6 ms·

50% of health resources are used in the final 5 years of life. The young should not pay for the healthcare of the elderly. Society should be apportioned into d

50% of health resources are used in the final 5 years of life. The young should not pay for the healthcare of the elderly. Society should be apportioned into different age categories, and funded separately, with a 'base' tier for all citizens and legal residents, and a higher tier for those with private or employer insurance.

simulate-me 4y ago
Who funds the more expensive tiers?
caboteria 4y ago
Anyone who hopes to someday be elderly should pay for the healthcare of the elderly.
Krasnol 4y ago
> The young should not pay for the healthcare of the elderly. Why?
- notch656a 4y ago
  I think funding the elderly is a lofty goal, but I don't see a good intellectual argument for FORCING our children to pay for our healthcare. You shouldn't view your child (nor your neighbor's child) as your own personal piggy-bank to extract from when you get ill. IMO our goal should be to hand down resources from parent to child, not the opposite direction. If I made this story a bit more personal and wrote ("I am too ill to work anymore, so I drove to my son's house and took $200 off his counter to buy my medication) HN would be reacting with outrage.
  - notreallyserio 4y ago
    What alternative do you propose? Suicide booths?
    - notch656a 4y ago
      Literally any other option than telling our children they must involuntarily pay, like they're our own personal piggy bank. Saving, asking nicely, charity, debt/mortgage the house, and other forms of voluntary transactions sound acceptable. If you truly have no other options then you can make the moral judgement whether you want to involuntarily take from our children because you think the investment on yourself is worth more than the investment on the youth.
  - Krasnol 4y ago
    I don't understand your argument. You are helping others & others help you. What's the problem? > If I made this story a bit more personal and wrote ("I am too ill to work anymore, so I drove to my son's house and took $200 off his counter to buy my medication) HN would be reacting with outrage. How about making the story more fitting the reality here: You drive to your sons house and ask him to help you with your health bill and he helps you because...why wouldn't he?
    - notch656a 4y ago
      >You drive to your sons house and ask him to help you with your health bill and he helps you because...why wouldn't he? Asking is fine. Telling them they must is not. If the mechanism for payment from the youth to the elderly is voluntary I have no problem with it.
      - Krasnol 4y ago
        It kinda is voluntary. If you don't like it, you can leave the country which wants you to pay. I don't get why you have a problem with that. It sounds to me like some anti-social behaviour pattern. Don't you pay for taxes or Government services too? This is how a civilized society works. The attitude you display here has become a bad joke when people talk about the US health system. You must be aware of that. What do you expect people to do which can't afford to pay their health bills because they've been unlucky or something like that? Are they supposed to just die?
        nybble41 4y ago
        > It kinda is voluntary. If you don't like it, you can leave the country which wants you to pay. Voluntary would be staying where you are and still not being forced to pay. When a mugger presents their victim with a choice like "your money or your life" they're not paying voluntarily just because there was another option. You don't have the right to evict people from their homes any more than you have the right to take their money. > It sounds to me like some anti-social behaviour pattern. The attempt to normalize theft is the only "anti-social behaviour pattern" here.
  - boeingUH60 4y ago
    > I am too ill to work anymore, so I drove to my son's house and took $200 off his counter to buy my medication Maybe it is because we come from different cultures, but I see absolutely nothing wrong with this. In fact, I recently paid for my parent's hospital bills and did it happily. My country doesn't have universal healthcare, but I'll be happy if we did. At the end of the day, we live in a society, and one of the imperfections is that we end up paying for things we don't like regardless of our opinions. I think healthcare should be a priority...
    - notch656a 4y ago
      >In fact, I recently paid for my parent's hospital bills and did it happily. Yes and I recently paid thousands of dollars for my wife's hospital bill, would you like a cookie? That's how it's supposed to work: you voluntarily decide to help your loved ones and the payment is made. How it isn't supposed to work is that the elderly make a moral judgement that the youth are less deserving of investment than themselves, and involuntarily they extract that money from the youth without their consent. I have no problem with a society where you voluntarily pay your parent's hospital bill, in fact you can do that in most any country already. Congratulations, your goal is already achieved. >we end up paying for things we don't like regardless of our opinions In this case you seem to mean we are made to pay for others without our consent. >I think healthcare should be a priority.. Maybe I think hookers should be a priority; sex is correlated with good health. You wouldn't mind if I took a couple hundred from you for my health would you?
      - boeingUH60 4y ago
        > Maybe I think hookers should be a priority; sex is correlated with good health. You wouldn't mind if I took a couple hundred from you for my health would you? Well, different priorities, and that’s fine. But, let’s assume in a democracy, the majority of people decide to vote for free hookers and blow for everyone, why not :)
        notch656a 4y ago
        >But, let’s assume in a democracy, the majority of people decide to vote for free hookers and blow for everyone, why not :) Majority of _what_ people. The majority of people within my square mile? This continent? The majority of people in my house? I merely reduce down 'democracy' to its logical smallest element, the individual. I vote what I will spend my earnings on, and as the only voter my vote wins. Of course, my vote has no effect on obligation of others, as they are not part of my own 'democracy.' Very few people want a pure democracy. Pure democracy is 5 people in a house, and 4 vote to beat the shit out of the fifth. Pure democracy is when 60% whites vote to make blacks their slaves. Pure democracy is voting to intern the Japanese in camps. Voting is fine, involuntary extraction of resources from others is not.
airstrike 4y ago
> The young should not pay for the healthcare of the elderly. The same way responsible drivers should not pay for reckless ones? Or responsible homeowners shouldn't pay for reckless ones? The whole idea of insurance is to distribute the costs so that no one has to bear long tail costs alone...
- puffoflogic 4y ago
  Private auto and homeowners insurance are not price-insensitive, despite being mandatory (former case, by mandate, latter case, in practice for mortgaged property). If insurance companies paid out indiscriminately to the reckless; i.e. failed to manage their risk; then their premiums would get too high and they would lose their average customers. There is no analogue for taxpayer-funded healthcare. There is no practical upper bound on the cost. The over-users will not run out of other people's money. Unless, of course, there are death panels; everyone loves death panels.
- ceeplusplus 4y ago
  Long tail costs are things like freak car accidents, hail, etc. Reckless drivers should and are charged more because their costs are higher as a result of their own choices. Obese smokers should be charged more than healthy people but they're not because ACA says you can't discriminate based on pre-existing conditions. That means healthy people end up subsidizing lung cancer treatment, heart disease treatment, insulin, etc. for fat people. edit: correction, ACA permits charging tobacco users extra. But not, for example, weed users.
  - airstrike 4y ago
    Older people do pay more for healthcare insurance…
    - nybble41 4y ago
      Yes, because age (like smoking) is one of the few factors ACA Marketplace plans can take into consideration. But healthy older people pay the same premiums as unhealthy older people, which means one of these two groups is being overcharged. Moreover, it means that there is less incentive (not none, but less) to make an effort to end up in the first group as it won't affect your health insurance costs.
thallium205 4y ago
I mean the young get kicked out of their commercial plans at age 65. So in a way they don't pay for it at the commercial level.
tsol 4y ago
So what do we do with the sick and poor elderly folks? It provides a benefit for the younger as well in that junior doesn't have to worry about grandma dying of an untreated illness
Sohcahtoa82 4y ago
> The young should not pay for the healthcare of the elderly. I take an alternative view. When you're young, the payments you make into Medicare taxes are to take care of you later when you need it. A long-term HSA of sorts.

simulate-me 4y ago

Who funds the more expensive tiers?

caboteria 4y ago

Anyone who hopes to someday be elderly should pay for the healthcare of the elderly.

Krasnol 4y ago

> The young should not pay for the healthcare of the elderly. Why?

notch656a 4y ago
I think funding the elderly is a lofty goal, but I don't see a good intellectual argument for FORCING our children to pay for our healthcare. You shouldn't view your child (nor your neighbor's child) as your own personal piggy-bank to extract from when you get ill. IMO our goal should be to hand down resources from parent to child, not the opposite direction. If I made this story a bit more personal and wrote ("I am too ill to work anymore, so I drove to my son's house and took $200 off his counter to buy my medication) HN would be reacting with outrage.
- notreallyserio 4y ago
  What alternative do you propose? Suicide booths?
  - notch656a 4y ago
    Literally any other option than telling our children they must involuntarily pay, like they're our own personal piggy bank. Saving, asking nicely, charity, debt/mortgage the house, and other forms of voluntary transactions sound acceptable. If you truly have no other options then you can make the moral judgement whether you want to involuntarily take from our children because you think the investment on yourself is worth more than the investment on the youth.
- Krasnol 4y ago
  I don't understand your argument. You are helping others & others help you. What's the problem? > If I made this story a bit more personal and wrote ("I am too ill to work anymore, so I drove to my son's house and took $200 off his counter to buy my medication) HN would be reacting with outrage. How about making the story more fitting the reality here: You drive to your sons house and ask him to help you with your health bill and he helps you because...why wouldn't he?
  - notch656a 4y ago
    >You drive to your sons house and ask him to help you with your health bill and he helps you because...why wouldn't he? Asking is fine. Telling them they must is not. If the mechanism for payment from the youth to the elderly is voluntary I have no problem with it.
    - Krasnol 4y ago
      It kinda is voluntary. If you don't like it, you can leave the country which wants you to pay. I don't get why you have a problem with that. It sounds to me like some anti-social behaviour pattern. Don't you pay for taxes or Government services too? This is how a civilized society works. The attitude you display here has become a bad joke when people talk about the US health system. You must be aware of that. What do you expect people to do which can't afford to pay their health bills because they've been unlucky or something like that? Are they supposed to just die?
      - nybble41 4y ago
        > It kinda is voluntary. If you don't like it, you can leave the country which wants you to pay. Voluntary would be staying where you are and still not being forced to pay. When a mugger presents their victim with a choice like "your money or your life" they're not paying voluntarily just because there was another option. You don't have the right to evict people from their homes any more than you have the right to take their money. > It sounds to me like some anti-social behaviour pattern. The attempt to normalize theft is the only "anti-social behaviour pattern" here.
- boeingUH60 4y ago
  > I am too ill to work anymore, so I drove to my son's house and took $200 off his counter to buy my medication Maybe it is because we come from different cultures, but I see absolutely nothing wrong with this. In fact, I recently paid for my parent's hospital bills and did it happily. My country doesn't have universal healthcare, but I'll be happy if we did. At the end of the day, we live in a society, and one of the imperfections is that we end up paying for things we don't like regardless of our opinions. I think healthcare should be a priority...
  - notch656a 4y ago
    >In fact, I recently paid for my parent's hospital bills and did it happily. Yes and I recently paid thousands of dollars for my wife's hospital bill, would you like a cookie? That's how it's supposed to work: you voluntarily decide to help your loved ones and the payment is made. How it isn't supposed to work is that the elderly make a moral judgement that the youth are less deserving of investment than themselves, and involuntarily they extract that money from the youth without their consent. I have no problem with a society where you voluntarily pay your parent's hospital bill, in fact you can do that in most any country already. Congratulations, your goal is already achieved. >we end up paying for things we don't like regardless of our opinions In this case you seem to mean we are made to pay for others without our consent. >I think healthcare should be a priority.. Maybe I think hookers should be a priority; sex is correlated with good health. You wouldn't mind if I took a couple hundred from you for my health would you?
    - boeingUH60 4y ago
      > Maybe I think hookers should be a priority; sex is correlated with good health. You wouldn't mind if I took a couple hundred from you for my health would you? Well, different priorities, and that’s fine. But, let’s assume in a democracy, the majority of people decide to vote for free hookers and blow for everyone, why not :)
      - notch656a 4y ago
        >But, let’s assume in a democracy, the majority of people decide to vote for free hookers and blow for everyone, why not :) Majority of _what_ people. The majority of people within my square mile? This continent? The majority of people in my house? I merely reduce down 'democracy' to its logical smallest element, the individual. I vote what I will spend my earnings on, and as the only voter my vote wins. Of course, my vote has no effect on obligation of others, as they are not part of my own 'democracy.' Very few people want a pure democracy. Pure democracy is 5 people in a house, and 4 vote to beat the shit out of the fifth. Pure democracy is when 60% whites vote to make blacks their slaves. Pure democracy is voting to intern the Japanese in camps. Voting is fine, involuntary extraction of resources from others is not.

airstrike 4y ago

> The young should not pay for the healthcare of the elderly. The same way responsible drivers should not pay for reckless ones? Or responsible homeowners shouldn't pay for reckless ones? The whole idea of insurance is to distribute the costs so that no one has to bear long tail costs alone...

puffoflogic 4y ago
Private auto and homeowners insurance are not price-insensitive, despite being mandatory (former case, by mandate, latter case, in practice for mortgaged property). If insurance companies paid out indiscriminately to the reckless; i.e. failed to manage their risk; then their premiums would get too high and they would lose their average customers. There is no analogue for taxpayer-funded healthcare. There is no practical upper bound on the cost. The over-users will not run out of other people's money. Unless, of course, there are death panels; everyone loves death panels.
ceeplusplus 4y ago
Long tail costs are things like freak car accidents, hail, etc. Reckless drivers should and are charged more because their costs are higher as a result of their own choices. Obese smokers should be charged more than healthy people but they're not because ACA says you can't discriminate based on pre-existing conditions. That means healthy people end up subsidizing lung cancer treatment, heart disease treatment, insulin, etc. for fat people. edit: correction, ACA permits charging tobacco users extra. But not, for example, weed users.
- airstrike 4y ago
  Older people do pay more for healthcare insurance…
  - nybble41 4y ago
    Yes, because age (like smoking) is one of the few factors ACA Marketplace plans can take into consideration. But healthy older people pay the same premiums as unhealthy older people, which means one of these two groups is being overcharged. Moreover, it means that there is less incentive (not none, but less) to make an effort to end up in the first group as it won't affect your health insurance costs.

thallium205 4y ago

I mean the young get kicked out of their commercial plans at age 65. So in a way they don't pay for it at the commercial level.

tsol 4y ago

So what do we do with the sick and poor elderly folks? It provides a benefit for the younger as well in that junior doesn't have to worry about grandma dying of an untreated illness

Sohcahtoa82 4y ago

> The young should not pay for the healthcare of the elderly. I take an alternative view. When you're young, the payments you make into Medicare taxes are to take care of you later when you need it. A long-term HSA of sorts.