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Old 09-19-2007, 01:13 PM
mosdef mosdef is offline
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Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Toronto
Posts: 3,414
Default Re: Hillary Care round 2

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Another problem with her "plan" is that it states that companies can't charge more for people whose health costs are higher. So you can't get a cheap plan if you're young and healthy. The healthy are forced to pay extra for coverage they don't need, solely to subsidize every fast-food eating fatass out there that doesn't want to exercise.

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Hillary's "plan" is obviously a nightmare for a multitude of reasons, but the preceding isn't one of them. The "fast food eating fatasses" actually reduce health care costs, since those people tend to die young and quickly due to cardiovascular disease.

I don't recall the exact statistic, but a large proportion of the average person's health care costs over a lifetime are incurred during the last few years, usually due to various degenerative conditions. Those who engage in an unhealthy lifestyle, on average, don't as often enter that phase of life, and thus they end up costing less. You can't incur health care costs if you are dead.

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I'm not sure I agree with this. It is definitely 100% true that most health care costs occur right at the end of life. I am not sure that:

- When that end of life occurs matters; i.e. I'm not sure there's an "early death discount" for people who voluntarily life an unhealthy lifestyle
- That the cost at death is not related to the lifestyle of the person.

In order for your assertion to be true, unhealthy people have to somehow have "cheaper deaths" than healthy people. It's not at all obvious that that's true.
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