Nope, no national evidence.

Just logistics.

This is my proof for being okay


Step 1: Ask around to all insurances to try to get the best monthly premium. Remember, all because you have insurance there is still a deductible which is like $5000 EVERY YEAR (The price of three of my procedures) If I had insurance, I wouldn't have qualified to use any of it because I didn't exceed $5000. That means the $7200 I put into insurance in three years is untouched and they won't give it to me even if I asked.

Step 2: If the insurance company feels safe gambling on outputting millions of dollars in hospital bills on whatever your insurance premium is, you should feel safe being able to pay yourself that same premium.

Step 3: You know that insurance companies have to pay their employees, pay taxes, pay mortgage on property, and pay for advertising. That extra money is tacked on to your premium. The money that is spent on overhead can't be retrieved from "the insurance pot" because it's spent.

Step 4: You know that money from you to the hospital will cut out the middleman (all the costs in step 3) which means less cost for you.

Step 5: You know the doctors are gouging prices for insurance, yet insurance companies and insurance employees can still afford nice cars and executives are still rich. So with your premium, insurance companies can live well, pay all their bills, and have enough money to pay your price gouged doctor's bills. That's awesome except it doesn't explain how some people are getting $millions out of the system when they/themselves won't put that much into the system in a lifetime.
How many people have to lose in order for that patient to win?


Another way to look at it:

When you give insurance money, they get to keep your money.
You never get your money back.
You have to ask for your money back when making a claim. you have to worry. you have to wait. you have to stay on the phone for hours of transfers and bureaucracy. After all of that, you can get still get denied.
If you put in 10 years of money and can't afford it anymore and have to cancel your policy, you don't get your money back.


Now...if you're responsible and pay yourself:
You accumulate wealth.
Your funds are instantaneous.
No waiting, no asking, no worrying.
You can use the funds for any reason unrelated to medical cost if you wanted to, like for any other emergency. It's your money.


To me, it's a no brain. Insurance is a lottery. The winners are actually losers. If you ring up more bills than you can make payment, you're probably sick as a dog and your life has ended anyway.

Like the lottery, many will play, few will win.

3/28/2012 3:06:37 PM

I want to see the receipts.

3/28/2012 3:31:22 PM

^^ you missed the fact that costs are higher on the provider side because they hire people to deal with the insurance companies.

But you still incur those costs if you don't get insurance. You can argue that shopping around can eliminate this, but that's only a can, and it won't happen for most people, per the examples on page 2.

From a certain perspective, it's unethical to buy insurance because you increase costs for those who can't afford insurance. In other words, you overspend on health care (more specifically, health care overhead) and by doing so limit what the market has to offer people who don't have the means to overspend in the same way. They have no choice other than to pay that price, although they can still avoid the insurance risk premium (which are in profits), and the administrative costs of the insurance company itself.

[Edited on March 28, 2012 at 3:34 PM. Reason : ]

3/28/2012 3:33:58 PM

Quote :

"you missed the fact that costs are higher on the provider side because they hire people to deal with the insurance companies."

I hear what you're saying, but their jobs will be the same, they'll just be dealing with collecting money from patients instead of insurance companies. Right?

Quote :

"I want to see the receipts."

I'll scan them later and post em here

3/28/2012 3:44:21 PM

Ronald Reagan's solicitor general basically sums up why any argument against the health care law is purely political in nature with absolutely zero constitutional basis.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/reagans-solicitor-general-health-care-is-interstate-commerce-is-this-a-regulation-of-it-yes-end-of-story/2011/08/25/gIQAmaQigS_blog.html

Key point for the lazy,

Quote :

"There is a market for health care. It’s a coordinated market. A heavily regulated market. Is Congress creating the market in order to regulate it? It’s not creating it! The market is there! Is it forcing people into it in order to regulate them? In every five-year period, 95 percent of the population is in the health-care market. Now, it’s not 100 percent, but I’d say that’s close enough for government work. And in any one year, it’s close to 85 percent. Congress isn’t forcing people into that market to regulate them. The whole thing is just a canard that’s been invented by the tea party and Randy Barnetts of the world, and I was astonished to hear it coming out of the mouths of the people on that bench."

In other words, if each justice ignores their individual politics, the law should be upheld 9-0.

[Edited on March 28, 2012 at 4:31 PM. Reason : :]

3/28/2012 4:30:32 PM

Nah, you're wrong. Based on your rationale, there's nothing the government can't get involved in, which would be consistent with your authoritarian approach.

[Edited on March 28, 2012 at 4:39 PM. Reason : ]

3/28/2012 4:39:41 PM

Totally consistent. If it were up to me, the government would "regulate" people like you out of the gene pool.

[Edited on March 28, 2012 at 4:48 PM. Reason : :]

3/28/2012 4:48:35 PM

Quote :

"I hear what you're saying, but their jobs will be the same, they'll just be dealing with collecting money from patients instead of insurance companies. Right?"

I think you're right in certain ways. All businesses have the cost of collecting money from their customer. This is as unavoidable as paying taxes. This cost, however, is dramatically different from business to business. I believe this falls into the category of "accounts receivable", and I'm talking about the actual collection of payment, not the negotiation of it.

random related startup:
http://www.paysimple.com/

It's correct to argue that the cost will still be there. But it's simply not the same. However, even among individual customers there is a major difference in this cost. If you require payment in full before seeing the doctor (and maybe a certain credit line), then those are low costs. You have almost no risk of not receiving the payment and they had to check in for the appointment anyway, so labor costs are also modest. I mean, if someone making $24/hr takes 5 marginal minutes to process your payment that's $2 per appointment.

The real question that matters is how much of current health care costs are associated with payment on a % basis. This involves BOTH assistants and the doctor's time because it's ultimately the doctor who has to use his/her medical education to argue for the necessity of any given thing they do.

Quote :

"In every five-year period, 95 percent of the population is in the health-care market. "

This shows that 95% of people are in the health care market, not the health insurance market.

If the argument was based on the social free-rider issue, you need to look at the % of people who have been to the ER, and then the % out of those people who they could collect payment from for some reason. I've never been the the ER myself.

Quote :

"Congress isn’t forcing people into that market to regulate them. "

huh? What is "that market"?

3/28/2012 4:52:21 PM

Quote :

"If it were up to me, the government would regulate people like you out of the gene pool."

I don't doubt the truth of that statement, and that's the key difference between you and I. I have no desire to control your life. Do whatever you like, as long as it doesn't hurt someone else.

On the other hand, you don't believe in self ownership. You don't believe in individual rights. You're willing to hold a gun to the head of anyone that doesn't want to bend to the will of majority, and you're willing to demagogue anyone that disagrees. You're like every state apologist before you. You're a sociopath, and you see government as the ultimate way to manipulate those around you.

3/28/2012 4:56:39 PM

^God you're easy to bait. Your girlfriend must get really bored waiting for your dick to get hard while you type that self fellating dribble.

Quote :

"This shows that 95% of people are in the health care market, not the health insurance market. If the argument was based on the social free-rider issue, you need to look at the % of people who have been to the ER, and then the % out of those people who they could collect payment from for some reason. I've never been the the ER myself."

Everyone is in the health care market, that's not debatable. All but a negligible percentage of the population of this nation has used or will use health care at some point in their lives. It's also not debatable that it falls under interstate commerce. The mandate is congress regulating the health care market's funding mechanism. It's really that simple, and it's why most legal experts view this entire challenge as laughable.

[Edited on March 28, 2012 at 5:09 PM. Reason : :]

3/28/2012 5:09:21 PM

Everyone is in the food market, that's not debatable. All but a negligible percentage of the population of this nation has used or will use food at some point in their lives. It's also not debatable that it falls under interstate commerce. The mandate is congress regulating the food market's funding mechanism. It's really that simple, and it's why most legal experts view this entire challenge as laughable.

See, the Supreme Court has a very important job. They understand that their ruling here has far reaching implications outside of ACA. This case can also be pointed to in future justifications for whatever half-baked ideas Congress shits out. They have to consider that, and Verrelli did a piss poor job at defending the mandate.

[Edited on March 28, 2012 at 5:16 PM. Reason : ]

3/28/2012 5:15:09 PM

Sure, food is applicable, and if congress passed a law that said everyone had to buy "food insurance", or pay a tax penalty, then that would be perfectly legal. Of course if congress did that, then they would basically be saying that food = health care, which is only true in the simplistic little minds of people like you.

Quote :

"See, the Supreme Court has a very important job. They understand that their ruling here has far reaching implications outside of ACA. This case can also be pointed to in future justifications for whatever half-baked ideas Congress shits out. They have to consider that, and Verrelli did a piss poor job at defending the mandate."

I'm going to hang on to this quote for the next time someone bitches about "judicial activism", which is exactly what you're advocating here.

[Edited on March 28, 2012 at 5:29 PM. Reason : :]

3/28/2012 5:28:47 PM

Quote :

"The mandate is congress regulating the health care market's funding mechanism."

The mandate is about the purchase of health insurance. This is about the difference between:

- care
- insurance

I just thought I needed to put it in a list so you would address it. I can live without buying health insurance and paying directly for my health care. So that market exists. Isn't it nonsense for the government to mandate that instead of going to the store and buying a hammer I have to buy a monthly plan for hammers?

And I guess I also missed how me going to my doctor is interstate commerce. The constitution doesn't say anything about a "coordinated market" I don't think.

The other thing is that if 85% of people purchase health care, they don't purchase what the mandate would mandate they purchase. They're not in that market.

3/28/2012 5:30:32 PM

Quote :

"I'm going to hang on to this quote for the next time someone bitches about "judicial activism", which is exactly what you're advocating here."

You apparently don't know what judicial activism is.

3/28/2012 5:36:47 PM

Is it activist to rule of the basis of "if this, what else?"

This is the exact sort of argument the actual judges have made. The law in question pertains to mandating an individual purchase something. Yeah, I get that government has the ability to regulate "interstate commerce", which is a loosely defined term, but I'm fairly confident that it was not the intent of the writers that it includes my purchases.

3/28/2012 6:16:33 PM

Quote :

"When uninsured sick people go to emergency rooms and can't afford it, you pay for it."

because CONGRESS PASSED A GOD DAMNED LAW THAT SAID THEY HAD TO GIVE IT AWAY FREE. What in the flying fuck did you think would happen with that law? Congress created the exact problem you are complaining about, and you are dumb enough to claim it's a market failure.

Quote :

"I mean, I'm not an expert on history, but didn't people die a lot earlier "before"? Wasn't there rampant crime in the frontier "before"? "

Really? There was rampant crime on the "frontier" in the 20th century? really?

Quote :

"The vast majority of the population lived in squalor and died before the age of 40..."

Really? In the 50s? really?

Quote :

"How the fuck are you coming up with this? Did you read the transcript?"

Same way he came up with the notion that the bailouts made money. lol.

3/28/2012 8:34:32 PM