Politics & Current Events
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Re: Why Not Move Then?
lol - I don't know anything about the ACA?
Why do we need to worry about the survival of the quite profitable health insurance companies? The media will usually mention things like 80% of premiums have to be paid out, no lifetime caps on benefits keeping kids until age 26 etc. However these are manageable burdens. There are three probably insurmountable risks that are not well explained in the media. One is the The reinforcing spiral, the second is the Accountable Care Organization (ACO) and the third is the Commoditization of Policies.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/696821-obamacare-part-i-will-insurance-companies-survive
This country needs to get it's head out of it's collective ass.
This is not a country of us. vs. them, whoever "us" and "them" are. Bootstraps are the worst thing this country ever did to itself. It ruined any chance of compassion being more important than money.
ACA is a good thing. It will help protect the less fortunate, which is what a good country does for it's citizens. A good country doesn't marginalize them or make them feel like there is something wrong with them because they are poor.
The thing is, what if a person chooses to just pay the penalty and go without insurance? Now, the insurance company has to accept any person for any reason and they cannot hold a person's preexisting conditions against them.
So, what happens if said person who has just paid the penalty gets cancer...of course they rush to get insurance and the insurance company has to accept them and pay the claims for all the medical bills.
Businesses are in business to make money, they certainly are not going to stay in business if they are losing money. Perhaps this is an unintended consequence but it is a very real possibility.
Think of it in this way. If it costs you $75 to insure your house and $5 is the penalty for not insuring your house, but the insurance company is forced to sell you a policy after your house burns down, what would you do? You might want to buy homeowner's insurance because you are a decent person. However, when you see your neighbor hasn't bought homeowner's insurance preferring to buy it after his house burns down, you'll feel stupid to be paying for the cost of covering his house after the fact. Then you too will pay the $5 per month and stop buying homeowner's insurance. Similarly more and more healthy people will stop buying health insurance preferring to wait until they get sick to buy insurance.
I work in the Insurance industry, just went to a conference given by the Life and Health Compliance Association meeting. There is a real possibility a lot of insurance companies will no longer be able to operate.
Also:
SOCIALIST:
You have two cows.
The government takes one and gives it to your neighbor.
You form a cooperative to tell him how to manage his cow.
COMMUNIST:
You have two cows.
The government seizes both and provides you with milk.
You wait in line for hours to get it.
It is expensive and sour.
ETA because this is just plain funny:
FRENCH CORPORATION:
You have two cows.
You go on strike because you want three cows.
You go to lunch and drink wine.
Life is good.
No No No, it is not a big gift to the insurance companies. They will not benefit from it.
And I am a cancer survivor and my DD is diabetic so don't tell me I don't give a sh!t about people with real serious medical issues.
LOL.
Really? An industry won't benefit from having every citizen in a nation of 300 million people now legally required to be their customers?
First of all, Putin? Really?
Second of all, I really want to know what, SPECIFICALLY, you are referring to when you say "the government makes that decision" - what decision? and "autonomy is lost" - autonomy to do what?
Personal responsibility for what? How does it create government dependence?
Wow. Compassion BIG FAT HUGE FAIL.
So sorry that I would like some health insurance. I'm sorry I didn't have the foresight and sense of personal responsibility to somehow prevent my rare endocrine disease, even though doctors haven't figured out what causes it, 100 years later.
Glad I had health insurance at the time, though. One complication from the disease had me in ICU for a week, racking up a $250K medical bill, and that wasn't even to treat the disease.
Oh, and I was a 100% healthy, gym-going, healthy BMI, nonsmoker, never-even-had-a-broken bone person up until I turned 25. But I totally should've seen it coming.
Oh, and I totally should've taken personal responsibility and not gotten laid off, and lost my group health insurance. Duh.
Sorry I screwed up your actuarial tables.
Wow, I completely want people to have healthcare! I disagree that the ACA is the right way to do it.
I guess I could counter to say you guys have no compassion for the people who work for insurance companies that will lose their job. But I suppose it doesn't affect you so no big deal.
The ACA is not a 100% solution to the nation's health care issues. The CBO estimates it is going to cost $1.76 trillion over 10 years and that 26-27 million people will still not have healthcare. I don't see this as a shining success.
http://cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/03-13-Coverage%20Estimates.pdf
Cincy, get your head out of your ass! WTF? You keep repeating that insurance companies will lose business. How is that even flucking possible? As Geraldo explained to you, with every person required to have health care, they are going to have millions upon millions of new customers. Perhaps they will have to be BETTER, but its pretty disgusting to suggest that the subpar service many offer now is acceptable.
Seriously, you fail at logic 101.
ETA: I agree the ACA is not the best thing in the world. I would much prefer nationalized healthcare with every single person automatically covered. You, however, seem to be against that as well.
I have my head in my a@@? Please consider this:
The insurance companies may not lose business, but it will become increasingly difficult for them to be profitable.
Finally, the law?s provisions on preexisting conditions remain intact. Beginning in 2014, the law makes it illegal for a health insurance company to exclude, limit, or set unrealistic rates on coverage based on preexisting conditions.
The preexisting condition provision of the law is a bit of a Trojan Horse. At first glance it looks like a real gift, as insurance companies will not be able to exclude individuals from coverage because they are sick or have a chronic disease. But on closer inspection, many see a real problem with this provision and the individual mandate.
The penalty for not buying insurance is much lower than the actual cost of insurance. For this reason, many are concerned that individuals will pay the penalty rather than buy insurance. Should they get sick and need coverage, the preexisting condition provision ensures that they?ll qualify for coverage.
http://money.usnews.com/money/blogs/my-money/2012/06/29/obamacare-is-constitutional-now-what
If you don't think insurance companies will be impacted by having to accept everybody and not being able to rate an individual based on their health issues, then you are the one who needs to get your head out of your a@@
You're not taking into account the perfectly healthy people who were going without coverage before. They are now mandated to get insurance, and those extra premiums will help pay for the costs that those with pre-existing conditions will incur.
Yes, I see what you are saying. But how many of those individuals will either 1) already be covered by their employer's health insurance plan or 2) decide to pay the penalty for not having insurance only to obtain it if/when they become seriously ill.
I hope I am wrong, but this is a real concern among various insurance companies. So much of a concern it was a main issue at my recent conference.
Yes, that is of today. But once the ACA if fully implemented, you will have to accept everyone..correct?
I am in Regulatory Compliance so perhaps we are the first ones really digging into how this will all affect the industry.
Cincy, I've seen you argue that the government fine will be too low (people will just pay this instead of getting the mandate) and that people will stay on their employer's plan and that won't help. Frankly, it sounds like you would be a HUGE fan then of the original, single payer system... And I agree, make the fines bigger.
Also, if I'm supposed to have compassion for all those people in insurance (and if this was a real concern, I would be) who will lose their jobs, why aren't you worried about all those people in government who will lose theirs based on the small government ideals you espouse? It's a lot more people than just politicians you know.
A socialist economic system would consist of a system of production and distribution organized to directly satisfy economic demands and human needs, so that goods and services would be produced directly for use instead of for private profit. So wouldn't the government decide supply and demand?
As far as autonomy (one's own self governance), doesn't socialism advocate for more of a collective idea of one's own self governance or set a collective view of fair for all?
No, I would not favor a single payer system. I believe in free market enterprise. Do we need changes to the current health insurance industry? Absolutely! do I believe the ACA is the right way to go? No
The government has become so big and redundant, it could not be made smaller overnight. Perhaps it could be done over a period of time through attrition and as workers retire or leave on their own accord departments could be combined or scaled down.
I don't want anyone to lose their jobs, we already have way too many people who are unemployeed or underemployed.
So what do you propose instead?
CB, I wish I could answer that. It's gonna take a far more intelligent persona than me to figure all that out.
If your representatives can't propose real alternatives that solve our health care crisis then please step out of the way. People are literally dying as they wait for our politicians to get their act together and they don't have time for the GOP to wake up and start problem solving, so the demos did it for them.
The ACA, while not perfect, gets the job done and as far as I can tell, your biggest complaint is that it's federal rather than state. When a person is in the hospital receiving critical, life saving treatments, they're not going to care if it's state or federal and I don't see why you do.
Yes, but if you were formed by the French you'd be like Quebec, where 77% of their seats in the federal parliament belong to the NDP, 1/3 of people support tax-payer funded abortions, 3/4 think abortions in the first trimester should remain legal, where the provincial government contributes heavily to post-secondary education, and where a solid majority like that same-sex marriage is legal. You don't want to be an evil socialist like them!!1!eleventy!!
And, I must say, the idea of a 3+ party system to fix the problems of the people on the far right seems hilarious to me, seeing where our extra parties lay. The Bloc often pushes for Quebec sovereignty while the NDP is actually fairly socialist. The idea of those sorts of parties springing up and having the super-Republicans freak out makes me laugh.
This was way too long for me to read.