Okay, wtf is going on?Follow

I do, because it's the only end solution that means every single citizen has superior health coverage.

Looking at my benefits changes for the coming year, the first thing that pops out is that plan costs are going to go up an average of 2K/year. That's from the employee, mind you.

Considering countries with nationalized health care pay less per capita then you guys do currently, this is an unconvincing statement.

Soooooooo.... just like regular insurance, huh?

Hahaha. Yeah that's probably it. Unless you meant they've been raising costs and covering less people over the last twenty or so years in order to cash in now before single payer becomes a reality.

According to whom? You threw this number out once before, I linked to the CBO report on the bill costs and then you never responded.

Private industries operate on a profit motive. It's a well known and understood mechanic. If you increase their cost to do business, they will have to increase the cost of their product. There is nothing shocking, or surprising, or even nefarious about this. It simply is the way it is.

The "cause" of the increase in costs is what you need to look at if you're looking for something to blame for your rates going up. If you change the rules, you change the behavior of the players. This is something that most folks on the Left seem to eternally forget. I don't understand why, but they do. They pass restrictive and costly legislation on an industry and then blame the industry when the costs of their goods and service go up. Bizarre!


Don't get me wrong here. If you decide it's worth paying an additional $2000/year to expand health coverage from 85% of the population to 94% (or whatever the projected number is today), then that's a wonderful choice for you to make. But then don't complain that you're out an additional $2k a year. You need to make a choice here. Either it's more important to you to be able to afford health care for your children, or it's more important to you to expand coverage for those who can't afford it today. I'm not going to make any moral judgment of your own decision here (unlike a whole lot of other people on this forum). It's your decision to make. I'm just suggesting that you accept that there are personal consequences for making that decision.

You don't get something for nothing. The world simply doesn't work that way.

Edited, Nov 3rd 2009 4:15pm by gbaji

Yes. I forgot about the magic pixie dust component of the health care reform bill, which will make it cost less...

Lol!

It's always funny how whenever we conservatives say something so ridiculously obvious like "It'll cost more if you do that", the liberals insist that it wont, because um... "we'll do it better" or some other nonsense. Amazingly though, no matter how often you guys support some crazy new program and buy into the promise that it'll cost less than the conservatives say because there'll be more efficiency or something by putting the government in charge, it never ever ever ever actually happens that way.

Virtually every single liberal spending program created or modified in the last 40 years has cost more than the estimates. Not less. More. When will you learn? This isn't about ideology even. It's about seeing a simple historical pattern. When Conservatives say that costs will go up if you pass this legislation, we're right. Because, sadly, we're always right about these things.

You don't get something for nothing. The world simply doesn't work that way.


Unless it's benefit to all when you lower taxes on the extremely wealthy, then you get more for less!! Cue crazy calliope music and clowns on tricycles. Dun dun de dun dun de dun dun de dun.


The "cause" of the increase in costs is what you need to look at if you're looking for something to blame for your rates going up. If you change the rules, you change the behavior of the players. This is something that most folks on the Left seem to eternally forget. I don't understand why, but they do. They pass restrictive and costly legislation on an industry and then blame the industry when the costs of their goods and service go up. Bizarre!

In the entire history of the world, of economics, of human civilization, the strongest causal links to increases in asset pricing is lack of regulation. Less regulation encourages de facto and de jure monopoly, price collusion, abject fraud, etc. etc.

Unregulated markets don't work, they've never worked. They're fundamentally flawed in that they will always, always, always, fail. Usually suddenly and catastrophically, sometimes slowly and boringly.

That said, this entire discussion is meaningless. There is zero chance any meaningful reform of the health care industry comes out of this legislative process.

You'll have to pay taxes on your health insurance, though, idiot. Enjoy the loss of money you've fought so hard for.

That's not "nothing" though. See. If I take less money from the extremely wealthy, they'll invest most of that money I didn't take from them. And some of that money will result in tech and methodology improvements which will increase the total amount of "something" we have. It didn't come from "nothing". It came about as a result of investing quite a bit of something to make the total amount of something greater.

You get that just mandating that a company increase coverage or benefits will just make the whole cost more. There's no technology improvement leading this. It's the same health care. They're just being forced by the government to provide more of it, while being paid out of the same pool of money.

Is it really confusing to you that they'll have to take a large share of that pool in order to pay for the difference? Cause it's not like the math is that hard to do...






No one's arguing a case even remotely close to "no regulation" for the health care industry in the US. That is not the case now and it's not a case even being considered by anyone in the debate. Why then toss this silly straw man into the mix?

Within industries that are regulated, too much government involvement absolutely leads to corruption and waste. Mandated service may not increase "asset cost", but absolutely increases "total cost". Same deal with subsidies, tax incentives, kick backs, government funded contracts, and a host of other things.




While I'm sure your definition of "meaningful reform" is radically different than mine, you pretty much have the incompetence and overreaching inability to understand that their recent election wins really didn't come about as a result of a mandate of support for their agenda by the Dems to thank for that. I'd comment on the silliness and stupidity of spending millions of dollars and the better part of a decade building a "Republicans are evil" argument in the public mind in order to advance politically and then being surprised when the public which voted against the other guy instead of for you doesn't support your crazily moronic economic policies, but that would almost be redundant at this point.

If the Dems had a platform a majority of the public actually agreed with, things might be different. But as it stands, they have to trick the public into going along with them and hope they don't catch on until it's too late...



Er? And that's not going to happen under the various Dem plans? Look. At this point, I'm opposed to any legal changes with health care at all. So I'm not sure where you're getting this. But I'll tell you what. If I have to pay taxes on my health care dollars, but in return I get to decide how to spend them? That's certainly a better deal than what I'm getting right now. Do you have any clue how much I've paid for health care insurance over the last decade or so in comparison to what I've received? It's obscene.

Honestly? I don't remember where I heard that number. Happy? I recall hearing it on some radio program. I recall reading it in an article or two. IIRC, it was an estimate done by the insurance industry itself on the effect of one of the health care proposals on the costs they'd have to charge their customers.

Does it really matter? As you just stated yourself, I used the $2k figure before (about a month ago I believe). So regardless where I heard it or saw it, it matches the increase she's seeing, doesn't it?