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I think this is pretty common practice. I get a letter every single year to verify that I dont have any other insurance and they will stop processing claims unt

• lawn 4y ago
  As a Swede, this sounds so ridiculous.
  • mindslight 4y ago
    It is, but our country is paralyzed by a political fallacy of "if the market is already so bad, imagine how much worse government exerting any sort of deliberate policy would make it!". And then add in the lobbying process where bills only get passed when some corporate sponsor stands to gain [0], and it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. See also the "death panel" meme, as if that isn't a term that perfectly describes the "insurance" racket we've had all along. [0] eg one of the bullet points of widely celebrated health care reform was making it mandatory to pay the cartel!
    • willcipriano 4y ago
      We already spend more in the US, per captia, than any other nation on earth on socialized medcine. The reason we don't have universal coverage isn't due to a lack of resources so it has to be either a lack of ability or theft, probably both.
      • vuln 4y ago
        Find me a country with the population, sprawl, and never ending consumption of processed unhealthy poison like the US. There isn't one. I'm not saying healthcare in America is perfect or arguing that insurance companies aren't rent seeking or that this can't be changed. I'm just stating that the US is the most unhealthy country there has ever been.
        • jewayne 4y ago
          > I'm just stating that the US is the most unhealthy country there has ever been. More unhealthy than England during the Black Death? Also, Mexico has already passed the US in obesity, and tons of countries have more smoking that the US. But that rant wasn't supposed to be fact-based, was it?
        • RichEO 4y ago
          How about Australia? Not the same population, but otherwise the criteria fits.
      • onewheeltom 4y ago
        If we want to optimize for income and make health a secondary concern, then our system is abundantly successful.
      • int_19h 4y ago
        I mean, suppose we implemented single-payer healthcare on the federal level, and then an anti-abortion government got elected? We know empirically that the latter is a realistic possibility.
        • mindslight 4y ago
          The anti-healthcare governments that have been recently elected at the state level have managed to outright criminalize reproductive healthcare, making health plan coverage moot. So this would be seemingly less of its own concern than it was say five years ago.
          • int_19h 4y ago
            But those anti-health state governments are, at least, limited to their respective states. Which also makes it possible for people to seek abortion and other related procedures across state borders (I know there were some attempts to ban it, too, but none of them became law so far, and in any case this is very difficult to enforce), where the infrastructure remains. In a scenario where the anti-abortion party takes control of the executive that is running Canada-style single-payer healthcare on the federal level, I could see them 1) defining abortion as "core service" rather than supplemental so that private providers can't offer it outside the system, and then 2) setting harsh term limits and other barriers like doctor approval to make it effectively banned in practice. (Fetal personhood is another backdoor that can take this even further.)
            • mindslight 4y ago
              My general point was that an administrative backdoor isn't really needed since the regressives have seemingly found a legal basis to criminalize reasonable and prudent medical care on its own. But I do see your point that if the regressives take the presidency but not congress, then the more the government is involved in the more damage they will do. I'm not a huge fan of single payer healthcare, but I guess I accept it as a compromise as it's the only plan that's been put forth to reform the deeply corrupt healthcare system. I personally want less government involvement in individuals' lives in general (and it's necessary to include de facto corporate government in that scope as well). But I've also paused focusing on this line of argument because the regressive movement has used up so much of the air for it, in bad faith. But really regardless, we're kind of screwed if the regressives take the executive any time before their social-media-fueled nonsense is run out of the mainstream by actual conservatives - that is people who believe in questioning change, not trying to drag us back in time 70 years to some imagined idyllic past.
    • NovemberWhiskey 4y ago
      As Steinbeck was (mis-)quoted: "Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires."
    • nsxwolf 4y ago
      "Death panels" sounded absurd in 2009, especially given who is most famous for introducing us the term. In 2023, when I look at Canada's ever expanding MAiD programs, it doesn't seem as absurd. If you're a government bureaucrat tasked with reducing healthcare expenditures, in a society that's made the determination that suicide is an acceptable medical treatment, you are incentivized to increase the practice.
      • mindslight 4y ago
        "Death panels" was absurd because it's a hyperbolic description of what private "insurers" already did. If you're a corporate bureaucrat tasked with reducing healthcare expenditures ... I agree that Canada's pushing for classifying suicide as medical treatment is worrying. Suicide is a human right, but making it part of the medical system's all-encompassing paternalism is regressive. In general we need less intermediation between individuals and medical care, not more. And the "insurance" cartel is one hell of an intermediary. The concept of the HMO is a complete failure, and they should be made illegal for their basic anti-competitiveness.
      • triceratops 4y ago
        If we're going to have death panels either way, I'd at least prefer the panelists don't get bonuses for choosing death thank you very much. Better if those bonuses go into reducing deaths.
      • duxup 4y ago
        Personally I think many later in life decisions can both save money and benefit the individual. Do not do not resuscitate and forgoing treatment can make people’s lives better, reduce suffering.
  • jkaptur 4y ago
    We know.
  • duxup 4y ago
    It is ridiculous too many Americans too.
• duxup 4y ago
  My thing is why should I have to do it at all? They know I have their insurance… I have it so they pay… do the thing…