Hillary Care round 2

[vhawk01]

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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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Right, and when a 75 year old enters "the end of life" phase, there is absolutely no way he is going to live for another 30 years. When a 50 year old enters "the end of life" its at least possible that he will. So even if these younger people die more quickly than the older people, these rare outliers who spend 30+ years in this phase are going to have an impact.

[Low Key]

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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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I bet it's a safe assumption that more than a few dollars are spent trying to save the life of the "fatass" via some surgery or other. It's possible that they may not be on life support as long, but they may undergo more invasive surgeries, which are costly, I might add, that the elderly couldn't undergo, given their frail state.

I'd like to add that, while I was excited to hear Hillary was interested in a form of Universal Health Care again, this plan of hers just sounds like a bloody trainwreck! I mean, can she just stop trying to please everybody all the time? Just for a second? (I'm flashing back to her in Alabama trying to talk like a black.. man? Woman? I'm not even sure what that was)

[natedogg]

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Personally, I'd like to kill off the insurance industry and switch to single-payer

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Millions of people, like myself, voluntarily choose to buy the services of health insurers and are very happy to do so. You want to "kill off" these companies somehow (I assume by legislating them away ie. outlawing them)?

Why would you want to do this and why do you think it is an acceptable intrusion into my free choices?

natedogg

[natedogg]

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Forbid insurers from denying coverage for pre-exisiting conditions.

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The level of stupidity it must require to make these kinds of suggestions (or support them) is astounding.

I would LOVE to be able to buy fire insurance AFTER my house burns down but guess what, that's not what insurance means.

If YOU were in business selling fire insurance to homeowners and suddenly there was a law forcing you to provide "insurance" to homeowners who houses had already burned down, would you:

1. Stay in business for a few more months unti you run out of money
2. Change your line of work


Of course, what's brilliant about Hillary's plan is that it is explicitly designed to destroy the industry. This will allow congress/Hillary to claim that "the free market is failing us" and then government can step in completely to fix the problem. As always.
natedogg

[jogsxyz]

How do other countries handle this? Does Japan and France
require citizens to buy health insurance?

Why does healthcare = health insurance?

It's unfair to healthy people. Do healthy people get
a price break?