Ice2SeeYou wrote:

I don't know what you really mean by "limiting yourself," but is it really worth it just to avoid paying for health insurance? And if you did have an accident or something, it's not going to be just "the taxpayers" who foot your bills. You could bankrupt your parents and family. Is it really worth the risk?

This is my huge fear, and why I'm never without insurance, no matter what I have to pay for it. I mean, I'd carry it anyway on general principle because I'm one of those worst-case scenario types (you know, the kind that grinds until I have enough money for 99 of *every single kind* of potion before entering a dungeon in an RPG. Even if there's nothing in there that can hurt/poison/stone me. Just in case, because you never know what might happen. And that's how I am when I know what's ahead of me!) I could deal with spending all my own money, but I couldn't deal with the idea of my family spending themselves into poverty because I broke my leg, or got lyme disease from a tick while sleeping out in the field, etc, etc, etc....

Now, I'm in a better position than most, because as a member of the military, I get insurance fairly cheaply. I'm not active duty yet, so I don't have access to full military insurance, but I am allowed to buy into it for about $50 bucks a month. Pretty reasonable.

The problem is, you're only allowed a very small amount for doctor/dental visits. This is not a problem if you live on base, are active duty, and allowed access to military doctors who charge exactly what the insurance covers. It IS a problem for people like me, who have to take that small amount to a civilian doctor or dentist and cover the rest (which is pretty substantial) out of pocket. If I'm reading and understanding this bill right, it should help me to close that gap so I don't have to pay $150 bucks to get my teeth cleaned, which would be nice. Additionally, the bill will allow my sisters to stay on my mom's (very good school district) insurance until they're 26--regardless of whether they're in school or not. This is brilliant for us. It may very well help my grandmother get additional insurance for another hip replacement surgery, as Medicare doesn't cover enough of the cost, and she can't get additional coverage because of about 10,000 preexisting conditions. Also, she's in that &#$^&# Medicare prescription donut hole, and we have to chip in to pay $170 bucks every two weeks to get her prescriptions until that gets resolved.

Anyway, that's just personal issues though. Overall, I'm just happy that the country has finally sent a message that everyone deserves insurance, and has the right NOT to be skinned alive by insurance companies and hospital costs when bad things happen. Yes, lifestyle is a choice, and being an idiot is also a choice, but your right to be an idiot stops where it starts impacting other people--like taxpayers and your family. Since the government seems to be working its butt off to make this newly-required insurance as subsidized, affordable and reachable as possible, I say good for them. Will there be problems, yes, is it perfect, hell no, but as Klimbatize observed, its a hell of a lot better than the "fuck you" system.

Denying people something as fundamental as health insurance in the name of protecting some people's 'right' not to carry it does not compute for me. The benefits seem to far outweigh the cost here, and (I hope) will be beneficial to a lot of folks in spite of the growing pains we're going to have.

Welcome to the 21st century, America.

Dr. Jeebus wrote:

Um, you realize that your lifestyle choices now impact taxpayers, right? Are we going to institute behaviour police to limit how much your stupidity impacts the taxpayers? Will you be told what to eat, what risks you can take, and basically have your life run for you?

Well, this is pretty fair. I probably overgeneralized a bit in haste to make my point.

But frankly, yes. We DO need behavior police to mitigate stupidity (and sociopathy's) impact on citizens. That's why we have jails, and laws against murder, theft, etc etc etc. Now, that's obviously behavior control that (all of us?) can get behind. Drawing the line as to where society (as enforced by the government) is allowed to draw the line seems to be the issue here.

Still, although I still think its a good idea to mandate health insurance (the same way I'm glad we mandate car insurance, when some idiot rear-ends me), I honestly wouldn't have minded that not being in the bill. To me the biggest plus of this whole thing is not that it will 'force' people to get coverage who don't want it (and I'm sure there will be plenty of ways around it, especially during the transition period), it's about making insurance available and affordable to people who DO want it. That's the big win to me here.




Oh yeah. And:

Dr. Jeebus wrote:

SoldierHawk wrote: Still, although I still think its a good idea to mandate health insurance (the same way I'm glad we mandate car insurance, when some idiot rear-ends me) Seriously, Hawk? You're better than that. Car insurance is to protect OTHER people from you, which is why it is mandated: if you do damage to members of the community, you must be held accountable. Health insurance is to protect yourself.

Well originally I just meant it as an emotional comparison, not a factual one, but since you brought it up...lets explore that.

Sure health insurance is to protect you. But I carry car insurance to protect me, too. If I get into a wreck and total my car, insurance helps ME cover the cost of that. Similarly, when I broke my arm, my health insurance helped me cover that, too.

I think where you're thinking the analogy breaks down is that you hurting yourself does not directly impact others in the same way that me crashing into your car would. But it DOES impact us, everybody, as a whole when someone with no insurance takes their kid to the emergency room because of a fever, or an asthma attack, or injury. It impacts us when someone with no insurance breaks their arm, and have to be treated anyway. That is a great contributor to the rising costs of healthcare and healthcare services, and the rise in the cost of insurance. And the more insurance rises, the less people can afford it, the more people need to be treated on the taxpayer dime...and so on, in very nasty cycle. (For the moment we'll leave corrupt healthcare companies out of the equation, since that's a whole other issue and can of worms.)

Now, the OTHER solution to this of course (besides helping EVERYONE get insurance) is to deny people without it care. Let the kid in the emergency room recover from the asthma attack on her own. Let that guy whose minimum-wage job doesn't provide benefits set his own broken arm. I won't deny that's an option. But its not one I'd care to consider.

Then again, you wouldn't be the first to say, "let them die, then, and decrease the surplus population."*






*For the record, I do not intend this to sound mean or pejorative. I'm just an English major and can't resist a Dickens quote, even an overly-extreme one.