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Is it the responsibility of the insurance industry to provide health insurance for everybody? Insurance companies are a business, their purpose is to earn a profit by providing insurance for their customers.

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ORIGINAL: Fightdirecto
If it is un-Constitutional to mandate individuals must get health insurance - is it not also un-Constitutional to mandate hospitals provide free emergency services to those who do not have health insurance, effectively mandating that those people who do have health insurance must pay for those who do not have health insurance?

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ORIGINAL: Marc2b
I think people too often confuse health insurance with health care. People falsely believe that the purpose of health insurance is to protect your health... it is not. The purpose of health insurance, like any insurance, is to protect your assets from extraordinary expenses you would not otherwise be able to afford. Your house burns down and you can't afford to buy a new one? Good thing you have fire insurance. Insurance works like any other business, it has to take in more than it pays out or it can't sustain itself. Most fire insurance is paid for by people whose house will never burn down, leaving more than enough to be paid out to the unfortunates whose house does burn down. Health insurance works the same way... if more is paid out than taken in, the system will collapse. This is why health insurance companies don't like to insure people with preexisting conditions... they are a loosing deal. Yes, that sounds brutal and all social Darwinist and everything but it is the reality we have to deal with.

The problem isn't a lack of health insurance, it is a lack of health care. The question isn't how do we get health insurance for everyone but how do we get health care for everyone? "

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ORIGINAL: erieangel

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Is it the responsibility of the insurance industry to provide health insurance for everybody? Insurance companies are a business, their purpose is to earn a profit by providing insurance for their customers.

That is one of the major problems. When the idea of "health insurance" was first organized, the health insurance companies were not-for-profit organizations. That all changed under Nixon (I believe) and the ever-increasing of health care as the now for-profit companies thought more and more about their profits instead of the people they were formerly providing a safety net.

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ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri

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ORIGINAL: Marc2b
I think people too often confuse health insurance with health care. People falsely believe that the purpose of health insurance is to protect your health... it is not. The purpose of health insurance, like any insurance, is to protect your assets from extraordinary expenses you would not otherwise be able to afford. Your house burns down and you can't afford to buy a new one? Good thing you have fire insurance. Insurance works like any other business, it has to take in more than it pays out or it can't sustain itself. Most fire insurance is paid for by people whose house will never burn down, leaving more than enough to be paid out to the unfortunates whose house does burn down. Health insurance works the same way... if more is paid out than taken in, the system will collapse. This is why health insurance companies don't like to insure people with preexisting conditions... they are a loosing deal. Yes, that sounds brutal and all social Darwinist and everything but it is the reality we have to deal with.

The problem isn't a lack of health insurance, it is a lack of health care. The question isn't how do we get health insurance for everyone but how do we get health care for everyone? "

It's not even that they can't get health care. They can't pay for health insurance because it costs too much and they can't pay for health care because it costs too much. Obamacare simply forces someone else to pay. It doesn't fix the underlying problem: health care costs too much. I fully believe a major cause of the explosion of costs lies on the back of the insurance companies. Forcing people to go to the insurance companies isn't going to fix the problem, though. It's only going to make it more expensive.

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ORIGINAL: joether
One curious anomaly by folks in the USA is they think the health care law is 'taxpayer money'. That they are 'paying for someone else's healthcare'. Actually thats pretty untrue. The moment you give ANY money in taxes, its no longer YOUR money. PERIOD. If you give money to buy gas from EXXON-Mobile to fill your tank, the money you just gave, is no longer your money EITHER! Now what's the difference between the two? The goverment money can be directed by you through your representative/senator. In addition, once you give that money in taxes, its now the GOVERMENT's MONEY. Finally....whose to say your tax dollars, that went to the goverment was ACTUALLY used to pay for someone else's healthcare? Can you prove it with factual evidence?

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Long ago, the cost for health coverage was not that high and many organizations from non-profit to charities could handle the cost to help Americans handle these problems. As time wore on by the decades, these organizations fell further and further behind. Now, the ability to be able to pay for these things falls to organizations that can leverage the 'scale of economies' needed to handle the problem. The US Goverment and individual states can accomplish this best for two reasons: 1) They have access to a pot of money and 2) They actually MAKE THE LAWS those health insurance companies have to follow. That's right, its the PEOPLE that decide how they live, NOT the nobility of CEO's, CFO's, boards of directors and a pair of Koch brothers. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts did this with Mass Health (that's 'Romneycare' to the ignorant). Costing mere single digit expenses to the commonwealth's overall budget means its been successful on that front. 98.6% of Commonwealth Citizens hold some sort of health insurance either through private or public organization. As a result the emergency room is used less for 'routine' medicine (which costs the hospital more money) by citizens and able to help such patients at a faster rate. Mass Health has its problems, but I find that if a certain drug is needed for my health care but not on the list of drugs allowed, I can contact my representative and try to adjust that. Want to try do the same thing in a private insurance company, where the bean counter is under no obligation or patience to deal with your issue?

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To make it happen, Democratic lawmakers and Gov. Mitt Romney, a Republican, made an expedient choice, deferring until another day any serious effort to control the state’s runaway health costs.

The day of reckoning has arrived. Threatened first by rapid early enrollment in its new subsidized insurance program and now by a withering economy, the state’s pioneering overhaul has entered a second, more challenging phase.

Thanks to new taxes and fees imposed last year, the health plan’s jittery finances have stabilized for the moment. But government and industry officials agree that the plan will not be sustainable over the next 5 to 10 years if they do not take significant steps to arrest the growth of health spending.

...

Those who led the 2006 effort said it would not have been feasible to enact universal coverage if the legislation had required heavy cost controls. The very stakeholders who were coaxed into the tent — doctors, hospitals, insurers and consumer groups — would probably have been driven into opposition by efforts to reduce their revenues and constrain their medical practices, they said.

...

Alan Sager, a professor of health policy at Boston University, has calculated that health spending per person in Massachusetts increased faster than the national average in seven of the last eight years. Furthermore, he said, the gap has grown exponentially, with Massachusetts now spending about a third more per person, up from 23 percent in 1980.

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How many of those that want the Affordable Care Act eliminated have ACTUALLY READ THE BILL (all 2409 pages of it...)?
I have!

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ORIGINAL: LafayetteLady
What is truly horrible is the people who believe that people who can't afford health care and want that assistance are lazy and think they are "entitled" to live off the governement.  That these people (many of whom post here) fee "they" shouldn't have to, through their tax dollars or any other means, provide "support" for those who can't afford it.
Essentially, these people openly admit that if you can't afford necessary health care, it is ok for you to die.  What wonderful human beings they are.
I don't think there should be any fines or penalties for those who don't purchase health care, but at the same time, those people who CAN afford it, shouldn't be able to get free care either (and they don't, they get billed like everyone else).
The problem is that basic health care has become out of reach financially for so many people.  The cost of medications is through the roof.  My medications cost over $700 a month, and my doctor had to fight with my carrier for some of them to be covered.  Without insurance, there is NO way I could afford to pay for my medications.  Well not pay for them and still have a roof over my head.  Does that mean I should die?  According to some, yes, it apparently does.
Basic health care shouldn't be a "luxury" that only some people, who are able to afford it should receive.  We aren't talking about people who want face lifts and tummy tucks.  We are talking about people who can't afford chemotherapy for cancer, who can't afford treatment for diabetes or heart disease.  We are talking about people who can't afford basic medical care for their children.
I'm not saying that the health care bill is the best way to achieve this, but it IS a start to finding a way for people to be able to obtain necessary health care regardless of their income.

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The problem is that basic health care has become out of reach financially for so many people. 

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The problem isn't that these people are uninsured. No, seriously. I'm going to requote your dead on accurate statement.

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The solution isn't to charge someone else. That's just treating the symptom. That doesn't even pretend to go after the underlying issue of basic health care being too expensive. Outside of Constitutionality of the Individual Mandate, I oppose Obamacare because it doesn't address the issue. It simply shifts costs to someone else and kicks that can down the road for someone else to deal with.

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ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri

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ORIGINAL: Marc2b
I think people too often confuse health insurance with health care. People falsely believe that the purpose of health insurance is to protect your health... it is not. The purpose of health insurance, like any insurance, is to protect your assets from extraordinary expenses you would not otherwise be able to afford. Your house burns down and you can't afford to buy a new one? Good thing you have fire insurance. Insurance works like any other business, it has to take in more than it pays out or it can't sustain itself. Most fire insurance is paid for by people whose house will never burn down, leaving more than enough to be paid out to the unfortunates whose house does burn down. Health insurance works the same way... if more is paid out than taken in, the system will collapse. This is why health insurance companies don't like to insure people with preexisting conditions... they are a loosing deal. Yes, that sounds brutal and all social Darwinist and everything but it is the reality we have to deal with.

The problem isn't a lack of health insurance, it is a lack of health care. The question isn't how do we get health insurance for everyone but how do we get health care for everyone? "

Hey, a fairly reasonable comment that does express one of the limitations of the ACA, but consdiering that the ACA leaves insurance companies paramount was called a goverment takeover, imagine a plan that sidelined the insurance companies. Yet, we know insurance companies are not part of some brutal reality, but a contigent feature of how the health care insustrie grew in the country. There are countries that do fine without private health insurance companies, cover everyone and have better outcomes for less cost. Please do not think reality dictates our system. This all being said one of the most important things in the ACA was the attempt to reign in Medicare costs, but Republicans opportunistically attack this with some particularly vile people raising the prospects of death panels (which private insurance companies have).

It's not even that they can't get health care. They can't pay for health insurance because it costs too much and they can't pay for health care because it costs too much. Obamacare simply forces someone else to pay. It doesn't fix the underlying problem: health care costs too much. I fully believe a major cause of the explosion of costs lies on the back of the insurance companies. Forcing people to go to the insurance companies isn't going to fix the problem, though. It's only going to make it more expensive.

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ORIGINAL: Yachtie

fr-

Once upon a time an i.e. indigent could avail medical care at charity (mostly religious run) hospitals. Now that care might not be blue ribbon, but what care is unless one can, even today, afford such? There existed impetus to provide for oneself as best as one could.

Then along came empathy medicine in that hospitals could not, BY LAW, refuse care to anyone. This lowered the bar. All hospitals were deemed by law to be ~charitable to those without means; not with private charitable donations but with public TAX dollars and increased private insurance costs. Another brick laid in the Just World philosophy.

The Progressive public trough builder could now sleep well knowing that their neighbors were required by law to come to the aid of their countrymen, namely themselves. It's a Just World when Jack's insurance (and the public debt) rises as to aid Jill. How could anyone of conscience object?

Charitable hospitals once operated privately due to people of conscience voluntarily providing them. Now it's no longer voluntary but MANDATORY, and even more so if Obamacare is upheld (participate or be fined). It's now deemed selfish to deny someone that which they cannot afford, even to the extent of providing cell phones.

The most selfish people on the planet are the progressives, as they demand equality of access to everything at the point of a gun (law). Is it any wonder why the end road is government run single payer healthcare? That has always been the goal.

Why provide for yourself when you can have others, or government, do it for you?

Charity no longer begins at home or with the individual. Charity can be spelled Form 1040.

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Then along came empathy medicine in that hospitals could not, BY LAW, refuse care to anyone. This lowered the bar. All hospitals were deemed by law to be ~charitable to those without means; not with private charitable donations but with public TAX dollars and increased private insurance costs. Another brick laid in the Just World philosophy.

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Charitable hospitals once operated privately due to people of conscience voluntarily providing them. Now it's no longer voluntary but MANDATORY, and even more so if Obamacare is upheld (participate or be fined). It's now deemed selfish to deny someone that which they cannot afford, even to the extent of providing cell phones.

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One area of disagreement concerns the continuing level of government funding for vital Catholic programs. The truth of the matter is that the Obama administration has actually increased funding for Catholic nonprofit organizations and programs. In fact, more than $1.5 billion went to Catholic organizations over the past two years.

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Because we lobby strenuously for government funding for programs that serve the needs of people, we take seriously any charges that the government may be shortchanging them. For that reason, we want to set the record straight now. And we intend to make sure that this administration and others to follow continue to serve the common good.

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ORIGINAL: PatrickG38

Are you really comparing health care to a cell phone. Congratualtions, you are facile enough to be a Supreme Court justice. Surely, you are also aware that more poeple died needlessly before the Progressive Era and that these reforms arose because of a need. Also is democratically enacted legistlation, "at the point of a gun." Moreover, and I know this requires thinking, so bear with me. Health care benefits DO NOT accrue only to the person supplied with health care, orw ould you rahter people walk around with unteated TB or unvaccinated (new age crazy liberals, please spare me).

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cell phones can be viewed today as entitlements.

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ORIGINAL: Yachtie

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ORIGINAL: PatrickG38

Are you really comparing health care to a cell phone. Congratualtions, you are facile enough to be a Supreme Court justice. Surely, you are also aware that more poeple died needlessly before the Progressive Era and that these reforms arose because of a need. Also is democratically enacted legistlation, "at the point of a gun." Moreover, and I know this requires thinking, so bear with me. Health care benefits DO NOT accrue only to the person supplied with health care, orw ould you rahter people walk around with unteated TB or unvaccinated (new age crazy liberals, please spare me).

Of course not, at least not directly. Both healthcare and cell phones can be viewed today as entitlements. In that respect the comparison can be made.

Ah, yes... because of need; a/k/a good intentions. Road to Hell. You know[8D]

Also is democratically enacted legistlation, "at the point of a gun." I assume you meant that as a question. The answer is yes.

Health care benefits DO NOT accrue only to the person supplied with health care, orw ould you rahter people walk around with unteated TB or unvaccinated (new age crazy liberals, please spare me).


That's nonsense as written. (You should be a judge). One only receive the actual benefit (accrue- To come to one as a gain, addition, or increment) by receiving healthcare (Accrue - To come into existence as a claim that is legally enforceable.), otherwise the benefit remains but potential till and if needed. There is nothing to enforce if no claim is made.

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ORIGINAL: tazzygirl

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One area of disagreement concerns the continuing level of government funding for vital Catholic programs. The truth of the matter is that the Obama administration has actually increased funding for Catholic nonprofit organizations and programs. In fact, more than $1.5 billion went to Catholic organizations over the past two years.

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Because we lobby strenuously for government funding for programs that serve the needs of people, we take seriously any charges that the government may be shortchanging them. For that reason, we want to set the record straight now. And we intend to make sure that this administration and others to follow continue to serve the common good.

To state that they are obtaining their money from "charity" is misleading at best.

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ORIGINAL: PatrickG38

The ability of people to obtain treatment for say, TB or recieve free vaccines, is a benefit to all who may come in contact with said person. That is pretty straightforward. We all have at least some stake in the health of those aorund us. I giess total hermits aside, but we do not design national legislations assuming everone lives as the Unibomber did.