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Health INSURANCE should not be profit driven as it's a risk pool, and profit driven means they will charge high premiums and attempt to deny as much as possible
by Delmania 8y ago
Health INSURANCE should not be profit driven as it's a risk pool, and profit driven means they will charge high premiums and attempt to deny as much as possible. Health CARE should be driven in part by profit.
- conanbatt 8y agoA problem is that health insurance as it is organized in the us is not risk management. If you are 20 years old and healthy you get a massive premium to support a 60 year old with obesity and history of drinking. Insurance should be able to do actuarial risk and charge accordingly.
- cyborgx7 8y agoNo, sick people should not be charged more for their health insurance.
- conanbatt 8y agoHealthy young people should not be condemned to economic poverty to maintain sick people.
- fzeroracer 8y agoIt's funny then. Why am I, a healthy young person, condemned to economic poverty because my parents have poor healthcare as a result of the sham that is the US healthcare system? Tell me. Can you explain why that is OK in your narrative?
- sheepmullet 8y agoBecause you have made the choice to look after your sick parents? I haven’t made the choice to look after your parents.
- fzeroracer 8y agoIt seems you've managed to miss the point entirely. Everyone gets older. Everyone gets sicker and medical issues start to crop up as they get older. The people that then have to deal with medical bills are the children and relatives. Meaning you have a choice to make: Go bankrupt helping your family, or maintain your status by abandoning their health. I hope your family never gets ill because otherwise you'll either end up financially bankrupt or heartless.
- sheepmullet 8y ago> Everyone gets sicker and medical issues start to crop up as they get older. I disagree. I’m old enough to have been around before we had so many health problems. It is one of the main drivers of our quickly increasing health costs. When I was growing up we had smoking and that’s pretty much it. > It seems you've managed to miss the point entirely. Most people will change their lifestyle to help their immediate family when they wouldn’t change to help taxpayers as a whole. > I hope your family never gets ill It’s far too late for that - I’m an old man and I’ve seen lots of people I love pass away.
- conanbatt 8y agoBecause a healthy young person bearing the burden of the parents does not solve the "sham of the US health care system" and shifts the cost mostly from the older to the younger, which with lower incomes are pushed into lower quality labor and lesser jobs, as they cannot be employed with health benefits. A rich 60 year old man takes 100k medical treatments from medicare and a poor 18 year-old either has no coverage at all or pays an innordinate amount of insurance out of his salary. How can people justify doing such a blatant robbery of the poor.
- cmurf 8y agoI think morally there is a relevant distinction between congenital disease, environmental disease over which you had no control (asbestos, smog), and lifestyle choices (I'm going to eat fast food, lots of sugar, smoke cigarettes, and drink booze as often as possible). Beriatric surgery should be 100% covered. But if you refuse such surgery and eat yourself into a 400 pound oblivion, then I don't think anyone should have to contribute to managing the ensuing completely predictable problems - insurance is about protecting against unknowns. We know exactly what happens if you drink too much, if you eat too much, if you pickle your organs by eating too much sugar, with 100% certainty. It is not moral to take resources from responsible people in order to coddle the emotional state of people who want to do what they want because they want to. There's no way to argue it is. Even as an advocate of universal health care I'm hyper aware of the folly that follows which is if I'm paying for you, then I get to have a say in what you consume and your relative activity level, or else you get cut off or sanctioned in some way. The individualism in the U.S., as cowboy mentality as it is, very much expects individual to put in a fair amount of effort in first, in order to get help from others. It's not a ask and you shall receive society, never has been, probably never will be.
- matthewmacleod 8y agoDoesn’t really work in practice though, because you rapidly deteriorate into a ludicrously invasive system. Let’s say you drive - why should I, as a non-driver, be paying for your medical care because you chose to drive? You cycle? Dangerous! Wait, you don’t sleep eight hours?? Statistically, you’re doomed! It doesn’t work. Life is an inherently dangerous environment. Some of the things we do increase our risk of illness massively, but so many things increase our risk in so many ways that it’s surely better to manage this as a public health matter, rather than simply accepting that people will die en masse. Coordinated and sustained public health programs can reduce the adverse effects of lifestyle choices. But rationing healthcare on that basis is ultimately going to benefit nobody.
- conanbatt 8y agoI think it works really well: different people do different levels of investment and decisions regarding the personal health. Some to scooter, others to bike, others to walk. Some choose to live in a more crime ridden area, others safer. Some people choose to avoid gluten, others to avoid carbs. Even on healthcare, in countries were the system is not so busted as in the us, people choose to have premium insurances over regular ones, to get better care ,and others choose not to. > But rationing healthcare on that basis is ultimately going to benefit nobody. Its not rationing healthcare: its bearing the burden of individual choices.
- ams6110 8y agoInsurance is a business, and of course it should be profit-driven. Competition should keep excessive profit-taking in check. A problem with health insurance is that regulations prohibit very much competition.