
How healthcare regulations affect even those who have good insurance plans - Lord_Yoda
http://www.newyorker.com/business/adam-davidson/what-the-g-o-p-doesnt-get-about-who-pays-for-health-care
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norea-armozel
I think this article does touch on something that's always bothered me
regarding healthcare. Specifically on the problem that insurance is tied to
healthcare. To me insurance is about covering risks that are liable to occur
no matter how much one may minimize them. In contrast, healthcare is about
routine and extraordinary care of human beings. It's not something I believe
follows properly with insurance business models which is why often they cut
corners to make it profitable. Otherwise, I suspect many health insurance
companies today would be bankrupt if they didn't attempt their corner cutting.
Rather than leaving healthcare to insurance business models we need to finally
admit that maybe it's no different than roads or other infrastructure and have
it handled by the US federal government for better or worse.

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esaym
I pay $800 for rent and once my monthly insurance cost got to $800 a month I
canceled it and claimed "religious exemption" on my taxes.

Including deductibles, I would have paid over $12000 a year. Plus my wife used
a birth center instead of a regular OB for delivery. That wasn't covered by
insurance either, so my potential max per year on "healthcare" was $16,000.

That basically means that unless I get cancer, it is cheaper to forgo
insurance, which is what I did. Now I'm actually saving money and getting
ready to finally build/buy a house.

Screw healthcare.

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mikeash
And then when you do get cancer or some other expensive disease, the rest of
us get to pay for your treatment.

Costs need to come down, but opting out of the system because you're currently
healthy isn't good.

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masonic

      And then when you do get cancer or some other expensive disease, the rest of us get to pay for your treatment.
    

Yes, that's the exact strategy that Obamacare rewards.

The Democrats _could_ have limited "preexisting condition" protections to
those who obtained coverage in the first year for as long as they retained
coverage (in any form, including MedicAid). They chose not to.

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mikeash
The mandate is what prevents this. The only failing is that the penalty was
too small.

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dragonwriter
Really, there should be a default (probably public, but perhaps just the
lowest-cost bronze plan you could buy off the exchange) option, for which you
pay the premium, rather than a penalty.

If you want coverage to be mandatory, make it _really_ mandatory.

~~~
mikeash
That seems like a good solution. Or, of course, stop pretending it's market-
based and start taxing people for it instead. Unfortunately, the ACA had to be
watered down a lot just to get the more conservative Democrats to accept it.

