"Congratulations, the healthy people are paying for the sick people!"

[ck4829]

“You heard Chuck Schumer say we are not celebrating, yet you see some of the images out of Capitol Hill last night, in the middle of the night, people were taking selfies — a lot of happy faces,” said co-host Steve Doocy. “Elizabeth Warren outside taking selfies with supporters.”

Co-host Brian Kilmeade lashed out at the younger supporters celebrating with Warren and showed a fundamental misunderstanding of how health insurance works.

“I laugh, too, that these young people are out there celebrating,” Kilmeade said. “Congratulations, you now will pay a fine or you have to have insurance. Congratulations, the healthy people are paying for the sick people.”

http://www.rawstory.com/2017/07/young-people-are-out-there-celebrating-fox-friends-host-pity-party-after-obamacare-repeal-fails/

In addition to Kilmeade being wrong about insurance, there is something else I want to bring up. Just picture for a second, imagine if you will, how many people were nodding to this or yelling some profanity about liberals and/or Democrats... during or right after they took their morning medication, maybe they're breathing oxygen through a device, maybe they woke up earlier from sleep made possible through a CPAP machine, but here they are nodding in agreement, saying Democrats are propping up "*those* sick people" that they totally are not and it's just "WRONG!" that it's continuing.

This is what we are up against.

Code Blue

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. "The healthy people are paying for the sick people." Yes. That's how insurance works.

People who don't have car accidents pay for people who do have car accidents. People whose houses don't burn down pay for people whose houses do burn down. Insurance doesn't work at all unless there are enough people paying premiums (more people, smaller amounts) to cover claims (fewer people, larger amounts). Insurance in its basic form is almost pure socialism. Even a for-profit health insurance arrangement, like all other forms of insurance, cannot function without more people paying premiums than make claims. That's why the ACA included the requirement that everybody has to buy insurance.

How stupid are these people?

[duncang]

6. +1,000

I paid for insurance since I was in my 20's. Stayed healthy during that time. Now as I get older still paying for insurance but using more of it. It all works out in the end.

[angstlessk]

2. So he thinks healthy people should wait till they are sick to buy insurance?

Young people are also prone to traffic accidents...what NO insurance? Should they be left to die in the car?

How will that work out?

[maryellen99]

9. I took it to mean they're talking about pre existing conditions

RWers resent having to pay for people like my husband.

[DBoon]

29. "Should they be left to die in the car?"

I think his answer is "yes"

Why should safe drivers pay for poor drivers' collisions?

[Aristus]

3. That's how insurance works, you hamhock!

It's like the United States military: "Congratulations! The well-trained, well-armed young people who swore an oath to defend the United States, are defending the United States!"

[Wounded Bear]

25. Who do you think you are, some kind of a doctor?

Oh, wait...

[Initech]

4. Fuck Fox & Friends!!!!!

[Warpy]

5. Hey, PECKERHEADS, do you know how insurance WORKS?

All the safe drivers pay for your wreck when you get drunk and total your car. All the nonsmokers pay for your house when you drop a butt in the couch and burn the place down. And the living are paying your nearest and dearest for you when you finally do the world a favor and drop dead. It's what we all pay for, a way to survive catastrophe without losing everything.

That's how it's supposed to work. That's how it's set up to work because none of us lives a charmed life. It's one concept right wing, cement brained, knuckle dragging, snuff juice drooling assholes never get, although I'm sure you're insured to the hilt on everything.

I hope your life insurance policies pay off really soon. Creating rich widows might be the best day's work you'll ever do.

(Hair trigger alerters: please note I'm bagging the idiots Doocy and Kilmeade and not the poster. Thank you.)

[karynnj]

7. He needs to be asked what happens to young healthy people

If everything goes well, they grow old ... and as they age, on average they increase their need for health services.

Consider also, that old people, long past the age to have children in K- 12 classes, pay for schools through their property taxes.

What kind of society does not see that we are all interconnected and that eveyone will have a better quality of life if the basic needs are provided for. I know that I do not want the US to become a third world country, where those that can afford it stay within gated communities because to go outside those areas is dangerous -- and that is in addition to thinking it morally wrong.

[mr_lebowski]

8. 'You NOW ... will have to pay a fine or get insurance?' Hey dipshit, it's been like that for years

now, at this point.

The GOP's purpose in trying to get rid of the individual mandate had nothing to do with caring about the poor folks who had to pay it, and everything to do with knowing that the ACA WILL COLLAPSE ... without that particular component.

The 'numbers' simply do not 'work out' without it. The mandate was basically 'pay back' to the health insurance companies in exchange for their acceptance of people w/pre-existing conditions. Without the 'stick' of the mandate, large numbers of people would simply wait until they got sick, THEN buy the insurance, which the insurers would be forced to give them.

But yes, Douchey, the mandate basically forces healthy people to contribute before they get sick, because their money NEEDS TO BE in the 'pool' in order for the overall system to work out, numbers-wise. That is HOW INSURANCE WORKS.

But an addt'l important point is that since nobody can EVER KNOW that they aren't seconds away from some sort of very costly health emergency (car wreck, appendicitis, fall in the home cracking open your skull), wherein, if they do not have insurance at the time, everyone ELSE could get stuck with the bill for it ... that also creates an unfair situation for the people doing the responsible thing and 'covering' themselves. It's much like the order that everyone have auto insurance if you think about it, same underlying reasons.

Ergo, IMHO, the 'mandate' is totally logical, fair, and necessary, given the rest of how the ACA is set up.

[planetc]

10. "Healthy people DO pay for sick people until the healthy ones get sick, and then ...

... people who are still healthy pay for them, including healthy people who were sick for awhile and are back at work now. Actually this doesn't make that much sense, because you keep on paying insurance premiums even when you're sick. Anyhow, men pay for insurance for women who may become pregnant, and since pregnant women are the only way to keep the species going, men ought to be grateful that they can be some help. Men might view their insurance premiums as a small price to pay for the privilege of never having to be pregnant or deliver a child. Delivering a child is often not much fun, and is still dangerous for some women.

In short, have we forgotten what it's like to live in a civilized society? I fear the answer is yes, except for us wooly-headed liberals, who think we can give better healthcare to everybody for less than we spend now, using, for instance, H.R. 626.

Let us for heaven's sake keep this positive vision before us: everybody gets health care because everybody gets sick. We pay for this health care collectively to spread the cost out among many people so those who get sick don't have to declare bankruptcy to recover. CAPEESH??

[Phoenix61]

11. How many "healthy" people go in for their

routine, annual physical and it suddenly isn't so routine. One bad biopsy, blood test, EKG and you become a member of the preexisting condition club. Sanctimonious shits who think it can't happen to them or their loved ones need to think about that.

[ck4829]

13. They CAN'T be sick though, being sick is what the 'other' is

Just like a poor woman who wants an abortion, a black person who sees the reason why Black Lives Matter exists, a person poorer than them, a Muslim, a trans person, an immigrant, a refugee; all the 'other' to be feared and loathed... but above all else, they can never BE the other or compared to the other.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

19. Or a car accident (which a young person is more likely to have,

which is the reason their car insurance is more expensive), or a fall off a ladder, or a skiing accident, or a head injury from football or a broken neck from diving into a shallow pool... Young people aren't as likely to get chronic diseases but they sure as heck are more accident-prone. I can't count the number of times I've seen fund-raisers, raffles of various kinds and pleas for donations on behalf of some young kid who's been paralyzed because of an accident they had playing sports or just playing. The lifetime medical expenses for a quadriplegic can be millions of dollars, and in the bad old days of lifetime caps the available coverage would be used up pretty fast, leaving the family to beg anyway they could for financial help.

Short memories I guess, although this was the situation only seven years ago.

[defacto7]

12. Wait a minute..... Let's set this straight,

The GOP wanted the sick and the healthy, young and old to pay for a frickin tax break for the wealthy.

[Vinca]

14. That's what insurance is: shared risk.

One minute you can be healthy and the next minute an aneurysm can explode in your brain or you can trip on the curb and fall into traffic or any number of instantaneous things that happen to healthy people.

[Skittles]

15. I have paid for insurance for decades without being sick

and I FINE with that because

1) I KNOW HOW INSURANCE IS SUPPOSED TO WORK
2) I CARE ABOUT OTHER PEOPLE
3) REPUBLICANS CAN FUCK THEMSELVES

[treestar]

16. Is it possible to be that dumb

and just not get it? If you have no auto accidents, you are paying premiums for people who do! they don't even get what insurance is. And it is stupid to have none, just because you are young. You can still have problems.

[ck4829]

17. My reply (#13) might peer into the reason why they think this

[treestar]

18. Yes, like they think they could never be poor

or jobless and blame people who are - like it could never happen to them. Idiots.

[underpants]

28. They're doing the angry old man act "These young punks don't know how the world works DAMMIT!"

Back in my day....

That's their audience and that's really always been the conservative and Fox News message.

[Warren DeMontague]

21. Thats what insurance is, fuckwit.

(Not addressed to the OP, of couse)

[ck4829]

22. Haha

I've never had a problem with this though, I've posted things and insults go flying, but I've always known they were never directed at me personally. Maybe people are just reading things way too quickly nowadays.

[Wounded Bear]

27. A lot of people seem to read the subject line and respond...

without actually reading the post or knowing the poster.

It's all good.

[xajj4791]

23. Republican issues with ACA

I think it is fairly obvious that the Republican issues with the ACA do not stem from the idea of Insurance. As several others have already noted, they all have insurance of one kind or another. Rather, they have specific issues that they want addressed namely

1. The ability to deny someone health insurance or access to healthcare if they cannot afford it
2. The ability to deny women birth control
3. The ability to restrict abortions as much as possible until they can legislate it into being illegal.
4. The ability to increase corporate profits for insurance companies, drug companies, etc.

The reality is why they are not repealing it. Too many constituents have to have the ACA to get health care at all. It is not politically viable to drop 15+ million people from the healthcare system.

[moondust]

24. Stupid.

If one insists on framing it like that then it's more like:

The temporarily healthy people are paying for the often temporarily sick people until the healthy ones themselves get sick and need the help provided by other temporarily healthy people.

[ck4829]

26. You know it, I know it, the squirrel stashing acorns outside knows it

But these people love their dichotomies, if you're sick, then you're the 'other', you're the problem.

[moondust]

30. Indeed.

Dichotomize everything! Probably a byproduct of duopoly and a prescription for terrible government where everything is just another football game between the blue team and the red team--even if the dumb contrarianism does a lot of harm like "repeal" would.

[Hoyt]

31. Younger folks are hit with more than their actuarial share of premiums and older

folks are paying less under the ACA. Ideally, younger folks would pay their share and older folks would get subsidies for the difference. One of the problems with the ACA is that younger folks are subsidizing older people with greater health needs. Taxes should fund the subsidies, not younger folks. "That's the way insurance works, " is not an adequate answer over a 40 year or so age band.

[NickB79]

32. Yeah, how dare we take care of our fellow man!!!

I mean, really? Have we all forgotten the words of our Savior Jesus Christ, when he said "Fucketh the poor, for I shalt have mine, bitches."

[Alice11111]

33. &the young pay for the old...that's how retirement & healthcare work