Fix health care - keep it private but out of insurance hands

[Hyperion]

[The Dude]

[Precocity]

[PoS]

China is closer to fascism than communism nowadays.

[Hyperion]

My question was facetious because I am the type of person that is critical of misapplying terms in political discussions. About half of all arguments boil down to language. It bugs me to no end that the term communism has been misapplied both internally by non-liberal governments and externally by critics of leftist economics. Thankfully North Korea has ceased to use the word for quite a few years now.

It also bugs me when the United States is referred to as a democracy. Unlike the term capitalism which was coined by Marxists in the 19th century to refer to the actual economic situation of Britain and France and has been appropriated worldwide to mean the same thing, the words communism and democracy are almost always used incorrectly. I mostly ignored even more defined terms like liberal and conservative because that's a mess. Just like when people try to claim fascism and totalitarianism or Nazism are synonymous; one is an attempt to merge all aspects of culture and the economy into one entity while the others subject everything to the state - ugh, anyway.

Insurance companies originated as a result of growing oligopolies in the medical market and then afterwards legislation in the 1940s-1950s. In fact if you look back at history almost all insurance relied on market failures and government intervention to prosper. There's a reasonable justification for car insurance, or some form thereof where you can at least pay a certain fee (which I would prefer), but there's no big need for health insurance unless it's a serious medical issue. My argument is just that: make these accounts competitive and enact legislation so that health insurance is reduced to a "back-up" plan like life insurance. That would drastically reduce costs. Open up a single public option for the elderly, poor, and chronically-ill. As far as those costs are concerned, we already know very simple amendments that would steer the ship in a better direction, like opening up the program to negotiating costs (50-60% reduction for elderly), repealing most of Medicare Part D, purchasing prescriptions abroad, allowing covered citizens to use facilities abroad, etc.

I'm very skeptical of Professor's source. Other sources show a profit margin of 8-12%. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle, but it's irrelevant. If you're young and relatively health, you shouldn't be paying $3,000 / year for health insurance (which won't cover everything anyway).

[Hyperion]

In fact, I have quite a few friends who have expired car insurance. They haven't been pulled over in 2 years and have probably saved $6,000. If you get caught, you risk paying the ticket at worse or you can just purchase 6 months of insurance and break the contract (paying the company fine).

Most insurance is a complete scam. I only stick to renters and dental insurance ($5/30 a month, respectively). Well, I have car insurance because I know someone high up who got me a deal for $30 a month, but that's a different story.

[Revenant]

[Hyperion]

[Professor]

[Professor]

Hyp - you mention young people paying less.

In one sense, that makes a lot of sense. But, that would mean that older people pay a lot more. I've seens multiple studies that say that the majority of medical costs are accrued during the last few years of life. Just google "medical costs last years of life" and you see multiple hits saying similar things (though specifics vary).

So, we have to make a choice? Do you charge each citizen a base of, say, $200 per month for their entire life? Or, do you charge them $10 when they are 20 years old, $50 when they are 30, increasing to $10,000/month when they are 80? Not many people will be able to afford healthcare when they need it the most.