Mandatory but affordable health insurance.

[Milton Bradley]

Quote by: Winter wind And we wonder why there is so much partisan gridlock in America.

Hey, blame the two parties, and the media for that. I'm not party of any of those groups, so I think your diagnosis is off.

Quote by: Winter wind Right so getting universal health care would reduce us to such totalitarian states as Great Briton, Australia, The Netherlands (all of them), Canada (lead by a dictator if I've ever seen one), and well all other wealthy nations.

Wealthy perhaps, but without room for dissent.


When there is no room left for dissent, I'm shooting people.

Quote by: Winter wind I don't mind if you disagree, I mind that you say your opponents are pro-big brother. It distracts from the issue, it unnecessarily antagonizes the opposition, and it's also reducing yourself to the level of discourse reserved for primary school kids and annoying politicians.

Cry me a river.


The real problem is that many of you on the other side seem to have a problem comprehending that we do not all wish to be alike. As long as you continue to drag me along without my consent, I'm going to be a pain in somebodies ass.

[Morality Games]

The real problem is that many of you on the other side seem to have a problem comprehending that we do not all wish to be alike. As long as you continue to drag me along without my consent, I'm going to be a pain in somebodies ass.

You want and push for society to act a certain way without the consent of others, but claim the other side is bad for doing the same.

Okay, you do know consensus can never be universal, right?

Wealthy perhaps, but without room for dissent.

Huh? They can dissent, both under law and in public, same as us. They just don't want to because they enjoy their incredibly high quality of life. You don't really complain when something is empowering you, making you healthier, happier, and smarter.

[Chancellor]

Quote by: Thanatos ...why mandatory?

That's what I want to know.

Mandatory payments into the plan, yes, but its generally understood that taxes are mandatory. There's something I'm missing.

But why should people be required to pay into the plan?

[Technosoul]

Quote by: Chancellor That's what I want to know. But why should people be required to pay into the plan?

It is more of an idea that it would be mandatory for insurance company to give everyone affordable coverage (with quality coverage).

In many states it is mandatory that everyone has car insurance. So "mandatory" is not a new word in politcs. The reason is that no one can know when they might get into a medical situation and end up at some hospital, so they should be self-responsible enough to have insurance just in case that might happen, so that hospitals do not have to see proof of insurance before treatment can be done. If health care for everyone is important then everyone should do their fair share in supporting that program by paying for insurance relative to what they can in fact afford to do.

What logical reason would someone have not to want complete and quality health care via some sort of policy or program? This makes things more simple. Plus, the more people being insured the less it would cost. An uninsured person could sue if he had an injury that was not his fault to cover the cost of medical treatment, but if everyone had to have insurance then that would eleminate a lot of the cases that tie up our courts.

If you are well off enough to start owning properies why risk loosing everything by not having insurance? Why not have it if you are poor if the cost is within your smaller budget? The mandatory idea just makes sure that everyone takes responsiblity for their health costs based on what they can afford and it insures that the program can be funded so that it is a workable method.

[Domino]

Only drivers need car insurance. Mandatory health insurance payments would virtually render unemployment illegal. When your money runs out, nothings going to save you from whatever penalty they set for nonpayment of insurance.

[grandpa]

Quote by: Domino Only drivers need car insurance. Mandatory health insurance payments would virtually render unemployment illegal.

Plus, having insurance hardly guarantees a clean bill of health.

Grandpa h.

[Winter wind]

Quote by: MB Wealthy perhaps, but without room for dissent. When there is no room left for dissent, I'm shooting people.

Another one goes for the clocktower.

I don't see you going crazy about the police or fire service.

The real problem is that many of you on the other side seem to have a problem comprehending that we do not all wish to be alike. As long as you continue to drag me along without my consent, I'm going to be a pain in somebodies ass.

I don't think everyone wants to be a like, I just don't think people like to be sick and that everyone should be treated for life threatening illness regardless of financial status. I'm not saying redistribute the wealth, I'm saying I think that there is a human right to life and that includes health.

Quote by: domino Only drivers need car insurance. Mandatory health insurance payments would virtually render unemployment illegal. When your money runs out, nothings going to save you from whatever penalty they set for nonpayment of insurance.

I know you think the people who wrote this policy up were idiots, but do you really think they would ignore this problem and leave themselves so open to attacks? Show me where in the policy it would say all unemployed people are illegal.
Also the car analogy is bad.

Only drivers need a car insurance. A better analogy would be only souls in bodies need health insurance. You never know when your going to get sick just as you never know when your going to be in an accident. If you don't have a car, you don't need car insurance. If you don't have a body, you don't need health insurance.

that is a closer analogy and works in my favor. You need health insurance just the same as a driver needs car insurance. When you have an accident, you don't want to be paying through the nose.

Quote by: grandpa Without taking a step outdoors You know the whole world; Without taking a peep out the window You know the colour of the sky. The more you experience, The less you know. {Tao De Jing}

If you've never been outside, how did you know the sky was blue in the first place?

[grandpa]

Quote by: Winter wind Another one goes for the clocktower.

From what I gather, he lives in one.

Grandpa h.

[Thanatos]

Quote by: Domino Only drivers need car insurance.

Unless The Highlander or a ghost posting here, I do believe we all have the potential to suffer disease and accidents. We're all drivers so to speak. Regardless of how, everyone should be guaranteed medical care.

I'd been thinking of truly socialized medicine, where there is only one main insurer. Mandating that existing insurance companies cover everyone sort of makes sense...but forcing them to provide quality insurance to the extremely poor regardless of their inability to repay is going to be a pain to enforce.

And Chancellor, I doubt you would understand why I said that. I remember arguing with you in the past.

As I remember you are quite stubborn in your social darwinism and unlikely to change. I know you think that if someone is sick you have every right to let them die, and you know I think that's wrong. Let it be.

[Matt W]

Let's cut the attacks on other forum members, shall we?

DO NOT RESPOND IN THIS THREAD TO THE PRECEDING MESSAGE. Please contact a member of the staff privately if you have any questions.

[Milton Bradley]

Quote by: Winter wind Another one goes for the clocktower.

If that's the only place to go to avoid Liberal policies, that's where I'll be.

[Domino]

I know you think the people who wrote this policy up were idiots, but do you really think they would ignore this problem and leave themselves so open to attacks? Show me where in the policy it would say all unemployed people are illegal.

Well, of course it's not written into the policy: this would be an unintended consequence of the policy.

Every policy I've heard discussed is going to refund poor people's health insurance costs at tax season, where they get a credit of some amount depending on their income. The problem is, most poor people I know can't afford a year's worth of health insurance while they wait to get it all back in taxes. If people make it through the first year, one could hope that they could be fiscally responsible enough to manage until the next year, but that first year will be thin pickin's, for many.

As well, all the policies I've heard suggested completely gloss over the penalty for defying the mandate. When this passes, there's a lot of homeless people who will be unable to avoid breaking the law, since there's no way they can pay for anything, much less just pay until they get the tax credit. The penalty must be applied... and we have no idea what that will be.

I'm against all mandates with unspecified penalties, to say the least.

[Chancellor]

Quote by: Thanatos And Chancellor, I doubt you would understand why I said that. I remember arguing with you in the past. As I remember you are quite stubborn in your social darwinism and unlikely to change. I know you think that if someone is sick you have every right to let them die, and you know I think that's wrong. Let it be.

Well, excuse me for thinking that people are responsible for their own lives! Actually, I don't have a problem if private charities or employers want to provide health insurance or some other means of paying for health care on behalf of those who can't afford it. I don't have a problem with groups of people getting together in something like a co-op and working out something with an insurance company. My objection is to the federal government going beyond its constitutional bounds and presuming to think that it can just create these damned nanny-stater social programs you love so much. I want the federal government to return to its constitutional bounds and stay the hell out of people's lives!

[lsbskins1]

Quote by: Chancellor Well, excuse me for thinking that people are responsible for their own lives! Actually, I don't have a problem if private charities or employers want to provide health insurance or some other means of paying for health care on behalf of those who can't afford it. I don't have a problem with groups of people getting together in something like a co-op and working out something with an insurance company. My objection is to the federal government going beyond its constitutional bounds and presuming to think that it can just create these damned nanny-stater social programs you love so much. I want the federal government to return to its constitutional bounds and stay the hell out of people's lives!

And my problem with this attitude is that you want to be "free" to insist on a system that is proven less effective than the system we "nanny staters" advocate. Insurance works best when it spreads the risk. If everyone is a potential client of the healthcare system (and this point is not debatable), then the costs will be less expensive for us all if everyone participates. That is why participation is mandatory. You don't have the "right" to opt out because you literally do not have the ability to opt out. To (sort of) quote a favorite movie - "Stan, you may want to be called Loretta and you may want to have babies, but you don't have the right. You don't have a womb. Where is the fetus going to gestate?"

The simple truth is that when you "opt out", you cost the whole lot of us more money for our healthcare. That is an example of you insisting that your "right" to be able to make my insurance more expensive is more sacred than my "right" to have a healthcare system that makes the most efficent use of resources. Your rights do not trump mine and when there is a dead even conflict between our personal rights, the deciding factor should be the greater good. The nanny staters win that argument, too.

[LadiesMan217]

I like the idea but I have one big problem with that idea. It is my experience that the government often under-estimates what I can afford. For example: Let us say you claim you cannot afford extra money for mandatory health insurance. The government can say " but wait, you drive a car which is not a must have expendature, as you could walk or take a bus everywhere you go". So first you must sell your car and then when that money runs out then you would qualify for free or super cheap health care insurance and the Government would pick up the tab. They cite that many migrational people from Mexico walk, ride bikes, or use the bus to go to work and to the store. Thus, anyone can do the same thing as those real poor working people do. But I do not want to give up my car and walk everywhere. And if I pay to continue to use the car then paying for the health insurance would prevent me from buying gas or food and so that would force me to downsize my quality of living, one way or the other, to remain lawful. In effect the government would be in the business of telling me how to mangage my own family budget. What I can or cannot do without. However if the government is willing to take MY opinon on what I can afford to budget for health care insurence then fine. I am all for it. And each time the price of gas goes up, or the cost of a dozen eggs go up, I should have the right to pay that much less for my health insurance, so each month I should be able to adjust how much I must pay for that insurance so that it is always relative to the rising cost of living. If they up a utility bill, I pay less that month to the company providing health insurance. Is that not fair?

I think government funded health insurance/health care is a bad idea, privately funded health care is always much better than government funded such as Medicare. I think the system we have would be fine if the insurance industry provided more affordable insurance for people with low-incomes and people who don't get insurance from their work.

[lsbskins1]

Quote by: LadiesMan217 I think government funded health insurance/health care is a bad idea, privately funded health care is always much better than government funded such as Medicare. I think the system we have would be fine if the insurance industry provided more affordable insurance for people with low-incomes and people who don't get insurance from their work.

Well, I could say I think eating poison would be fine if it didn't kill you. The problem is, it does.

The problem is, the system that we have does not and will not provide more affordable insurance for people with low incomes and people who don't get insurance from their work, so we all end up paying for them to go to the emergency room for things a PCP could treat. The problem is, Medicare is so much of a financial drain because of the system we have, because care gets defered until the tax payers have to foot the bill, and by then, problems have compounded and it is considerably more expensive to treat older citizens, The problem is, the system we have encourages bean counters to deny coverage to increase this years bottom line, no matter what the costs 5,10 or 20 years from now. The problem is not the government's administration of Medicaid and Medicare, the problem is how private insurance encourages delaying treatment to avoid cuts into profit. The problem is, the current system encourages doctors to prefer treating through private insurance because, really, you can't shop your rate. You get the insurance your employer provides and doctors can refuse to be in network with providers that pay at lower rates and accept patients only from the "richer" market. If it was all one big network, and the doctor billed everyone he treated at the same rate, the buck would stop passing and doctors would be encouraged to honor their oath as much as their bank account. And if a doctor was prefered by patients and had people beating his door down because he was that much better, he could bill more for his services than the doctor who sucks, so the doctor is still rewarded for being better.

[Gods_Mercenary]

Techno, have you explained why you want to use a system in which the recipient of the aid defines need? All this allows you to do is to steal from your neighbors for your own healthcare. At least some objectivity would seem to be in order, even in a system like this.

[Milton Bradley]

Quote by: Gods_Mercenary Techno, have you explained why you want to use a system in which the recipient of the aid defines need? All this allows you to do is to steal from your neighbors for your own healthcare. At least some objectivity would seem to be in order, even in a system like this.

In other words, being a good Baby Boomer.


These people have been bullying the rest of us with their numbers since the Madison Avenue Boys figured out they could market to them en mass as children. Beware the AARP!

[Chancellor]

Quote by: lsbskins1 And my problem with this attitude is that you want to be "free" to insist on a system that is proven less effective than the system we "nanny staters" advocate.

Whether it's more or less effective is irrelevant. I simply want the federal government to stop violating the Constitution by creating all these damned social programs.

Insurance works best when it spreads the risk. If everyone is a potential client of the healthcare system (and this point is not debatable), then the costs will be less expensive for us all if everyone participates. That is why participation is mandatory. You don't have the "right" to opt out because you literally do not have the ability to opt out. To (sort of) quote a favorite movie - "Stan, you may want to be called Loretta and you may want to have babies, but you don't have the right. You don't have a womb. Where is the fetus going to gestate?"

So, why can't this be done on the local or, at most, the state level? Why can't insurance companies work with employers or with groups of individual citizens to come up with something that spreads the risk?

The simple truth is that when you "opt out", you cost the whole lot of us more money for our healthcare

So what? Health care is a commodity: it's your responsibility to obtain it if you feel you need it..

That is an example of you insisting that your "right" to be able to make my insurance more expensive is more sacred than my "right" to have a healthcare system that makes the most efficent use of resources. Your rights do not trump mine and when there is a dead even conflict between our personal rights, the deciding factor should be the greater good. The nanny staters win that argument, too.

Health care is not a right, it's a commodity. You don't have the right to demand that I pay money from my paycheck to provide you with health care.

[grandpa]

Quote by: Chancellor Whether it's more or less effective is irrelevant. I simply want the federal government to stop violating the Constitution by creating all these damned social programs.

No, it's not totally irrelevant. If it were, no one would be having this discussion. I'm not saying relevancy can be measured adequately, but let's not pretend something is irrelevant merely because it contradicts your narrow interpretation of the Constitution, or that the Constitution trumps everything else. It doesn't.

Grandpa h.