HCR Passes

[sleepyjeff]

Originally Posted by Morrigoon

Nonsense, if they're so rich from not paying for car insurance then the presumption is that they can afford to hire a cab.

It'll be a false presumption, but that's how the logic goes.

huh?

I honestly don't know what the heck you are talking about...

[scaeagles]

Originally Posted by Not Afraid

Leo, do you feel the same way about drivers being required to purchase insurance?

I do not have to drive. It is perfectly within my rights not to. No car, no autoi insurance. However, I do have to breathe. Breathing would mean that I'm required by law to purchase health insurance.

[innerSpaceman]

Essentially it's a tax masquerading as a law. Eventually, I hope, it will become an actual tax. But of course, the government requiring you by law to spend money on something against your will is a tax, by whatever name it's called.

It's perfectly within my rights, scaeagles, to pay my income taxes in April of the following year when they are due and can properly be assessed, and not a moment before. But go ahead and try that.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by scaeagles

I do not have to drive. It is perfectly within my rights not to. No car, no autoi insurance. However, I do have to breathe. Breathing would mean that I'm required by law to purchase health insurance.

Putting aside for a moment questions of practicality and whether you think it would function well or not, would you have the same "I'm forced to buy it" objection if we went to a true universal single payer system, where, instead of subsidizing purchase of health insurance by individuals from private companies, health insurance was paid for entirely by the government, budgeted from tax revenue?

[Morrigoon]

Originally Posted by Alex

I'm not sure see any difference between what you say is a hardship in that first sentence and what is ok in the last sentence.

This is a fair question, allow me to try to explain it better:

The hardship comes when paying for insurance is a separate bill, rather than being folded into income taxes. The government knows people aren't good at paying their bills, that's why they insist on taking taxes out of people's income before a paycheck is cut. Yet they think they can "add" a bill for multiple hundreds of dollars per month, and mandate it legally. That's why the single-payer option is a better idea. Sure, it'll mean a tax increase, but I think that's the "easier" way to get people to pay for it.

The problem is, this really does mean that everyone will have government insurance, and quite rightly, it freaks out the Republicans and Libertarians. It even freaks me out, but I think the benefit outweighs the cost in this instance. I've said before that the plan I favor would be a government-provided minimum coverage (like Medicare), with the option for citizens to purchase privately-supplied supplemental insurance. That way, people who fear "standing in line for care" will be provided with a way out, or a way to choose the best doctors, whose price might require extra fees and/or insurance to cover.

And I acknowledge that this means there must be some requirement for doctors to accept a certain number of patients at the government minimum, in order to be able to charge the other patients more.

The good news here is that if employers want to be seen as providing good benefits, they can still buy the supplemental coverage for their employees, but overall it will probably cost the employers less than paying for the current full coverage (with employees still footing huge bills to pay their portion)

[Alex]

Originally Posted by Morrigoon

It really happened.

Only the bolded part really happened. Everything else was hypothetical:

If everyone had had health care a few years ago, then perhaps the random stranger with tuberculosis in downtown LA might have gotten treatment for it, and therefore NOT spread TB to people they rode the bus with, which included a friend of mine at USC, who unfortunately CAUGHT it, carried it unknowingly for a few years (spreading it to god knows who) and when diagnosed with it, had to spend half a year on meds. All because she didn't have a car for a few months when she was at USC.

[sleepyjeff]

Originally Posted by Ghoulish Delight

At the point when the net benefit is outweighed by the net detriment.

As for questions of liberty - while I value financial liberty to a degree, I do not value it to the degree I value liberties that are independent of money. Rights to everyone's life, freedom, expression et. al. take a back seat to the right to your dollar. Now, I happen to also think that preservation of many of the rights that I do consider essential are aided by preserving the right to private property. But given the choice between instituting something that I think preserves a more crucial right (in this case, the right for everyone to have the opportunity to maintain their health regardless of financial status) vs. preserving some incremental monetary rights, I will almost always choose the former.

Good answer but the "dollar" is not just a dollar....it represents my labor....replace the word "dollar" with labor and then read your paragraph again.

[sleepyjeff]

Originally Posted by Alex

It's a difficult question and unless the goal is a Libertarian paradise not one where it is easy to draw the line. Is a truly Libertarian Paradise your preference?

Let's just say if a Truly Libertarian Paradise is Miami and outright Totalitarianism is Seattle my preference would be to live in Memphis, not Walla Walla.

[Alex]

But how are you drawing that bright solid line? Especially when it looks like every step taken away from Miami gets labeled as Seattle? Or it is claimed we already live in Boise.

[scaeagles]

Originally Posted by Ghoulish Delight

Putting aside for a moment questions of practicality and whether you think it would function well or not, would you have the same "I'm forced to buy it" objection if we went to a true universal single payer system, where, instead of subsidizing purchase of health insurance by individuals from private companies, health insurance was paid for entirely by the government, budgeted from tax revenue?

Considering I think government is too big as it is and my general philosophy that I prefer government keep its hands out of as much as possible, I suppose I would have a problem with it on a philosophical level. As with anyone, my taxes go to support all sorts of things that I do not philosophically support. But because of how you defined the issue, the "I'm forced to buy it" objection goes away and would be, of course, replaced by numerous other objections, which would be more in line with my normal objections to government intrusion into my life and high taxation.