Exactly!!! When I’m old a need an operation (or clothes or food or house) my kids better be ponyin’ up the cash.

mmtaz on March 25, 2010 at 9:13 AM

That’s assuming your kids can afford to pay up, and with the economy in shambles they just might not be able to.

There’s also the very real possibility that they won’t. Yeah, I know, it’s long-standing tradition that your kids be your meal tickets in old age…but that’s not guaranteed any more.

My ex-girlfriend has a fairly minor pre-exiting condition and not only was she turned down by every private insurance co and HMO, but when one finally did give her coverage at $400 per month, prescription drugs were excluded (since she had to take medication daily).

And because my son is a boy and 16 and not married, I had to shop very hard to find affordable car insurance for him. You know what made it cheaper when I did get it? The company insures people all over the country in the same pool . . .

If we could buy individual insurance across state lines and got rid of coverage mandates, you could go to an insurance broker, like you do for car coverage, and build your policy the way people build car policies. And they could put you into a company with a very large pool, instead of a small state pool, and get it cheaper.

With government insurance, if your ex-girlfriend’s condition gets too expensive, they’ll tell her to just die . . . That’s what they do in Oregon.

OH really, why don’t you give me the cliff notes version and name those other Republicans that disagree with me. Or are you just talking out your ass? While you’re at it, maybe you can explain the benefits of the Community Reinvestment Act.

RegularJoe on March 24, 2010 at 5:39 PM

huh?

If you purchase an HO policy and make a claim for every incidental “loss” that you can think of, you will be cancelled. HO policies should be considered catastrophic insurance at best. If you buy auto coverage, do you make claims for routine service? Now compare that to health coverage. If I buy a health policy, why would I abuse it by running off to the doctor for every hang-nail? Private carriers recognized this and placed stipulations on coverage to prevent abuse of coverage. It only makes sense. Believe me the “govment” hc will ration coverage much worse than anything we have now.

jbh45 on March 24, 2010 at 8:02 PM

“Huh?” back at you.

I’m not in favor of government-provided services, for starters. Not sure how you got that idea. I’m also not in favor of hangnail insurance, unless a person CHOOSES to do that and pays the full added cost of that coverage — which I think is dumb (that’s been a big part of the explosion of cost in health care, no doubt).

What I’m saying is that I think it IS reasonable to say that if you want to be in the insurance business, you can’t turn a person down because they had a skin cancer removed 20 years ago, or problems with ear infections when they were a kid. No, they shouldn’t have to take you if you’ve got active cancer; and it’s reasonable for them to charge a higher premium for someone who has a chronic condition like diabetes. But I remember how my mother, who is the picture of health, had to go to MANY insurance companies to find individual coverage after Dad passed on, because she’d had three instances of bladder infection, ten years earlier. Why not go with the standard insurance used to use for employees in group policies: any condition you’ve been diagnosed with or treated for in the previous year is ineligible for coverage for the NEXT year.

And I’m in favor of a “safety net” of coverage for those who are destitute or who planned poorly, that (especially for those who could have gotten insurance but decided to spend the money on other things) doesn’t let them off the hook for paying; but think it should be no-frills, and should be for very big, expensive things (heart disease, not hangnails).

I think you’ve wildly mis-characterized my comments.

How many denial letters did she have to bring you before you paid for her surgery?

Chris_Balsz on March 24, 2010 at 4:56 PM

Exactly!!! When I’m old a need an operation (or clothes or food or house) my kids better be ponyin’ up the cash.

How would you like to be the newest hire at a 50 person company?

reaganaut on March 25, 2010 at 9:00 AM

How would you like to be the newest hire at a 50 person not get a job at a 49 person company because they can no longer afford it?

One other anti-growth incentive, as Mark the Great points out in the comments: businesses with 50-60 workers have a big incentive now to downsize.

How would you like to be the newest hire at a 50 person company?

Sheer stupidity. They all operate at different levels of income, profit, etc…

What we’ll see is more indepenent contractors and temporary workers. Do staffing agencies like Kelly Services now have to offer health insurance to their employees, who are sent out on temporary jobs?

What a mess.

The problem I have with this line of discussion is that I don’t see the economic logic in businesses providing insurance. It is more consistent with free markets for consumers to make their own decisions about purchasing insurance.

thuja on March 24, 2010 at 10:07 PM

The only reason employer healthcare is the defacto standard is because of the government imposed wage freezes during WWII. HC was the only way companies could compete for employees.

It should also be pointed out that he is doing to our nation what the muslims terroist want done to it. When they crashed the planes into the twin towers they expected out economy to collaspe. He seems to be picking up where they left off. When given the chance to support Islamic ruled countries with terroist activity and dictatorships or constitutional democracies and republics, which one does he chose?

The joke of it all that is becoming so clear is that he is a pawn for those that are using him. He is clueless most of the time, an actor the rest of the time, reading his lines when he gives a speech, making staged apperances and photo ops.
What does he do all day? Has there been any substanital evidence that he does anything that is not done for him to take credit for? We know what he did during the congressional rackateering this past weekend. He watched basketball games. Apparently he does that alot as he knows all the players and games well enough to put up his pick boards. He has time to sit and read some of the things other presidents wrote about their issues and concerns. Perhaps he is thinking of doing the same. Would be interesting to see what a narcissist writes about himself and we can be sure it will be all about himself.

The more you look at him the more you have to wonder just who he is. He claims he is an natural born American citizen but can not produce an legitimate document that proves it or anything that would have envolved his birth. he claims a college education with no funds for it or job history to support it. He claims to have graduated from Harvard law school, but can not understand a simple insurance policy. He claims he taught constitutional law for ten years, yet never mentions it or appears to have any awareness of what it says or what it forbids, as he most recently revealed. As he said, he does not worry about the rules. He just does what he is told and lets the real socilist and communist guide the takeover of our nation.

the government as well as the traders new those assets were toxic to begin with. Why? Because the government forced lending institutions to make loans that they knew couldn’t be paid back, they knew those MBS were worthless

You’re just repeating propaganda. Alan Greenspan and other Republicans on Wall Street would completely disagree with you. I’m sorry, but you don’t understand what caused the housing bubble and financial crisis. You can read Too Big To Fail or a number of other objective books on the crisis.

When we fail, when we have to start over, when we have to fight, when we have to struggle, we become better, stronger and more noble men and women.
That’s real freedom.
oldman13 on March 24, 2010 at 10:13 PM

This argument is not valid against government aid for an individual’s health care. A seriously sick individual who fails to get good health care often will not become better, stronger or more noble. They may in fact die.

Bad arguments will help us get to a more free market approach for health care.

You don’t seem to understand that when someone can’t get health insurance and is one severe health problem away from losing everything- home, savings, retirement- that’s called living in fear, not living in freedom.

bayam on March 24, 2010 at 6:26 PM

No. That’s called life. We have to live life not fear it. Is paper money, points in a bank, the building we live in so important that we curl up and die if we can’t have them anymore? That’s no way to live. People lose replaceable material junk every day. The freedom from government that the founders envisioned is more important than any sack of money or pile of sticks. In America we have tremendous opportunity to be successful, we also have the opportunity to fail. When we fail, when we have to start over, when we have to fight, when we have to struggle, we become better, stronger and more noble men and women.
That’s real freedom.

See/ revolutionary war/ civil war/ WW1/ 1929/ WW2/ cold war/ tomb of the unknown soldier