In honor of Obamacare subsidies and the ending of pre-existing condition exceptions, Tom Wopat and John Schneider are back together again in the new hit TV show, "The Dukes of Moral Hazard."

I get this. Really I do. But I'm surrounded by progressives who would respond with "So what do we do with someone in his mid-40's who now needs heart surgery and has no healthcare plan? Let him DIE? What kind of monster are you?"

How do I respond to that?

Lamont

Lamont, I respond by saying that they are free to pay for his hospital bills themselves, or give to charity, or whatever.

But, they should not be using MY tax dollars to do so - and yes, they still call me a monster.

Well, as a white male I'm a racist no matter what I do or say, so calling me a heartless monster is like water off a duck's back at this point.

Lamont, I ask them "when did his illness become my responsibility?"

I have enough on my plate trying to take care of my own family. If I had the means to help, maybe I would, and maybe I wouldn't. No one should be forced to help someone else. No one should be forced to pay for someone else's stupidity. If people want to help out of the goodness of their hearts, fine. I would if I could. But right now, I can't. Don't try to guilt-trip me over something I had nothing to do with.

"So what do we do with someone in his mid-40's who now needs heart surgery and has no healthcare plan? Let him DIE? What kind of monster are you?"

Why do "we" have to do anything?

I had one friend say, of Medicare, "I don't care how much it costs, as long as people have it."

There just isn't enough money to give everything to everyone, no matter how much bond-buying the Federal Reserve does.

Sorry.

Oh, and all the heart surgeries in the world aren't going to make you live forever.

At that level of income, Mr Foster likely pays no Federal income taxes at all, and perhaps even gets a significant check from the Feds each year through the EITC.

I'm not saying that this is what Mr Foster thinks, but many, many people in similar situations actually don't give a hoot about who's paying for it, as long as it's not them. The entitlement mentality is much-more widespread than we like to think. This is actually a primary (but unstated) goal of the PPACA - to create a large new class of recipients of 'free stuff' who could care less where it's coming from, but who can be relied upon to demand that it keep coming. Their trivial contribution to the cost is less-important than their votes to keep it coming - and, unwittingly, to support everything else that those who promised to give it to them and keep it coming want to do. And the best part is - they get to buy those votes with other voters' money.

Those of us in/from the Detroit area are well-familiar with the mindset of a very large section of the working population, which has enjoyed super-premium health insurance for several decades and consequently has come to see free, limitless healthcare as the natural order of things. To some of these folks, their health has become a lifestyle, with every possible health intervation you can imagine paid for 100% and without limit. That's the mindset that's being expanded here. Many of these people never give a second thought as to where it's coming from, or how it can be that they are being handed benefits of such enormous value at little or no cost. It's not so much that they wouldn't care if they stopped and thought about it - it's more just that they never bother to think about in in the first place. It just happens to them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ojd13kZlCA

Those citizens who worked and scrimped (as described) to buy and save security and safety for themselves and their families are rapidly being re-positioned as the new kulaks. And they will be stripped clean, just as the kulaks of Soviet Russia were in the 1930s, to provide a few months or years of the benefits that a growing section of the population has been told, and come to believe, they are 'entitled' to.

At what point do we expect people to start behaving like adults? Sorry, that ship sailed. These are the adults now. We had better get used to it. If you don't believe me, consider the vast cohort of adults who believe, at a religious level, that they are absolutely entitled to Social Security benefits vastly in excess of anything they ever paid into the system - in other words, that something-for-nothing is their absolute right, and that, consequently, they are simply not interested to consider how it might be paid for. I can hope that a 23-year-old, starry-eyed with the hope-and-change of 20 years of state school indoctrination and Obama-worship, might be open to reality. I have no such hope for a 58-year-old who has pinned his whole future on an unsustainable promise and who will demand that that promise be met, ruat coelum.

llater,

llamas

I always suspected support for Obamacare was all about the concerns of self-employed consultants, writers, and other artistes. At least they kept the Dream alive didn't they?

My guess is they still won't want to pay out of pocket for the coverage.

In my opinion, this whole mess could be solved easily by two laws, which are so simple and sensible that congress could never get behind it.

The first law is that states and the federal government are forbidden from forcing insurance companies from covering any procedures that are not directly life saving. This would include those expensive fertility treatments, and chemo for types of cancer that don't respond to chemo.

The second law, is no hospital or medical provider can charge an uninsured person for a procedure, more than what they are reimbursed by the best insurance plan plus deductible for any insured individual.

Hospitals and doctors have been cost shifting a lot of double billing off onto uninsured individuals for tax purposes, and if this stopped the prices would quickly realign with more of a free market value.

The dental industry is not insurance driven, and prices for a lot of things have actually dropped, because dental insurance in not a particularly good deal for most people.

People are going to go Galt if the government continues to tax the older middle class to pay for programs for the entitled. I don't mean they're going to go hide in Colorado behind a giant screen, but they will take jobs that don't pay as much so they qualify for federal aid and actually have more disposable income than if they worked to their capacity.

When the government makes underemployment preferable to working to one's potential in a stressful, demanding, profession, older workers in their prime earning (and taxpaying) years will start to question why they're killing themselves.

The ones that are not going to reach VP or make it to the executive suite, but are still willing to work in stressful middle management-level jobs because of the pay and perks are being milked to fund wildly out of control entitlement programs and are going to find that taking a job beneath their experience and training will in the aggregate pay more because of the tax code and various subsidies.

My Obamacare premiums would be $12,311 per year to cover my wife and me ($3,000+ per year for each of us individually - go figure). That's versus the $4,200 I pay now. And if I'm dumped onto the exchanges, wanna bet I won't get paid the employer portion of my health insurance premiums to help off-set the difference to my pocket?

God help us, but we're coming dangerously close to proving Ayn Rand right.

Medicare has disincentives to do the free ride until you need
to use the coverage.

If you don't sign up within the eligibility window when you first
qualify for Medicare, then you can't get coverage at all except for
once each year during an open enrolment period. Then, when you
finally do enroll, your premiums are forever higher than
they'd have been if you'd signed up originally. The longer you
delay, the higher your premiums.

Obamacare really needs something like this to prevent abuses.

Lamont, it doesn't even have to be a heart condition.

All I'm hearing right now is that if there is someone who, God forbid! didn't have their act together when they were in their late teens to early twenties, and weren't able to buy medical insurance at the tender young age, and now that they're in their thirties and forties and are ready to pay for healthcare, the ruthless reaction from those who smugly, self-righteously and judgmentally did have health insurance at an early age simply say, "Well, you can't have it. That's just too fucking bad for you. You waited too long to get health insurance and there isn't a goddamned thing you can do about it, and I don't give a shit. In fact, I hope you do get sick. I hope you do get some serious illness and have to die a slow, agonizing and horrible death because of it. You'd serve as a good example for everyone else. The world doesn't need you, Darwin-Awardee, and the sooner you remove your dumbassed self from the genepool, the better I'll feel."

And just for the record, I believe in socialized medicine, which most of you are probably already aware of.

The Republicans, ever in the back pocket of insurance companies claim there is nothing wrong with insurance as it is. Well, I disagree. (As someone who has health insurance and even I did lose it, I could always be insured by the VA, so I'm not speaking out of selfish reasons.)

People can be born with or develop conditions through no fault of their own that require expensive treatment. What's your thought on this? "Oh, fucking well...if their insurance drops them, it's not my fault. Not my problem." How nice for you to have been fortunate enough to not have any such chronic condition...yet.

Or if their insurance doesn't drop them, and they rack up exhorbitant out-of-pocket expenses for their condition, what's your thought?

"Well, that's just the way it is! It's not my fault that their condition is driving them into bankruptcy! We all have our crosses to bear!"

The medical industry is broken and has been for decades.

Insurance companies have blown it and do not deserve a second chance. Every industrialized nation in the world (except the U.S.) manages to pull this off. The U.S. can, too.

I am willing to pay my share to insure that everyone can get medical care, to have the treatment they need, merely by virtue of being a citizen of the United States.

And if you don't, as far as I'm concerned, you can get the hell out of the U.S. Although good luck in finding a nation to relocate to. As I said before, every industrialized nation in the world requires of its citizenry the very thing I've suggested.

"The Republicans, ever in the back pocket of insurance companies claim there is nothing wrong with insurance as it is. Well, I disagree. (As someone who has health insurance and even I did lose it, I could always be insured by the VA, so I'm not speaking out of selfish reasons.)"

As a Republican, I don't claim that there is nothing wrong with health insurance. What I claim is that the ACA will make the situation worse, instead of better.
Isnt it the Hippocratic oath that says "First do no harm?"

Guess again, on that VA care. Above a certain poverty level income, you won't be eligible for VA care. It is means tested.

A lot of people are for socialized medicine, until they actually need urgent care that is either unavailable, or subject to a long wait in line.

Go down to Australia sometime and see all the elderly blind people who only need cataract surgery to have excellent vision.
Socialized medicine wont cover it.

Isab, I'm a disabled vet (not that that's any of your business), so, yes, I can get VA care, no matter what my income is.

Insurance companies have blown it and do not deserve a second chance. Every industrialized nation in the world (except the U.S.) manages to pull this off. The U.S. can, too. -- Patrick at October 4, 2013 2:16 PM

Then why are Canadians leaving Canada to get care?

People can be born with or develop conditions through no fault of their own that require expensive treatment. What's your thought on this? "Oh, fucking well...if their insurance drops them, it's not my fault. Not my problem." How nice for you to have been fortunate enough to not have any such chronic condition...yet.

Or if their insurance doesn't drop them, and they rack up exhorbitant out-of-pocket expenses for their condition, what's your thought?

"Well, that's just the way it is! It's not my fault that their condition is driving them into bankruptcy! We all have our crosses to bear!"

I see, so your soulution is to steal my money to pay for other people then? What about if I need that money to pay for my care?

"People can be born with or develop conditions through no fault of their own that require expensive treatment. What's your thought on this? "

My thought on this, is people with severe allerigies and chemical sensitivities require special expensive food to stay alive. Is their needs a sufficient mandate for the rest of us to buy it for them?

"Oh, fucking well...if their insurance drops them, it's not my fault. Not my problem." How nice for you to have been fortunate enough to not have any such chronic condition...yet.

Or if their insurance doesn't drop them, and they rack up exhorbitant out-of-pocket expenses for their condition, what's your thought?

"Well, that's just the way it is! It's not my fault that their condition is driving them into bankruptcy! We all have our crosses to bear!"

I think the first thing that will happen in a truly socialized system that these people will be kicked to the curb. We simply cant afford the millions required to keep the severely disabled and ill alive.

So your question as to what will happen, is, in general, it will be a whole lot worse than it is now.

Why does everyone think the socialized medicine is so much better than what we have here?

Clearly more of you need to go spend an extended period in a country with socialized medicine to find out how it works in reality, as opposed to your imagination.

Isab, I'm a disabled vet (not that that's any of your business), so, yes, I can get VA care, no matter what my income is.

Posted by: Patrick at October 4, 2013 5:36 PM

Yea, that will last until too many disabled vets flood the system due to the chaos caused by the ACA, and then the percent of disability will go up for free care.

What Congress giveth they can taketh away.

Patrick, you are the only poster I have seen on this board, who "voluntarily discloses personal information" and then has the nerve to claim, that it is not any of "my business"

Hysterical.

Isab, you're the only poster I've ever seen (on this board or any other board, for that matter) who's need to be a patronizing, smug, arrogant, self-righteous piece of shit snob outweighs their need to show common sense.

My comment about my disability being none of your business was to curtail any further questions about it. You know, like the nature of it, my percentage, etc.

But you already knew that. As I said, it was more important than you insult someone than to act like someone who has a modicum of common sense.

"People can be born with or develop conditions through no fault of their own that require expensive treatment. What's your thought on this?"

The thing is: shit happens. It's not nice, it's not fair, but it happens. Now, to some extent, any culture I want to live in will be a culture that helps people who need it. However, this is not - cannot be - without limit.

Also, a favorite quote of mine: "Just because something is a good idea, doesn't mean that the government should do it". Well run private charities are vastly more efficient than government bureaucracies.

Private charity makes for another important difference as well. The government takes my money at gunpoint, and uses it for purposes I have no control over and often disagree with. With charity, I choose to give money, giving me a sense of empowerment, a sense of involvement in the community - a vastly more positive experience.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it. As long as it doesn't happen to you, it's just tough luck.

I don't agree. Shared risk means shared responsibility.

You've never had a car accident? You still have to buy insurance. Why? Because you could have an accident.

Not beset with a debilitating and expensive medical condition? You still buy medical insurance. Why? Because you could be.

"As I said, it was more important than you insult someone than to act like someone who has a modicum of common sense."

Check a mirror. Once again, this has become about you, and the ACA isn't very sensible at all.

I'm looking around for what you have found on NPR's ACA calculator - how much this will cost you while you are willing to take other people's money, without limit, for your treatment.

Sure Patrick, I have insurance for everything that seems reasonable: car, house, health, etc... However, all of these have limits. There are some things I don't insure, because the costs are, imho, too high compared to the risk.

If something awful happens, well shit, I'm outta luck. It would be unfair of me to force you to pay for my bad luck, or bad judgement. I may ask for help, and you may choose to give it or not.

That's the thing: with government programs, the government comes and takes your money, whether or not you feel like giving it. Half goes to the bureaucrats; if you're lucky, maybe some of the rest gets spent on something you actually agree with.

Finally, resources are not infinite, everything has a price that must be paid. To take an example outside of medical care: we could save 30,000 lives per year by outlawing private motorized vehicles. People are only allowed to travel by foot, bicycle or public transportation. The fact that this would destroy US economy, well, small price to pay for so many lives. No?

It's the same with medical care. We cannot afford heroic life-saving measures for every single person who falls seriously ill. As a society, we are simply not that wealthy.

a_random_guy: If something awful happens, well shit, I'm outta luck. It would be unfair of me to force you to pay for my bad luck, or bad judgement. I may ask for help, and you may choose to give it or not.

In such a case, you're not forcing me to pay for anything, and I disagree vehemently with this line of argumentation. It's similar to the line of argumentation that "they work for us." "They" meaning our elected officials.

No, they don't. We elect them. We don't hire them. We don't decide their pay or when to fire them. We don't promote them or demote them. They are not our employees.

By the same token, once you pay your taxes, that money is no longer yours. You are not paying for anything with it. It's the government's money. Their property. If you don't like the way they spend it, you vote for people who would spend it in a way that's more agreeable to you.

So, no, I would not be paying for your hospitalization. The government would. And I have no objection to the government spending money to take care of you when you get sick.

@Patrick. That's fine, you have a valid point of view. Different from mine. We'll just have to disagree on this one...

Because insurance is -- by definition -- a (collective) pooled risk, no libertarian has ever bought into this collectivism. Collectivism, inevitably, means some win at the expense of others.
Instead, true libertarians *pay* as they go. And if they can't afford something, they go without.
Libertarians are exemplary humans.

Health insurance was a pooled risk when it was harder to detect disease and monitor lifestyle choices.

As we've gotten better at detecting the markers for certain conditions and predicting who will get what, health insurance is becoming a pooled risk for the as-far-as-we-know-now healthy and excludes those who don't genetically measure up. It's not quite Gattaca yet, but that type of intrusive and exclusionary society is not beyond the conceivable anymore.

Because we conflate health care with health insurance in this country and have let costs get out of hand (preventative care driving up costs, medical liability lawsuits, fraud, etc.), a health insurance coverage plan has become a necessary item in everyday life.

Reducing the role of health insurance and increasing the competitive nature of health care would go a long way to reducing costs, reducing fraud, and increasing the overall general health.

Isab, you're the only poster I've ever seen (on this board or any other board, for that matter) who's need to be a patronizing, smug, arrogant, self-righteous piece of shit snob outweighs their need to show common sense.

I remember when Patrcik used to venomously whisper such sweet nothings into my electronic ear

You know, I'm under no illusion. I'm a practical cold-hearted son of a bitch (really you aught to see my mother tear into someone whos pissed her off)

Wheres the money gonna come from Patrick.|
Notice the lack of question mark, I dont expect you to even try to answer that, god forbid you use you obvious intelligence to think thru the consequences of your course of action.

I met a woman on the way to the airport, she never worked a day in her life, got married out of highschool, stayed home even though she didnt have kids, get her dead husbands SS, and welfare cause it doenst cover enough, and food stamps, and on medicare/caid whichever.

In addition to SS and welfare and food stamps she is on some cancer treatment which costs nearly 10 grand a month.

She told me that she has been on this treatment for nearly 3 yrs and her doctor tells her that as long as she takes care of her self she might live another 20.

One hundered and fifty thousand dollars plus a year so a woman who never paid taxes can live in her own home and still not pay taxes.

That is nearly 4 million dollars, for one person to sit on their ass and watch TV.

How many leeches like that can we afford? How many young working parents have to sacrifice the futures of their children to pay for the dying?

Isab, you're the only poster I've ever seen (on this board or any other board, for that matter) who's need to be a patronizing, smug, arrogant, self-righteous piece of shit snob outweighs their need to show common sense.

I remember when Patrcik used to venomously whisper such sweet nothings into my electronic ear

Posted by: lujlp at October 5, 2013 11:03 AM

Yea, I know, and it bothers me, just about as much as it bothers you. I stopped paying attention to ranting lunatics other than to stomp on them when possible, when I got out of the Army.
I am glad Patrick thinks, I am smug and condescending, because I sure feel that way when I listen to him expound on the law, the government, the insurance industry, and how oil exploration and petroleum refining should be regulated out of existence.

How many leeches like that can we afford? How many young working parents have to sacrifice the futures of their children to pay for the dying?

Posted by: lujlp at October 5, 2013 11:13 AM

We are about to run out of real money to pay for this shit. And running the printing presses full time doesn't count.

Seriously, I think the real reason the Democrats are getting so desperate and shrill, is that they had hoped they could push the total economic collapse a little further down the road, and the Republicans were suppose to let them do it, and then take the blame, as usual.

Repeated:

"I'm looking around for what you have found on NPR's ACA calculator - how much this will cost you while you are willing to take other people's money, without limit, for your treatment."

That was to Patrick, who didn't believe the NPR calculator was correct, but who did not offer an alternative or any evidence that it was not.

You've never had a car accident? You still have to buy insurance. Why? Because you could have an accident. ~ Patrick

You're required to purchase automotive in insurance if you drive your car on public roadways - because you're required to ensure that anyone you hit or any damage you do is paid for by you, not the rest of us.

If you keep the car at home and do not drive it on public roadways, you do not need to purchase insurance for it.

In other words, the insurance isn't for you, it's for the other drivers on the road.

=========================

I am willing to pay my share to insure that everyone can get medical care, to have the treatment they need....

Then you are free to contribute to an organization that does just that. My objection is you holding a government gun to my head and forcing me to contribute to your pet cause.

=========================

And if you don't, as far as I'm concerned, you can get the hell out of the U.S. Although good luck in finding a nation to relocate to. As I said before, every industrialized nation in the world requires of its citizenry the very thing I've suggested. ~ Patrick

The European welfare state is dying, and rightly so. When people realize they can get cradle-to-grave without paying for it, they stop deferring gratification, instead letting others pay their way. Wen enough people do that, the country starts running out of productive people and their money.

Those countries you hold up as ideal modern states are being forced to reconsider their socialized medicine and vast welfare machinery. The King of the Netherlands recently told the Dutch parliament the country's welfare state was unsustainable.

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/934952a6-1fad-11e3-aa36-00144feab7de.html#axzz2gufh8Eng

Titan International's CEO recently rejected taking over a closed factory in France because the cost and regulatory burden of having French employees make running a factory there untenable.

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-02-21/u-dot-s-dot-ceo-insults-french-workers-dot-hes-wrong-dot-so-are-the-french

=========================

By the same token, once you pay your taxes, that money is no longer yours. You are not paying for anything with it. It's the government's money. Their property. If you don't like the way they spend it, you vote for people who would spend it in a way that's more agreeable to you.

Tax revenues are not "government property." The government is not a separate entity from the people. It is an expression of the collective will of the people. The people protesting Obamacare are not obstructionists, they're US citizens and representatives elected by US citizens whose objections to Obamacare were steamrollered by a hyper-partisan Congress.

When the people did not like the way Congress was spending its money, they voted for "people who would spend it in a way that's more agreeable to" them. Only, the people they voted for are now being called racists and obstructionists - and being compared to slavery defenders, Holocaust deniers, and Nazis for expressing the will of the people who elected them.

The people may have rejected Mitt Romney as president, but they elected to Congress people whose opposition to Obamacare was a central part of their campaign.