8 ms·

Which I never understood. USA provides free healthcare for people who are poor because they don't work and healthcare for people who are retired and don't work.

by chimi 8y ago

Which I never understood. USA provides free healthcare for people who are poor because they don't work and healthcare for people who are retired and don't work. But the USA does not provide healthcare for people who work and keep machine turning. Hmm... I wonder if it's a political lobbying by healthcare industry to get more money for people who wouldn't provide it on their own by extracting it from the tax payers who do work and can (barely) afford insurance, etc.

throwaway2048 8y ago
This is definitely one of the most ridiculous points about the American system. Medicare for all already exists, it just requires that you quit your job (forever if you have a chronic medical issue) sell your house and assets and stop paying taxes, or having productive input into the economy entirely. What kind of sense does that make?
- toast0 8y ago
  You don't need to sell your house, you can qualify for Medicaid and they'll place a lien on it. You can't keep savings to pay the property tax or the mortgage though, so I don't think you'd end up keeping the house.
jackpirate 8y ago
The US provides acute treatment for the destitute (i.e. we'll fix your broken bone), but I don't think we'll provide chronic treatment for the destitute. I've never heard of a destitute person getting free chemo or hospice for example.
- harryh 8y ago
  This is incorrect. Medicaid provides for health care of all kinds including chemo and hospice care. There is some evidence that the quality of care isn't as good as private insurance, but there is definitely coverage of some kind for the items you mention.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- kaitai 8y ago
  You're essentially right. My neighbor poster harryh mentions Medicaid, but there are many situations in which you can be destitute and not qualify, or not qualify for many months, during which time you can suffer from lack of chemo for instance. A schoolmate of mine died from cancer in her 20s because the cancer was discovered late due to lack of insurance/healthcare, and then treatment was delayed almost a year because she didn't qualify for X because she had a job with a certain hourly wage and needed to quit and spend down her meager assets to a certain level, then once poor enough it took 3 months to get processed into the state program for the poor, then she finally got coverage and started getting treatment then died quickly because it was so advanced. Some homeless people get 'free' chemo, etc., but there are huge problems with the setup because with certain illnesses they're too well to qualify for hospice or housing or staying in the hospital full-time, but discharging to the street results in non-compliance with medication regimes because they don't have safe places or refrigerators to keep drugs, for instance. On the other end, hospice requires a lot of referrals and paperwork; if you can't get into the pipeline by getting all the referrals and evaluations and paperwork done, you don't get hospice, whether for money or for free.
  - harryh 8y ago
    It is true that their are gaps between the truly poor/broke that qualify for medicaid and those (like your friend apparently) who have some money but do not purchase private health insurance. This is, indeed, a problem. It's worth noting that these gaps closed significantly with the passage of the ACA (ObamaCare).
malvosenior 8y ago
This is why the ACA (Obamacare) was extra bad (for me and others in my situation). Not only do I have to subsidize the poor through taxes but now I have to subsidize higher risk individuals through my own increased premiums. I also make enough money to get zero tax breaks on any of it and the "marketplace" has removed all competition and downward price pressure. EDIT: People seem to think I'm being flippant or cruel but here's more background. I am not rich. I struggle to stay in the middle class. It doesn't take much to stop getting tax breaks but it takes a ton of money to survive. Paying $1,000 a month for health insurance on top of my already high taxes is a meaningful amount of money that greatly impacts where I can live, if I can retire and many other major life properties.
- scarface74 8y ago
  You were always subsidizing the poor. Hospitals must treat anyone who comes to the emergency room whether they could afford to pay or not. The costs were recouped by charging those with insurance more - raising your cost of private insurance or through some government sponsored hospital. On top of that, if you are under group insurance through an employer, they have always been required to insure everyone at the same price except they could have a smoking surcharge. Your risk pool and the price you paid was determimed by the group you were a part of. Unless you die suddenly, there is a good chance that at some point in your life, you will have a “pre-existing condition” that would have made you ineligible for health insurance. But on another note: right before the ACA took affect, I was laid off from my job. That by itself was no big deal. I literally was laid off on Friday after the company was sold and started contracting for one of our customers the following Monday. I went to get private insurance and no one would sell it to me because I had mild cerebral palsy. My CP is so mild that it only basically affects one hand, I was a part time fitness instructor, I had just run two half marathons in the previous year, and I hadn’t had any surgery besides foot surgery and that was 12 years prior. I was getting paid more than enough as a contractor to pay higher premiums, I offered to do a fitness test - I knew I was in shape to pass any of the military fitness tests for my age - but they wouldn’t go for it. As far as CORBA, yeah I ended up buying into the acquiring company's health plan. But guess what? They cancelled their health plan and there would have been nothing to buy into. The ACA means that I could buy insurance. My then fiancé/now wife said forget it. We moved our wedding date back six months, went to the courthouse, got married and I got on her insurance plan. She since chose another job with the school system partially to guarantee that after 10 years, we would have access to health insurance for the rest of our lives no matter what. But why should someone have to go through these contortions to buy insurance at full price?
rayiner 8y ago
The US provides health care to the poor but not other people because we view it as part of the social safety net, not a general public service. We can debate about which is the right view, but you don’t need “lobbying” to get to the US view.
- sangnoir 8y ago
  How does this jibe with the (increasing) work-requirements for accessing social services?

by chimi 8y ago

throwaway2048 8y ago

This is definitely one of the most ridiculous points about the American system. Medicare for all already exists, it just requires that you quit your job (forever if you have a chronic medical issue) sell your house and assets and stop paying taxes, or having productive input into the economy entirely. What kind of sense does that make?

toast0 8y ago
You don't need to sell your house, you can qualify for Medicaid and they'll place a lien on it. You can't keep savings to pay the property tax or the mortgage though, so I don't think you'd end up keeping the house.

jackpirate 8y ago

The US provides acute treatment for the destitute (i.e. we'll fix your broken bone), but I don't think we'll provide chronic treatment for the destitute. I've never heard of a destitute person getting free chemo or hospice for example.

harryh 8y ago
This is incorrect. Medicaid provides for health care of all kinds including chemo and hospice care. There is some evidence that the quality of care isn't as good as private insurance, but there is definitely coverage of some kind for the items you mention.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
kaitai 8y ago
You're essentially right. My neighbor poster harryh mentions Medicaid, but there are many situations in which you can be destitute and not qualify, or not qualify for many months, during which time you can suffer from lack of chemo for instance. A schoolmate of mine died from cancer in her 20s because the cancer was discovered late due to lack of insurance/healthcare, and then treatment was delayed almost a year because she didn't qualify for X because she had a job with a certain hourly wage and needed to quit and spend down her meager assets to a certain level, then once poor enough it took 3 months to get processed into the state program for the poor, then she finally got coverage and started getting treatment then died quickly because it was so advanced. Some homeless people get 'free' chemo, etc., but there are huge problems with the setup because with certain illnesses they're too well to qualify for hospice or housing or staying in the hospital full-time, but discharging to the street results in non-compliance with medication regimes because they don't have safe places or refrigerators to keep drugs, for instance. On the other end, hospice requires a lot of referrals and paperwork; if you can't get into the pipeline by getting all the referrals and evaluations and paperwork done, you don't get hospice, whether for money or for free.
- harryh 8y ago
  It is true that their are gaps between the truly poor/broke that qualify for medicaid and those (like your friend apparently) who have some money but do not purchase private health insurance. This is, indeed, a problem. It's worth noting that these gaps closed significantly with the passage of the ACA (ObamaCare).

malvosenior 8y ago

This is why the ACA (Obamacare) was extra bad (for me and others in my situation). Not only do I have to subsidize the poor through taxes but now I have to subsidize higher risk individuals through my own increased premiums. I also make enough money to get zero tax breaks on any of it and the "marketplace" has removed all competition and downward price pressure. EDIT: People seem to think I'm being flippant or cruel but here's more background. I am not rich. I struggle to stay in the middle class. It doesn't take much to stop getting tax breaks but it takes a ton of money to survive. Paying $1,000 a month for health insurance on top of my already high taxes is a meaningful amount of money that greatly impacts where I can live, if I can retire and many other major life properties.

scarface74 8y ago
You were always subsidizing the poor. Hospitals must treat anyone who comes to the emergency room whether they could afford to pay or not. The costs were recouped by charging those with insurance more - raising your cost of private insurance or through some government sponsored hospital. On top of that, if you are under group insurance through an employer, they have always been required to insure everyone at the same price except they could have a smoking surcharge. Your risk pool and the price you paid was determimed by the group you were a part of. Unless you die suddenly, there is a good chance that at some point in your life, you will have a “pre-existing condition” that would have made you ineligible for health insurance. But on another note: right before the ACA took affect, I was laid off from my job. That by itself was no big deal. I literally was laid off on Friday after the company was sold and started contracting for one of our customers the following Monday. I went to get private insurance and no one would sell it to me because I had mild cerebral palsy. My CP is so mild that it only basically affects one hand, I was a part time fitness instructor, I had just run two half marathons in the previous year, and I hadn’t had any surgery besides foot surgery and that was 12 years prior. I was getting paid more than enough as a contractor to pay higher premiums, I offered to do a fitness test - I knew I was in shape to pass any of the military fitness tests for my age - but they wouldn’t go for it. As far as CORBA, yeah I ended up buying into the acquiring company's health plan. But guess what? They cancelled their health plan and there would have been nothing to buy into. The ACA means that I could buy insurance. My then fiancé/now wife said forget it. We moved our wedding date back six months, went to the courthouse, got married and I got on her insurance plan. She since chose another job with the school system partially to guarantee that after 10 years, we would have access to health insurance for the rest of our lives no matter what. But why should someone have to go through these contortions to buy insurance at full price?

rayiner 8y ago

The US provides health care to the poor but not other people because we view it as part of the social safety net, not a general public service. We can debate about which is the right view, but you don’t need “lobbying” to get to the US view.

sangnoir 8y ago
How does this jibe with the (increasing) work-requirements for accessing social services?