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Re: Obamacare and medicare Vs private + more

Posted by baseball55 on November 12, 2016, at 19:23:47

In reply to Re: Obamacare and medicare Vs private + more, posted by linkadge on November 11, 2016, at 19:44:05

> What I mean is that (in many ways) you need to make the middle class sicker, in order to make the lower class less sick. The rising deductibles under Obamacare means that many in the middle class forgoe medicines and treatments which were once possible for them. I don't believe this is ethical (although, on the surface it pretends to be), especially since only a portion of that which is taken, is redistributed.

What you don't understand about the US health care system is that all of the people buying insurance on the exchanges didn't have ANY insurance before. So they are not forgoing treatments "once possible for them." Also, the ACA subsidizes, pretty heavily, premiums for people with incomes up to 4x the US poverty line - about $90,000 for a family of 4. You seem to think the ACA is only for those with low incomes, but that is not true at all. And what do you mean -being taken and redistributed - taken by whom, redistributed to whom

The 15% I mentioned is the maximum allowed insurance companies for profits, administration and overhead. It is too much, but less than it used to be. And it was the Republicans and insurance companies who nixed a public insurance choice, which would have had low overhead (Medicare, the public program for the elderly, has an overhead rate of 4%)
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> Let me use an analogy:
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> Democrats would think it is fair to take one year of life from 50 individuals, in order to add 42.5 years of life to an individual who would die younger (I.e. 50 years - 15% = 42.5 years 'redistributed'). In reality, however, the *total* cost of the 'redistribution' is likely much higher than 15%.
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> Obamacare does not add to the 'net health' of the system. When something is 'free' and delivered without individual accountability, it becomes abused and it hence inherently wasteful.
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> I don't know what you mean about democrats believing in comparing years of life. In the US, it's typically conservatives, not liberals, who want cost-benefit analyses done for environmental rules. No such analysis is done for health care.

I don't agree that things that are free are abused. Do people break their legs in France because it's free to get it set? Or suffer depression in Canada because it's free to visit a psychiatrist? Are you mentally ill because it's free to be so in Canada?

And, in any case, you seem not to understand the US system. People have high co-pays and deductibles, including the vast majority who have their insurance through work. Americans are very big on cost-shifting, so that people become more "responsible consumers" and shop around for lower cost providers. But let me ask you - if you had blinding headaches and your doctor prescribed an MRI, would you spend a week calling around trying to find the lowest cost MRI provider? (Assuming you could get a straight answer about the cost, which you probably could not.)

I really don't know what you're talking about.

And, just for some non-medical examples. Do people swim more when the public pool is free and thus "abuse" the free pool? Do people in Europe and Canada and Japan go to college because it's free or very cheap and "abuse" the cheap higher education? Do parents in the US and most other developed countries "abuse" the free K-12 education system by sending their kids to school? Or abuse free fire protection by setting their homes on fire?
> Linakdge
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poster:baseball55 thread:1092966
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20160928/msgs/1093096.html