Do you support BANNING health insurance?

[NightFox]

We ban drugs. Why not health insurance?

Why so we can double down on immoral, liberty destroying idiocy? What is so hard to understand about VOLUNTARY transactions and making your own decisions about how you conduct your own affairs? I don't know about You but I don't need or want government to protect me from myself.

Don't worry it won't happen because insurance lobbies politician harder than a stripper presses up against a rich guy.

Yeah it probably will happen, the progressive idiots want to effectively do it by instituting single payer which is for all intents and purposes a ban on private health insurance and eventually they'll probably get their way.

 

[ShootSpeeders]

What sort of an authoritarian do you have to be to propose banning an entire industry that offers products that people willingly buy and sell?

HAHAHA. No one WILLINGLY buys health insurance. They buy it because they have to since health care is so expensive. On average each night in a hospital costs you $3000. And hell - you don't even get a private room. All you get is a bed. That's insane. If it was $100 a night like it should be, people would not need health insurance. THINK

 

[SuperDemocrat]

We ban drugs. Why not health insurance?

Why so we can double down on immoral, liberty destroying idiocy? What is so hard to understand about VOLUNTARY transactions and making your own decisions about how you conduct your own affairs? I don't know about You but I don't need or want government to protect me from myself.

Don't worry it won't happen because insurance lobbies politician harder than a stripper presses up against a rich guy.

Yeah it probably will happen, the progressive idiots want to effectively do it by instituting single payer which is for all intents and purposes a ban on private health insurance and eventually they'll probably get their way.

You make some valid points but most people want to regulate the transactions of goods in this country to some degree. I don't think a unrestricted trade among the people themselves will pursuade anyone. It is just the reality of the situation and I was proposing an alternative that might work to bring down health care cost.

 

[g5000]

60 years ago most americans did not have health insurance and health care was fine and much much cheaper. Health care works better without a third party payment system. If everyone has to pay their own medical bills.then

1. People take care of their health and when they got sick, they doctor themselves

2. People haggle with doctors over prices

3. There is very little fraud.

I support removing the employer sponsored health insurance exemption. It is the largest individual tax expenditure of the federal budget, and employer sponsored health insurance bends the cost curve of healthcare up.

That is how I knew ObamaCare was a fraudulent bait-and-switch scheme, because it sought to more deeply embed employer sponsored health insurance. The Democrats had no intention of lowering the per capita cost of healthcare. If they did, their very first target would have been removing employer sponsored health insurance.

 

[NightFox]

What sort of an authoritarian do you have to be to propose banning an entire industry that offers products that people willingly buy and sell?

HAHAHA. No one WILLINGLY buys health insurance. They buy it because they have to since health care is so expensive. On average each night in a hospital costs you $3000. And hell - you don't even get a private room. All you get is a bed. That's insane. If it was $100 a night like it should be, people would not need health insurance. THINK

The current cost of healthcare is irrelevant because it is completely distorted by government interference and yes people WILLINGLY buy health insurance since the alternative government intervention has left them doesn't make economic sense. You proposed banning it (i.e. using the threat of government force to prevent people from buying and selling it). What I propose is to get government OUT of the health care business completely, let the market determine prices unhindered and let CONSUMERS decide whether health insurance is worth buying and PRODUCERS decide whether health insurance is worth selling and what form & price said insurance takes.

 

[ShootSpeeders]

What I propose is to get government OUT of the health care business completely, let the market determine prices unhindered and let CONSUMERS decide whether health insurance is worth buying and PRODUCERS decide whether health insurance is worth selling and what form & price said insurance takes.

OK - that would certainly be better than what we have now anyway. Of course that would pretty much mean a death sentence for people with pre-existing conditions since no insurer would accept them. OTOH If we did things my way and banned health insurance, health care would cost about 1/20th what it does now and everyone could afford it. It would be like automobile repair expenses where everyone expects to pay $500 or so every year.

 

[JoeB131]

OK - that would certainly be better than what we have now anyway. Of course that would pretty much mean a death sentence for people with pre-existing conditions since no insurer would accept them. OTOH If we did things my way and banned health insurance, health care would cost about 1/20th what it does now and everyone could afford it. It would be like automobile repair expenses where everyone expects to pay $500 or so every year.

Exactly how would health insurance cost 1/20th what it costs now if no one had insurance?

It really does cost money to pay for the hospitals, the time spent by doctors, nurses, lab technicians, etc. to provide the health care.

 

[NightFox]

What I propose is to get government OUT of the health care business completely, let the market determine prices unhindered and let CONSUMERS decide whether health insurance is worth buying and PRODUCERS decide whether health insurance is worth selling and what form & price said insurance takes.

OK - that would certainly be better than what we have now anyway. Of course that would pretty much mean a death sentence for people with pre-existing conditions since no insurer would accept them.

There are other alternatives (CO-OPS for example), forcing insurers to take consumers with pre-existing conditions is idiotic since you can't insure against a risk that has already come to pass.

OTOH If we did things my way and banned health insurance, health care would cost about 1/20th what it does now and everyone could afford it.

That's not necessarily the case AND you're proposing to put a government gun to everybody's head and force them to do things your way. Free markets are far more effective at delivering the goods and services people want and need at an ever increasing level of efficiency and quality than any system which proposes to utilize coercion, always has been so and always will be so.

We already have too much government coercion in the system which is why costs are going up so fast (and they should be going down as producers increase efficiency) so your proposal is nothing more than attempting to cure the disease with more of the disease.

 

[frigidweirdo]

60 years ago most americans did not have health insurance and health care was fine and much much cheaper. Health care works better without a third party payment system. If everyone has to pay their own medical bills.then

1. People take care of their health and when they got sick, they doctor themselves

2. People haggle with doctors over prices

3. There is very little fraud.

Well, yes, healthcare insurance in the US is as corrupt as hell. However it could work, and does work in other countries. I'd prefer to see a nationalized system of healthcare which is free at the point of delivery and does away with the need for health insurance except for those who choose to go private.

 

[healthmyths]

What sort of an authoritarian do you have to be to propose banning an entire industry that offers products that people willingly buy and sell?

HAHAHA. No one WILLINGLY buys health insurance. They buy it because they have to since health care is so expensive. On average each night in a hospital costs you $3000. And hell - you don't even get a private room. All you get is a bed. That's insane. If it was $100 a night like it should be, people would not need health insurance. THINK

NOT one of the comments have ANY links to any facts so here is an unusual comment.
A) Tax lawyers 10% of the $270B and use that to do two things:
1) pay a $5,000 premium for the truly less then 5 million people that truly need and want health insurance... FACT:
a) 10 million of the supposedly 46 million uninsured Americans ARE NOT Americans...
Income, Poverty and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2009 - Income & Wealth - Newsroom - U.S. Census Bureau
b) 14 million didn't know qualified for Medicaid http://coverageforall.org/pdf/BC-BS_Uninsured-America.pdf
Of the 44.7 million non-elderly uninsured individuals identified in the 2004 Census Current Population Survey (CPS) data,
nearly one-third — almost 14 million — were reachable through existing government health programs such as Medicaid
and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) under current rules.
So all Obama's inept administration need do was REGISTER this 14 million!
c) Nearly 18 million of the uninsured lived in households with annual incomes above $50,000 -- over half of them (9.7 million)
in households with incomes that exceed $75,000 annually. - http://coverageforall.org/pdf/BC-BS_Uninsured-America.pdf
Subtract the above 42 million from the bogus 46 million and you get less then 5 million!
2)This 10% tax would reduce when the following $850 Billion a year in WASTED Duplicate, "DEFENSIVE MEDICINE" claims is
reduced. Insurance companies simply pay claims and raise premiums when the claims get more then 85% of revenue.
With 90% of physicians surveyed saying they practice "defensive Medicine" out of fear of lawsuits!

READ THIS STUDY!! http://www.jacksonhealthcare.com/media/8968/defensivemedicine_ebook_final.pdf

90% of physicians surveyed say they order $850 billion a year in wasted duplicate tests, referrals all out of FEAR of being SUED!
--- Emergency medicine, primary care, and OB/GYN physicians are most likely to practice defensive medicine.
--- 79 to 83% of surgeons and OB/GYNs have been named in lawsuits.
"Physicians contracted by the federal government practice significantly less defensive medicine as they are protected against lawsuits by the 1946 Federal Tort Claims Act. "
-- BUT........Only 48% practice defensive medicine compared to 92% of non-government physicians.
Consider that fact that of the physicians interviewed 52% DID NOT practice defensive medicine!
Who were they? Doctors contracted by federal government!
WHY did these doctors NOT practice "defensive medicine"??? 1946 Tort reform!

With this simple solution hospitals won't be able to charge $10 per aspirin. Doctors won't order duplicate tests. Insurance companies
under state regulations won't be able to raise premiums as the companies have to prove that their costs are greater then 80%.
Not being able to prove companies will lower their premiums. That simple.

 

[Seawytch]

Even under a single payer universal system, we don't have to get rid of insurance. If everyone gets the same basic coverage, insurance companies can exist to give superior coverage to those that can pay for it.

 

[Timmy]

Maybe we should have 1950s style help insurance. It's really cheap but all it covers his antibiotics and leeches.

 

[Granny]

I was around 60 years ago and sort of have to disagree with the OP. Health insurance was available then, if no other way, through many employers. True, grandma would use some home remedies for some things ... but she called the doctor for others ... and back then, doctors made house calls were necessary. It wasn't exactly the stone ages. I agree government should stay out of healthcare (and a lot of other stuff for that matter). MANDATORY national health insurance needs to be done away with - along with the apparently arbitrary amounts of fines imposed for not having the insurance. (Oh, and the Republicans don't need to come up with their version of the damned mess that's been created by Obamacare.)

Everybody these days is looking for a pill to resolve everything. Is it possible that these pharmaceutical ads for this, that or the other new wonder drug could be banned? The side effects are enough to scare the hell out you - they're worse than whatever it is the pill is supposed to cure. If that money was spent on more, longer research for a better, safer cure it might be better spent. BUT the FDA (by whatever means) says, "OK!" then 15 years down the road pulls the damned drug saying, "Not safe!"

It's all a big money game ... and it's OUR money ... which all of us are having less and less of these days.

 

[LordBrownTrout]

It would be cheaper to eliminate it.

 

[Tom Horn]

Insurance was a great idea. At first, it was much the same as auto or home insurance. It wasn't too expensive and it was meant to be used for catastrophic events, such as bad accidents or serious illnesses. Short of those, people paid as they went.

It was government that tied it to employers, prevented insurance companies from competing across state lines and, eventually, demanded that health insurance pay for every aspirin tablet. Once government got involved, things started getting more expensive and quality started suffering.

If insurance had been used as first intended and companies had been allowed to compete, we would have lower rates now.

We don't expect auto insurance to cover oil changes and we don't expect home owners insurance to pay for new appliances, yet we expect health insurers to cover every single thing.

The cost has gone up due to companies knowing insurance has to pay. And since so many don't pay anything, those with insurance saw much higher costs. An insured person would be billed close to $400 for getting stitches while an uninsured person would be billed around $150 for the same exact treatment.

We don't need to ban insurance companies, we just need to stop the government control and undo some of the unreasonable regulations.

I agree with this other than the part about government tying health insurance to employers....that's not what happened. Health insurance was an employer ploy to lure workers to their company in addition to a good salary. Back in the 60's, when times were good, employers assumed healthcare costs would remain stable so it was an inexpensive incentive. THEN the politicians, bribed by the insurance lobby, decided to grant regional monopolies where rates could rise from little or no competition. Get rid of those, let the consumer shop nationwide for a policy, and you'll see healthcare costs head back toward sanity.

 

[Arianrhod]

60 years ago most americans did not have health insurance and health care was fine and much much cheaper. Health care works better without a third party payment system. If everyone has to pay their own medical bills.then

60 years ago, the average life expectancy was 62 years. It was cheaper because pretty much all doctors could do for a lot of situations was say, "You're going to die!"

If you actually believe that people croaked exactly at 62 years of age then I would suggest you re-examine the notion of average because that is the stupidest assumption ever and it gets repeated over and over again by people. I also suspect that that number is wrong and someone should re-examine the data.

I'm sure you'll present the data...any...minute...now...

 

[Soggy in NOLA]

How can we ban something that we are now required by law, to purchase?

 

[ShootSpeeders]

OTOH If we did things my way and banned health insurance, health care would cost about 1/20th what it does now and everyone could afford it.

Exactly how would health insurance cost 1/20th what it costs now if no one had insurance?
It really does cost money to pay for the hospitals, the time spent by doctors, nurses, lab technicians, etc. to provide the health care.

You can't read . I said health CARE would cost 1/20th as much. As for hospital costs, does it really cost $3000 a night to give someone a bed?? That's what the average hospital charges now and that does NOT include the doctor's fees. It's just a bed in a room with other people and they charge you $3000 every night!!!!

 

[ShootSpeeders]

How can we ban something that we are now required by law, to purchase?

Hey einstein. Repeal obamacare.

 

[Seawytch]

OTOH If we did things my way and banned health insurance, health care would cost about 1/20th what it does now and everyone could afford it.

Exactly how would health insurance cost 1/20th what it costs now if no one had insurance?
It really does cost money to pay for the hospitals, the time spent by doctors, nurses, lab technicians, etc. to provide the health care.

You can't read . I said health CARE would cost 1/20th as much. As for hospital costs, does it really cost $3000 a night to give someone a bed?? That's what the average hospital charges now and that does NOT include the doctor's fees. It's just a bed in a room with other people and they charge you $3000 every night!!!!

You pay that to cover the cost of people without health insurance or with inadequate health insurance.