buying a product that provides a profit to a specific
industry?
Regards,
Austin
-----Original Message-----
From: rollei_list-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:rollei_list-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Eric Goldstein
Sent: Monday, March 22, 2010 10:03 AM
To: rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [rollei_list] Re: OT: Health Care Costs
Austin -
Here are some polls around the issue of Social Security:
http://www.pollingreport.com/social.htm
Most of them deal with specifics of whether or nor provisions should be
changed or how parties and politicians score in handling change to the
system, but there are a few general questions which clearly point to support
for the program.
You still have not answered the question posed by one of our list
members... I'll change it slightly to make things more interesting... if,
heaven forbid, you family or a family you were close to had a catastrophic
accident and needed millions of dollars in health care which they could not
pay for, would you want them turned away by the health care system?
Eric Goldstein
--
On Mon, Mar 22, 2010 at 11:16 AM, Austin Franklin
<austin.franklin@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hi Eric,
PLEASE show some substantiation to this claim:
> The American people over-overwhelmingly embrace SS ...
Regards,
Austin
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