The health care reform bill was a mixed bag – the insurers mostly got what they wanted: There is no public competition allowed, and there is no regulations on costs. They got a mandate that individuals citizens be forced to buy their products, and only a scintilla of regulation of the quality of coverage offered. In the coming years, their intent is to push us all into expensive and crappy high-deductible high co-pay products.
But there are some parts of the bill that have merit. One is a prohibition against denying coverage to children with preexisting conditions. Another is the elimination of lifetime caps on coverage, and still another that they spend at least 85% of premiums in small-group markets on actual health care.
And there is another part, one that leaves me a bit confused: Effective in 2014, insurers will not be allowed to deny coverage to anyone based on a preexisting condition. I have not taken that part of the law seriously, as that part of the insurance business model is sacrosanct – in order to be profitable, insurers have to be able to avoid unprofitable clients. So I assumed that there is some way around that, and settled on the idea that in 2014 we who have preexisting conditions would still be rejected coverage, and instead forced into the local exchanges, where adverse selection would create unaffordable premiums. This is what is now happening in the state exchanges where insurers send their rejects.
The devil is in the details. Much of the law was left deliberately vague, with the 2014 regulations to be written by the executive branch. The assumption is that if it is Obama people that write the regs, they will be more charitable than say Romney or Huckabee people. I have no idea why anyone would think that.
Back to Aetna: Here in Colorado, and I assume nationwide, the company is pulling out of the private placement market. They will no longer offer individual policies in Colorado, and those in existence will be terminated on their anniversary dates. Before now, they stopped offering policies to children, and also to small-groups. Now anyone who is not part of a large group need not apply to Aetna.
Anjie Coplin, Aetna’s regional director of communications, did not specify in an email to the Denver Business Journal why the company had decided to end its presence in Colorado’s individual health market.
But she noted that the company will continue to sell large-group plans and dental and life products and said that officials “believe we remain competitive in these markets.”
And in a Dec. 21 letter to the Colorado Division of Insurance, Aetna General Counsel Mary Anderson said that Aetna “can no longer meet the needs of its customers while remaining competitive in the Colorado individual health insurance market.”
And blah blah blah. Read: Delivery of health care interferes with the business model. The problem with for-profit health insurance will not go away. It is not hard to understand. It is “the profit motive.”
4.29% of Colorado residents have been unceremoniously dumped. But thank God we don’t have Canadian-style health care.
Piece of Mindful 
You are overly anxious to slay the insurance companies. Like
Stalin, you think if you kill the right people, things will get better. Good luck with that.
In your final grand scheme, is there any room for differential pricing in health care costs? A guy with a healthy family history, who eats right and exercises–what is his obligation to pay for the high cost street drug user?
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Stalin? Are we a bit extreme?
If you push just a little bit further, you will see that market segmentation, far from being a solution, is the problem.
This extreme minority of heavy drug users you keep referring to as justification for the current way of doing things will always be there. One way or another, we pay for them. Move on.
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Well, the guy with the healthy family history is going to pay the social costs of the street drug user–burglaries, policing, the courts, incarceration, probation and parole…
Maybe if we all banded together (you know, like in a universal health care program) and spent some of the money that would have gone to those other, negative social costs, that high cost street drug user could have gone to treatment and eventually become a productive member of society, working a job and paying taxes and all.
And you can lambast the street drug user all you want, but here in Montana, the costs of alcohol abuse are running close to a billion dollars a year. That’s almost a thousand dollars per year per person. How much could that be reduced if the state invested in a decent system of drug and alcohol treatment?
Of course, given your brazen right-wing statements, you’d probably rather take a moralistic stance against doing anything to help the addicted or mentally ill, instead taking them out and shooting them, or finding a dungeon or penal colony somewhere to place them in exile. Maybe put them in chain gangs and make slaves out of them…
And “differential pricing in health care costs”? You mean like how I have to pay more for my health care costs because I have no insurance (and no collective bargaining strength) and have to subsidize the costs of your insurance? And my taxes subsidize your tax breaks, and I get nothing in return? And individual procedures cost me more when I pay cash at the counter, than the guy who forces the system with his crappy insurance to build a system of accounting that sucks 20-30% of the productivity out of the system just pushing paperwork?
In your grand scheme of things, rightsaidfred, you wish to push as much of the cost of your existence onto the less fortunate as you can and exploit our system of inequities (“the market”) as you can to oppress others and enrich yourself.
As to obligations, what is your obligation as one who takes advantage of our society by oppressing others to give something back to those whom you oppress?
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JC
So you are -bizarrely- arguing that by stealing my money to pay for health care will reduce the number of drug users?
(1) Drug users do not affect me.
(2) You stealing my money affects me.
Guess which one is the problem?
Bizarre!
That is a irrational calculation based on a series of baseless statistical calculations that has NO MERIT.
Further, the costs are borne by those that indulge – and that is exactly how it should be.
Why should I have to pay for your abuse of booze?
You drank it, you pay for it.
They can avail themselves of charity.
I can give to charity.
None of this makes your argument to steal my money to pay for others valid.
Irrational brain-spin idiotic comments.
You do not do anything to my insurance if you do not pay for insurance.
Tax breaks are a return of my own money to me.
They have nothing to do with your tax payments at all.
Your solution to a system perverted by government interference is to argue for more government interference.
And -insanely- you do not see that increasing the speed of error makes greater error – you argue that the faster and more the error is done, the better the system will get….
I have no obligation to you. You have no right to steal from me from your belief that you can obligate others on a whim.
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Hey, according you your logic, you’re stealing from me. So we’ve reduced society to one in which we all steal from each other, and those with the mostest get away with it.
And I don’t really give a rats ass about the rest of your blathering nit-picking. You don’t know shit about the real world.
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JC
I know somewhere in that brain tornado of yours you think this – but I will assure you, I am not advocating any theft of you.
You keep all of your money and spend it as you wish, and I keep all of my money and spend it as I wish – fair, true?
The only “reality” you promote is your desire to steal from others by proxy – a game where you believe you will win.
In the end, however, you are the biggest loser. You come to rely on theft for your goods, and one day the producers abandon you. Then you starve for you know nothing but thievery.
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Mark
Aetna is one of our major health insurers, and a company that vividly demonstrates why private for-profit companies cannot deliver quality health care products.
Another of your comments coming out of your bizarre thinking.
Analogy:
Ferrari vividly demonstrates why a private company cannot deliver quality automobiles -….because they do not give Mark one for free
Of course they deliver quality- which is why they leave the market. They will not give it to you for free – and that makes you quite insane, right?
As I pointed out to you numerous times;
…you will get quality and abundant health care, but you must pay for it.
OR
…you will get free (or nearly free) health care, but there will be none to buy (or its quality will be worthless).
No such thing as a free lunch, Mark.
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There is no free lunch, and you Ferrari analogy is ludicrous.
At any given time the vast majority of us are healthy and do not need health care. But a small minority of us get sick, and those who get sick (randomly chosen) usually cannot afford to pay for the cost of health care. It’s a simple matter for each of us to pay something into the larger pool to take care of the minority that are sick, which might well include you.
The health insurers want to segment the market, and pull out those most likely to be healthy for the purpose of profiting on them, leaving the rest to suffer and die, for all they care. They are an anti-social force.
Shit – every other country has solved this problem, as it is bonehead. Why we cannot here? Bonehead ideology gets in the way.
BTW – at any given time, 1% of the population accounts for 22% of health care costs. Someday you will be part of that 1%.
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Mark,
Ah, that is what makes you so funny.
The smelly trap you stepped in is that you can replace “Ferrari” with any economic good and your argument remains perverse, bizarre and destructive.
And if that happens with any economic good that you put into that statement it holds true for health care too
And that is the trap: you refuse to apply any economic sense to health care where you would apply it other places – believing that for reasons that are irrational – health care is “different”.
I dunna know. I see to get sick once in awhile – and as lately where I had a horrific fall, fracturing my elbow and thigh – I easily paid for my “health care”.
Perhaps it is you and your financial organization of your affairs that is the fault
Nope, count me out.
I pay for me, and expect you to be responsible enough to pay for you. History has shown that this is the best method for all.
.
You jest.
Socialized medicine is bankrupting countries all over the global and you think that is a “solution”.
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If I had a black sense of humor, I would laugh at you if you developed anything needing ICU or chemo. You’d choose to live, no doubt. But I wish you good health.
I enjoy good health too. I have no troubles, no need for care at this time. I am simply sicked of being gamed by these “Sickos” (Moore’s name choice for his movie was not referring to clients, but insurers). They are bleeding us dry.
No one is going bankrupt due to health care costs, idiot. They all pay less than we do. Good f***** grief!
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Mark,
Indeed, your argument completely rests on deaf/dumb/blind monkeys.
Soaring costs force Canada to reassess health model
The NHS is spending too much on diabetes drugs say researchers, who found the medicines account for 7% of the UK prescribing budget.
Sweden’s Single-Payer Health System Provides a Warning to Other Nations
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In fact, Mark, there is NO WHERE where the Socialist Health Care model works – all are in trouble – either collapsing financially or collapsing in quality or run by dictatorships.
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Use of the word “soaring” buttresses your argument, but is an exaggeration.
If I can sum you up here, you’re saying that yes, our system is imperfect, but that in order for there to be any changes, I must first demonstrate to you a system that would be perfect. You then use hyperbolic language in the case of one country, and mere problems other countries are experiencing, to say that they are failing.
This is the right wing mantra that I must name some day, but it works like this: Our system, no matter how bad, will eventually succeed, or is at least the best we can do. Their systems, no matter how successful, will eventually fail.
You thereby set up two premises based on future events, and your fortress is impenetrable. You have detached yourself from the need for evidence.
This is the mindset of the radical. I have no further words for you, as you are unreachable.
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Mark,
“Soaring” is the comment from the Canadian Financial Post – if you don’t like them using it, post a editorial comment to them.
That is NOT what I am saying.
I am saying your system is WRONG.
It is wrong because the CONSEQUENCE of its existence will be OPPOSITE of your desire – that is, you want cheap, plentiful health care and you are advocating for a system that will eventually create expensive and over-utilized health care.
Your system is guaranteed to do this because you demand economic insanity.
No system exists where one person is forced to pay for the consumption of another.
The system must distort
If you do not have to pay for your goods, you will tend to consume them without restraint for there is no cost to you for consuming
If you have to pay for goods that you do not benefit from, you will tend to avoid, disrupt, or withdraw from such a system for there is no benefit for you being in such a system
I know you can see this – but your ego-centric world view prevents you from accepting as it would mean your own financial responsibility to your own health care and that is unpalatable for you.
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“They [insurance companies] are bleeding us dry.”
1. Healthcare insurance is voluntary. If you think that you are being ripped off, find another insurance company or forgo coverage completely. It is your choice.
2. It is nice to hear that you are in good health. So, what are you worried about? Oh, don’t tell me! It is not your health that worries you but your assets, right? You are worried you might get sick and not have the money to pay for healthcare; or you might have to liquidate some assets to pay for it; or you might go broke and have to give up that around-the-world cruise you were planning on.
3. So, should I help you buy car insurance, too? Homeowner insurance? Life insurance? Obviously, you could get sued out of existence or leave your family will a pile of bills if you have no coverage. Say, do you own a boat? Is it insured?
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I cannot “find another insurance company” as they are engaged in monopoly business practices, and do not compete with one another. Due to their monopoly market power, they have now rigged the game to force me to buy their product.
Health care is a necessity, a public good, that should not be left to the whims of private profiteers. They are laden with perverse incentives, and even if they wanted to could not provide a good product. (If they do, another company quickly steals their best clients. Think, now, Buxsy, think …!)
Now, assume that you get leukemia. Treatment requires round after round of chemo, and due to compromised immune system, intensive care. Your internet persona says that you can afford the treatment, hardly anyone else can. Your system simplify requires that these people die. Your philosophy, which thankfully is held only by an extreme minority, is anti social.
And finally, as I’ve explained ad nauseum, health care is a public good, and a right according to the IDHR. Driving is a privilege. Further, all of us need health care, where auto accidents are relatively rare and avoidable. Where the market works, as it does with auto insurance, we should use it. Where it does not work, as with health care, we should not.
Now, the next time we meet, at least pretend that you have heard the counterarguments.
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Mark,
As usual, you have no idea about rights.
A human right does not impose upon another human – that is what makes it a right.
And as usual, you are so confused about rights that you always get them backwards.
Driving IS A RIGHT. I can drive my car without a license at any speed at any time I want – on my own property. Otherwise I bet you wonder why NASCAR doesn’t get speeding tickets.
Your demand that I must pay for you imposes upon me – and no matter how much you stomp your feet, health “care” is not a right.
But since you have no idea what a right is, it is no surprise you advocate for actions that destroy them.
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Black Flag has taken care of most of your specious premises and the arguments that naturally follow.
Your attempt at switching from health care insurance to health care under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was pretty funny. Health care is “medical care” (Article 25:1). Have you ever been denied health care or medical care? No, you have not.
On the other hand, health care insurance is a different thing, something you are unwilling to pay for and would like very much for free or at a cost subsidized by others.
Why do you want health care insurance? It cannot stop you from getting sick. Oh, it is just like automobile insurance: it cannot stop your car from being stolen, but it will compensate you with money if your car is stolen. It is just like homeowners’ insurance: it cannot stop your house from burning down, but it will compensate you with money if it does burn down.
Likewise, health care insurance cannot stop you from getting sick, but it will compensate you with money if you do get sick so you do not have to “take a loss” on your illness.
We know what you are up to Trotsky. You just do not want to use your own money to pay for your own health care. You want an insurance policy to pay your health care bill. OK, fine. Go buy a policy. But no, then you immediately claim you cannot afford a policy, and you want me to help you buy one.
In essence then, you are unwilling to pay for your own health care and unwilling to pay for your own health care insurance.
Grow up, Trotsky, for heaven’s sake. You have the mentality of a teenager.
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Behind all this nonsense coming from Trotsky is his belief that health care is a human right. (He cannot define a human right, but we will let that go for the moment.) So, yes, you are correct, Trotsky is just looking for a free ride.
So am I. But I want the Ferrari.
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Such nonsense. If I am willing to pay my share of the national health care bill via taxes, how is it that I want a free ride?
I support the International Declaration of Human Rights, to which this country is a signatory. But you’re right – human rights are no more or less than we make them to be. If we all get together and decide that they don’t exist, then anything goes.
Fortunately, there’s only a tiny minority that thinks like that. Buy each other a beer, save the rest of the six pack for me.
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No one wants you to pay your share of the “national health care bill.” We just want you to pay your share of your own health care bill.
Rights = Paper
Anything does go. But you should know that already, because you are supposedly all grown up now.
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Mark,
It is a “free ride” because you want to pay less than what the value of the goods you want to consume.
You do not want to pay what the value is – you want me to pay for you.
You want to throw a dollar into the hat and take out $1,000 of goods! Only fools think your game is a good one!
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False. I currently pay more than I consume. I have no health needs that are not met. If we switch to public insurance, that does not change, except that I pay less via taxes than I do in premiums to the true leeches, of which I am not one.
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Aren’t you the one who is having some personal or family medical issue that (whether now or in the future) will be expected to be financially harsh?
Come on – you don’t think I hold a short-time preference calculation issue now, do you?
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Health is a basic human requirement like dignity and freedom. All living organisms require good health to survive. Corporations that exercise their power to deny a nations’ people proper health are criminals. When our — any and all government — government is too weak to prosecute corporate criminals, and too weak to admit its failings, it can’t be considered anything more than a failed state.
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“Health is a basic human requirement like dignity and freedom.”
I notice that you did not mention intelligence, but I understand why.
“All living organisms require good health to survive.”
Not true. My cat had both ears broken in half from frostbite. He lived a full life. My dog had bad kidneys all his life. He lived to 15. And you have a serious brain disease, but you are still blogging away.
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Ladybug,
Health care is NOT a basic requirement – air and water are basic requirements.
I can go years without any health care – I cannot go a week without air or water.
It is this terrible confusion that you display that -eventually- devastates society. When you apply the requirements of necessity to things that are not necessary, you distort society to such a degree that the things that are necessities become hard to find.
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I think I said above that most of us are healthy most of the time. Your time will come.
This is pointless. You’re way too dense to reason with.
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Mark,
And one day you will die.
But I will not pay for it. You will.
Because I will pay for the day I die. You shouldn’t nor anyone else.
When I am sick, I pay for me.
You want other to pay for you – and in demanding this, you will bankrupt your children. That is the ultimate in human ego-centric view point – you stealing from your kids….
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Mark, when you finally succumb to shoddy government health care its nice to know you can still go out in style.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110131/ap_on_re_us/us_mountain_funeral_pyre
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The best part of the article was when a woman was asked why her town was doing outdoor cremations. She replied, “Because you can’t really do it on your own.”
You have to admit, Mark T. fits right in with the goofy Colorado crowd.
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Goddammit Swede, until you learn that anecdotes are interesting but otherwise useless, it is pointless to argue with you.
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I repeat: “Health is a basic human requirement like dignity and freedom.”
Some humans obviously so do not believe this. Some do not believe government is necessary either. Some humans have lost touch with what it is to be human. Inhumanity is also so human, but not anything to be proud of in my opinion.
Again, Magnanimous Max, and others living on their personal island, time will prove you to be more impoverished than all those randomly selected for a lifetime of struggle with poor health they alone cannot afford to conquer.
Obviously, none of you go-it-aloners, or is it just loners, or whatever you are, have never struggled with long-term health problems beyond your means. Walk tall while you can.
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Ladybug,
And I repeat – you do not understand human rights at all.
You will die and no matter how much you proclaim it is your right to health – you will die.
You cannot proclaim a right that the Universe simply does not provide.
And some humans believe you can fly by flapping your arms and declare it is a right.
You are in the same league as these people by your claim to a “right” to health care.
It is as necessary as shooting yourself in the head.
Being charitable has nothing to do with human rights.
You cannot conquer death and no matter how much money you steal from me, you will still die.
We all will die. We all will struggle during that time.
Pray tell me why you should bankrupt yourself paying for me in that struggle?
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So, when rational thinking fails, which likely happens to you quite a lot, ladybug, you revert to emotionalism and appeals to the human heart. People who point out the fallacies in your thinking are condemned as “loners,” which of course implies that the majority of people are irrational–just like you.
(Say, what happened to “sociopath”? That used to be one of your favorite terms for people who thought clearly and logically.)
Anyway, I cannot spend any more time on you. There is a Girl Scout at my door taking orders for Girl Scout cookies, and I want to see how quickly I can make her cry.
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“Hey, sweetheart, what’s happening?”
“Hello. I’m selling cookies for the Girl Scouts of America. Would you be interested in buying some cookies?”
“I don’t see any cookies.”
“Well, I’m just taking orders for them right now.”
“OK. I’ll take one-thousand boxes of any flavor.”
“Excuse me?”
“I said I’ll take one-thousand boxes of any flavor. Do you want a deposit?”
“No. I’ll have to talk to my mother about this. She’s out in the car.”
“Hahaha. Get the hell off my property before I have you arrested.”
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Black, Max, et al.,
So we understand each other? No problem. For some, the human heart is no more than a pump. When everything living is reduced to a mechanical model or a sum of money, well you’re kind of missing a lot don’t you think? You can do that if you wish, that is your right too. Simple, like the bread and water routine. According to you, a life in prison, with food and water, has all the human requirements needed — until death, of course.
Whatever.
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Ladybug,
So let’s understand one another.
You want charity but only YOUR type of charity.
If I choose to use my excess resources for charity over here, you ignore it, because your charity is soooo much more important…. TO YOU.
But that’s the rub. Yours -like Mark’s- is an ego-centric world view. You only consider what’s good for you and to hell with anything else someone else may think.
You go around judging others – senselessly – demanding that they conform to whatever bizarre world view you hold about charity, and because most do not you think it is ok to force them to conform.
You cannot conceive of leaving other people out of your twisty little world.
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ps. Oh, and about that property you think is all yours? See how long it’s yours if you don’t pay your property tax. You’re a renter, like everyone else.
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We were talking about economics, not New Age philosophy.
Oh, and by the way, I own almost no property whatsoever. However, I have the free use of very nice property for as long as I want: land, houses, cars, electronic toys, etc.
That is one of Max Bucks’ Five Secrets of Success: Never own what you can use for free.
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Well Black Flag and Buck,
It is clear that the two of you are not of the God-fearing stripe of the reactionary crowd, unless maybe you are wearing lightening rods on your heads. Apparently you are also not even ethical atheists. Just self-interested heathens from any standpoint. Call it a soul, human dignity, call it humanity. You don’t have it. And apparently not shame. That’s why you are lower than the lowest amoeba. Because you have the intellectual capability (I use that term in its broadest, most scientific sense) to know the difference and yet you prefer, neigh justify, the satisfaction of your most base impulses, primarily greed. According to your ‘view’ (generally apology of the status quo is not considered a view), if you were face down in the street, no one should stop and help you, or at least roll you looking for an insurance card (please don’t let it be expired). Some people would just stop to help you because they feel it is their obligation. You see, being a human being does come with obligations, responsibilities and even rewards. Those are primarily intrinsic rewards, you can’t see them, so you wouldn’t believe they exist.
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Firat,
It’s simpler than that.
I simply do not agree with what you think is important to you.
I have other things that I think are important to me.
You are envious, because I have my money to spend on my things the way I want to spend them, and you don’t.
So you want to steal my money under many disguised justifications – but in the end, it is just stealing my money.
You think you can sleep well at night because you think Robin Hood was a good guy.
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Your insistence on referring to money just furthers my point about you. I am not sure that you have more than I do, but I do know that I don’t need Robin Hood to obligate me to be responsible. People with principle would contribute because it’s the right thing to do. Now, I’m relieved to hear you aren’t one of those ‘old-fashioned values’ types, but even as a self-preserving greedo, you might see that contributing would actually be in your best interest. Instead your greed has you a the most basic level of reasoning, like the dog who lost the meat to its reflection. Blinded into short-term thinking, limited to the most basic kind of stimulus-response behavior. No offense to amoebas.
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Firat
You have no point to further, because it is about money – MY MONEY
You want to steal it because you believe you can spend it better than I.
You are perverse – responsibility is not taking what is not your – but you do not believe that.
You believe you can dictate my spending to meet your demands, and if do not spend my money the way you like me to, you think you have the right to insult.
But you are short-term thinking – believing YOU know what is RIGHT for others. That makes you a ego-centric savage.
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PS Your reply makes me wonder if you are in fact a leprechaun.
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