The Social Security Screwing Is Coming To Health Care
When you're at your most struggling, in your early 20s, you're subsidizing a bunch of rich old grannies with money sucked out of your paycheck and put toward Social Security. Hillary Clinton's supporters attacked Obama for not bringing that same principle to health care, as he isn't proposing a federal mandate that every American buy health insurance, as Clinton and Edwards would. In the WSJ, Betsy McCaughey shows why that mandate isn't such a good idea:
Requiring catastrophic coverage (our parents called it major medical) probably is smart. This would ensure that a person who is hurt in a car accident or diagnosed with a costly illness can pay his own medical bills, instead of being a burden on society.But catastrophic coverage is not what the mandate advocates want. They would require that everyone have comprehensive health insurance, covering preventive and routine care.
The rationale for this mandate is not personal responsibility but "shared responsibility," a polite way of saying shared costs. Requiring comprehensive coverage, the argument goes, will make it affordable for the sick, by pulling the young and the healthy -- neither of whom use these health services very much -- into the insurance pool. Advocates also argue that requiring this type of coverage will cure overcrowded emergency rooms and help tame skyrocketing health costs.
These arguments are based on myths, not facts.
The first myth is that it's fair to make everyone pay the same price for health insurance. It is not: For young people who rarely use health services, this is a rip-off. If people in their 20s paid attention to politics and voted, politicians wouldn't dare try this.
According to the latest Census data, 56% of the uninsured are adults aged 18-34. True enough, forcing them to be a part of a same-price-for-everyone insurance pool will likely bring down premiums. These young people generally need minimal health care ($1,500 a year, on average, according to a Commonwealth Fund study).
In most states, (but not New York and Vermont), young adults who buy health insurance are charged premiums that reflect their low medical needs. A 25-year-old man can buy a $1,000 deductible policy for a quarter to a third of what a 55-year-old man has to pay. (In Manchester, N.H., a 25-year-old man pays $156 per month, while a 55-year-old pays $542 for the same policy, according to ehealthinsurance.com).
Both the Clinton proposal and the bipartisan congressional proposal prohibit insurers from giving such price breaks to the young. Their mandates would force the young to subsidize the heath tab for the middle-aged generation. This subsidy would come on top of the payroll tax younger people already pay to support today's Medicare recipients. This is contrary to a fundamental American principle. This nation has always believed in making life better for its children, not exploiting them.
Pricing insurance fairly for the young doesn't mean that those middle-aged who cannot afford higher premiums should be left to sink or swim. But providing targeted subsidies out of general tax revenues is fairer than artificially lowering premiums for all middle aged people by compelling the young to pay more.
...Mandating that everyone, including young adults, buy insurance, and then hiding a hefty, cost sharing tax inside their premium, is an unfair solution.
Amy - a spammer made it out of the pen. Grab the cluebat.
Anyhow - on topic for a moment here before I go do something useful:
Notice a pattern here? Clinton and Edwards are in their 50's (is Clinton pushing 60?). Obama's not even 50 yet.
Let me tell you what Mittcare is, and what this forced-to-buy-insurance-at-the-same-rate-as-old-fucks is: Boomer Greed. The boomers destroyed their parents, and now they intend to destory their children. Why? Because they're fucking special.
Can there be any longer be doubt that "Universal Healthcare" is nothing more than a wealth transfer from the productive younger classes to the now-retiring Boomers? Is there anyone they won't steal from?
brian at January 11, 2008 4:56 AM
Apparently not. They are all products of a culture of hypersensitve, spoiled whiners. And there's no end in sight. *sigh*
Flynne at January 11, 2008 5:56 AM
Excuse me, Brian? Please don't lump me in with the likes of Clinton. This does seem patently unfair and I think it has more to do with special interests than it does boomers. Only ones that benefits from this are the insurance companies.
On another thread, one poster said we need to devise a better method of insurance because it's really the insurance companies mandating what's covered and how much it costs. They've got a point.
There's the running joke that you pay $10 for an aspirin in the hospital. How do they get away with this? They'll tell you it's so they can have expensive gadgets like cat scans. Well, why the hell am I paying for someone else's cat scan? The whole system needs to be overhauled.
Donna at January 11, 2008 6:00 AM
This could also apply to the thread about the Ultimate Self-Control, but there's a cartoon in today's paper called "Speed Bump" in which a doctor is saying to a patient: "So, you'd like a battery of unnecessary tests that aren't covered by insurance - are you sure about that?" and the caption underneath reads: Doctor-Assisted Financial Suicide. o_O
Flynne at January 11, 2008 6:25 AM
a must read on this issue
http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/issues/2007-winter/moral-vs-universal-health-care.asp
newjonny at January 11, 2008 7:14 AM
sorry I suck - try this http://tinyurl.com/25zffu
newjonny at January 11, 2008 7:15 AM
Thanks, Brian. I'd actually banned the bitch a few days ago, but they had to rebuild my database to get rid of all the funny characters (not me or the commenters, the little diamond/question marks and ancient Greek-looking stuff where the apostrophes should be)...and the IP ban got erased.
Amy Alkon at January 11, 2008 7:18 AM
Amy,
You forgot to add that who will want to suffer through 12 years of college, med school, and residency when you will end up being paid squat by the feds?
Once they control the channel, then they will try to control the providers of the service.
austin at January 11, 2008 9:31 AM
When you're at your most struggling, in your early 20s, you're subsidizing a bunch of rich old grannies with money sucked out of your paycheck and put toward Social Security.
Amy, I'm 50 now, but when I was in my 20s, I was paying into Social Security. Are you saying that I should have to suck it up and not get anything back, just because today's 20-year-olds are struggling, and the "rich old grannies" are being subsidized by them? Actaully, I started working when I was in my teen years, and paying into Social Security even then. So I (and a LOT of people like me) have been paying into the system for many years. So I, and others like me, are not entitled to at least get back what we put into it? Granted, it doesn't look like there'll even be anything left when I'm a "rich old granny" but did you know that for a lot of old grannies out there, who are NOT rich, by the way, Social Security is all they've got? And it's not even enough to meet their basic needs? At the rate it's going, I'll be working until I drop dead, and even then, I'll still have to file paperwork! o_O
Flynne at January 11, 2008 10:04 AM
Here's an "old-fuck" (going on 70) who is in total agreement with you.
For me the most important issue of this campaign is health care -- not the war in Iraq, not global warming, not illegal immigration, -- health care. My reasoning is simple: Wars come and go, the earth warms and cools, we'll even find a solution to the immigration problem one day, but universal health care, once established, is forever and it's terrible -- just look at the situation in Canada and Great Britain.
Not all of us "old-fucks" are wealthy, but that's not the fault of you young people. In most cases it's a natural consequence of choices we've made along the way. Young people should not be required to save us from our poor choices. And yeah, I know there are exceptions, but where is it engraved in granite that life was supposed to be fair?
Most of us who are nearing the end of our lives think a great deal about what kind of legacy we will leave. The financial burden of providing for my medical needs as I grow older, is absolutely not the kind of legacy I would choose to leave. I'll handle it myself, thank you, and if it ever comes to the point where I can't handle it any more, well, it's been nice knowing you.
kirk at January 11, 2008 10:26 AM
Objectivism is attractive - everybody on their own self-sufficient feet. Socialism is also attractive: let's all hang together.
In practice, either extreme would be extremely unpleasant. The question is where on the spectrum in between one finds the best compromise.
And even that doesn't really matter. If you can only ensure that most of the money goes to what it's intended for - instead of toward paying bureaucratic salaries and special interests - then almost any compromise will work reasonably well.
Unfortunately, that's the trick. Why won't Flynn see much of her Social Security money? Because the federal government squandered it. The same money, invested in the worst of all bank accounts, would leave her very well off indeed, but all those federal salaries and boondoggles do add up.
The only solution I see is to push for strict consititutionalism: powers not given to the federal government are reserved to the states. At the state level, politics are smaller, the states compete with one another - one has a chance at a reasonable solution.
Of course, no serious candidate will support for this, as it would undermine the power-base of the major parties, whose support they need to get into office.
bradley13 at January 11, 2008 10:43 AM
Please neighbours -- no universal health care! Where will us Canadian's go when we have to wait 8 months for a 20 minute CAT scan? And where will all the doctors go? Sure, our doctors head south to make money now, but at least they are within a day's travel!
Flynne, I hope you aren't one of those counting on your Social Security. I appreciate that there are currently elderly people who were counting on this because that's the bill of goods they were sold. It was a retirement fund. For the last 20 years, I think the message has been pretty clear (for those who will listen) that I had to plan for my own retirement/old age. I just consider the $$ going into Social Security (CPP here) as a tax for the old. I've been paying in since I was 14 as well, so I'd love to see a return on what I actually put in, but I'm certainly not expecting it. I plan to be in a position that I will return anything above what I put in if I actually get anything.
moreta at January 11, 2008 10:45 AM
I'm in my 20's and I treat social security as basically additional income tax. I know with absolute certainty that when I retire there will be no social security. I can't buy lots of stuff that I would like because I have multiple accounts for the future. They got their desired life style (governed by their choices) now I don't get mine. Explain to me why I should not be resentful of this?
Now why should I be paying into a system that will not be giving me anything back. The reason a lot of these old grannies are not rich is as kirk pointed out the choices they made. Why am I paying for their bad choices?
vlad at January 11, 2008 11:01 AM
Oh no, Moreta, I've got a 401k, no worries! (Well, maybe, if only because if the cost of living keeps going up, my 401k won't cut it either! But right now, I'm solvent, so any extra money I have goes into my savings, and that of my girls'. Gotta get their butts into college one way or another. o_O)
Flynne at January 11, 2008 11:10 AM
Vlad, I'm gonna be 50 this year but I can sympathize with your feelings about Social Security. My question is this, what do you think about privatizing SS accounts so the the money that you actually pay in is set aside for you earning interest or investment income until you retire? Personnaly, I will never see a dime of SS because I retired from the Navy and my pension would be decreased dollar for dollar for any amount of SS I ever collect. But I'm collecting my military pension now. Wouldn't you rather have a personal SS account?
Bikerken at January 11, 2008 9:16 PM
I have to disagree with Donna. As Amy pointed out, in New York the state has decided what health insurance I can buy.
Mandates are just the chicken way of pretending to do something for people with other people's money. That's what politicians do.
Although chronologically a boomer, I agree with Brian and Kirk. I have no desire to make my kids' lives more difficult. I've got one living at home until he saves the down payment on his house, and I'm paying for my daughter's apartment while she finishes an internship. Not to mention college tuition loans that exceed my mortgage. If that's greed, color me greedy. They're my kids, so I pay. I think they were a better choice than new cars, a bigger house, a flat-screen TV, or more vacations.
MarkD at January 13, 2008 4:16 PM
I'm an Emergency Medicine physician. I also have a private house call practice that does not bill insurance, so I know how the business operates.. The problem with 'health insurance' is that it isn't insurance, i.e. something you buy for financial protection when you have a risk of a great monetary loss on some event that may or may not happen but, because of your various activities (driving, owning a home that could burn down, etc.) could wipe you out if it did.
The 'health insurance' that is available now to most people is called 'prepaid healthcare.' Of course you want those dollars to go to your doctor's visit/medicine/hospital stay.
But take a moment to think: what would your car insurance cost if you expected it to pay for your gas, your tires, your tune-ups, your oil changes and the occasional major engine overhaul?
My plumber charges me $175 per hour for labor (and, of course, I am aware that he does not net this amount); my new doctor's clinic charged me $106 for a 45 minute visit. Who is fucking who?
Steve at January 15, 2008 7:03 PM
Leave a comment