Mrs. Duffy just saw the pic on my screen as said "who's the dyke?"

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Civilize the mind, but make savage the body.

- Chinese proverb

Case closed! Mrs. Duffy is known world wide for her eye for people's sexuality.

Mrs Duffy probably drives one of these too.

Great stuff.

I wasn't being a douchebag, I was just teaching all of you ignorant people what a douchebag might act like.

You haven't lost a step. Same old crap.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

Oh no!!!!! Lance is a lesbian too!

The Duffys are a classy family.

We are decidedly unclassy.

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Civilize the mind, but make savage the body.

- Chinese proverb

She drives one of these...



And sometimes she drives one of these...

---

Civilize the mind, but make savage the body.

- Chinese proverb

The biggest mystery is why you spent all that effort deleting all those posts. Where you thinking of running for public office and now have reconsidered?

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They constantly try to escape from the darkness outside and within
Dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good T.S. Eliot

Missed me, huh?

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Civilize the mind, but make savage the body.

- Chinese proverb

Can't get into that right now.

Except to say that, at this point, I no longer feel it's necessary to continue deleting posts.

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Civilize the mind, but make savage the body.

- Chinese proverb

I thought it was worth a shot. Having you and vitus posting again has livened things up.

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They constantly try to escape from the darkness outside and within
Dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good T.S. Eliot

now this is a worthy topic.

i suspect most people believe it's appropriate to force people to buy car insurance they don't want, because the lack of (theoretically) universal car insurance breaks down an entire insurance system that requires universality in order to prosper.

there are many problems with health care in america. but the requirement that everyone participate is not one of them.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

My auto insurance primarily pays for damage I do to you. If I run you over o most certainly should have to pay to fix you.

My health insurance pays for me. If I want to let myself go untreated o should be allowed to.

And while we're comparing health insurance to auto insurance...

...auto insurance doesn't pay for oil changes or tune ups. Auto insurance pays accident damage. And you can't be uninsured, get in an accident and then buy a policy expecting to get a payout (pre-existing condition).

On top of all that I don't think we should be forced to buy auto insurance either. I do believe, though, that drivers need to be financially responsible for possible accidents. Usually that comes on the form of insurance.

Btw, my wife got t-boned by a lady who ran a red light. The lady had the legal minimum of insurance (which covered about 10% of what was needed) so we tried to use our uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage. We had to sue our own insurance company (a company I've been paying premiums to for 25 years), went through arbitration, lawyers made a bunch of money, my wife got hosed.

We would have been no worse off (maybe even better) if there was no auto insurance involved at all.

So there's that.

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Civilize the mind, but make savage the body.

- Chinese proverb

And there you go conflating health CARE with health INSURANCE.

Please stop doing this.

The vast majority of my own personal health CARE needs are taken care without insurance getting involved.

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Civilize the mind, but make savage the body.

- Chinese proverb

the problem is that i'm going to end up paying for you. you won't let yourself go untreated. well, you will in terms of checkups. but not when it comes to cancer or a major accident. i will pay your bill. and it'll be an expensive bill because you didn't engage in a cram down process through your insurance company.

as with auto insurance uninsured motorist is me paying for the fact you don't have car insurance. you really do have car insurance. i'm just paying your premium when thru my uninsured motorist coverage. i'm already paying your car insurance. i don't want to also pay for your health insurance.



you're deflecting. auto insurance doesn't pay for oil changes. health insurance doesn't pay for fresh fruits and vegetables.



exactly! that's why you should do the honorable and prudent thing and buy health insurance for yourself, so that i don't have to pay for your insurance. but if you don't exercise prudence then the rest of us will exercise prudence on your behalf and force you to buy it. unless you have no money, in which case we'll help you buy it. but you will buy it. otherwise insurance doesn't work.



you aren't. but if if you don't buy insurance then you have to post a bond. i'd be happy for that to be the case with health insurance. post a bond. self insure. you'd an idiot if you do, but i agree that you should have that option.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

The other issue related to mandatory insurance is the question of whether we really want premiums to closely correlate with risk. In that model the young and the healthy pay very low premiums. Older people or those with prior conditions pay astronomic premiums.

There are a few problems with that. The latter group includes a lot of people who with reduced earning power. Precisely the group that might have trouble paying high premiums. While young people are in their prime earning years.

I know the "S" word is bad. But the insurance model, to me, makes the most sense when risk is socialized across age and across risk. Yes, us, healthy, high-earners are generally unlikely to get a "return on investment". (but we might).

But a world in which people with cancer, diabetes, TBI from a bike crash, etc, are expected to be saddled lifelong with premiums deep into the 5 (or 6) figures while having reduced work capacity doesn't make much sense to me.

If we want to dump sick people into their own risk pool, then it's going to be billions in subsidies for the insurance companies to want to accept that pool (beyond the existing billions at risk now). Or dump them into Medicaid and massively increase Medicaid subsidies.

There's no free lunch unless you're willing, almost literally, to dump sick people on the street.

I never asked you to pay my bills, I don't want you to pay my bills and if at all possible I wouldn't accept from you payment of my bills.

Btw, I've had health insurance since I was 18. I currently find it easier and quicker to get care from doctors of my choosing by paying cash. You aren't paying my bills.


Are you drunk or something? I have auto insurance. Since switching companies I have the most generous plan available. I'm insured for myself and for anyone who doesn't have insurance. Nobody forced me to purchase uninsured motorist coverage. I did it voluntarily. I did because there are a lot of uninsured motorists driving around in Southern California. I don't have to buy that coverage. I could just get the minimum. You aren't paying me anything.


But it does pay for annual physicals, birth control, viagra, the sniffles, and other health maintenance products. And I'm FORCED to have coverage for those things.


But there are people who did not have insurance, got sick and now want to buy insurance, and expect it to be cheap.

That is exactly like getting in a car accident and then buying a policy for a regular price and then making a retroactive claim. That is not insurance.


Then you and agree on something.

I'm also of the belief that if you don't want to buy health insurance you should be allowed to take that risk. And if you get sick and can't pay for your care then bye bye.

There's too many people on this planet anyway. Why, on the one hand, we complain about overpopulation and the inevitable outcome of that (global catastrophe for us all!!!!!) and on the other hand we do everything we can to prolong every single human life?

Why do we feel we have "the right" to millions of dollars of other people's money just so grandma can be hooked up to a ventilator for her last six months?

Just pull the plug already.

It's one of the (many) reasons I have a pretty solid DNR. Let me go. I'm just not the important.

Trust me on this, mr slowxe, you're not paying for any of my shit.

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Civilize the mind, but make savage the body.

- Chinese proverb

Well, that's not really the issue.

One of the biggest problems with our system is that health insurance isn't used like any other insurance type. For auto insurance, if you have to do regular upkeep, if the wiper blades need to be replaced, if you get a flat tire, etc, you don't use your insurance to pay for that. Insurance is protection against unusual events that carry a higher than typical cost.

For health care, insurance is essentially required and used for everything. It's not protection for unexpected high cost, it's the default payment for every health care related expense that requires professional medical services. If you go to a doctor or hospital, you need insurance. Not the same if you go to a mechanic.

Because health insurance is used to pay for almost every health care item, hospitals and doctors can charge more and more for simple things. If a mechanic wanted to charge you $500 for a new wiper blade, you'd tell him to go screw. If a hospital wants to charge you some unreasonable amount for a Tylenol you took during your stay, most people will never see that charge or contest it, because it's paid through their insurance.

If we want to look at why health care costs are so high, we don't need to look much further than the screwed up way we approach health "insurance."

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

Ding ding ding!!!

We have a winner.

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Civilize the mind, but make savage the body.

- Chinese proverb

as with auto insurance what's important is that everyone is in the pool, but that personal behavior is either rewarded or discouraged. in the case of life insurance the basic principle - crowdsourcing the risk to hedge against catastrophic loss - is obeyed, but behavior slightly increases or reduces the payment.

likewise every kind of insurance. the catastrophic loss in auto insurance is the $1mm payment i make to your family for creaming you. the minor variation in premium i pay normalizes for the miles i drive, how many tickets i've had, etc.

auto insurance, if i'm young i pay more. health insurance, if i'm old i pay more. there should be some smoothing, while still honoring the fact that exposure increases risk. obamacare says that the oldest should pay no more than 3x what the youngest pay in premiums. house replacement says that should be 5x. this is a detail. the house feels that they want to smooth a little rougher than obamacare.[/quote]

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

right. that's what everybody says. my farrier, said the same thing as you. fell off a bull in a bull riding contest. leg unfortunately was pointing in the wrong direction. do you think he stuck to his principles?


well, i'm not paying YOUR bills. i'm using you as a proxy. for my farrier. let's turn it around. do you want to pay my farrier's bills? well, actually, you are right now. do you want to keep paying my farrier's bills?


this is where i'm very glad to see pubs and dems working together (those who finally are now working together). the operative theory of insurance is that it protects against the catastrophic loss by crowdsourcing the risk. the sniffles is not a catastrophic loss. however, the annual physical might be something the carrier WANTS to cover because the carrier might think that this actually reduces - in the long run - its chance of paying out a catastrophic loss. that's up to the carrier. but that should not be a legal requirement in the legislation. what you tend to see in skinny plans is the opposite: they pay for the sniffles but not for the hospital stay. legislatively we need the reverse.


bummer for them. the cost is what it is. you're right, there is a big difference between health care and health insurance. what we're talking about now is health insurance. if people want their insurance to be cheap, that feeds back into health care. happy to talk about that, but i think that's a different subject.


i just don't think that's palatable, because, well, see the case of my farrier. people are situational. look even at the highest levels of our govt. cheneys are hard right wing except for gay rights. why? reagans were right wing, including on social issues, except for nancy on stem cell research. why? because your imperatives change once it gets personal. my farrier said, before the 2000 bull hopped on his ankle, "i just won't go to the doctor." he BELIEVED that. he just couldn't see around the corner.

we need universal health care because you are going to pay my farrier's bills, because he couldn't see around the corner and we as a society are not going to turn him, or the person rolled in a gurney after getting cut out of a smashed car, or the person whose heart stopped in the swim of a triathlon, away from the hospital door.



do you shoe horses too?

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

i have BX. i see in the claims explanations what the health providers charge and what they get. there is no way i'd ever be a doctor. i tell people who want to go into medicine to be a vet. there's nobody cramming down your billing rates.

in the case of my car and home insurance, i have VERY high limits and i have quite high deductibles. the high limits are there because i'm protecting against a catastrophic loss. the high deductibles are there because i'm not going to use the insurance for a $500 loss, or even a $1,500 loss. i'll never use it unless i really need it.

health insurance is different because it serves to valid purposes:

1. it protects against the catastrophic loss;
2. it's a buyer's cooperative, forcing down the costs of procedures.

what i would REALLY like is a plan that:

A. was a REALLY high deductible, like $25,000, if i could get a REALLY low rate in exchange;
B. but i still want that buyer's cooperative!

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

I think you may be high if you think our health insurance has resulted in decreased cost for medical procedures.

Health insurance is not "insurance." It's a massive system that forces basically everyone to use it for everything, results in an additional layer of bureaucracy that must be paid for (raising costs), and allows prices for medical goods and procedures to keep increasing. It only acts as "insurance" in the sense that insurance is designed (like for home or auto insurance) for those cases of catastrophic illness or injury.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

Absolutely. I agree with much of Slowman's post, but take issue with that line. Health insurance in practice is anything but a "buyer's cooperative".