Question about mandatory health coverage

[Orrex]

Several contenders for the nomination have hinted that they might make health insurance mandatory, to some degree or another, and often this notion has met scorn and derision for a host of reasons, not least of them being that it's yet another opportunity to punish the poor. It also seems to me like another attempt to force 200 million semi-powerless individuals to make decisions based on facts entirely out of their control.

What would happen if health insurance providers were legally obligated to cover everyone? Rather than requiring individuals to battle insurance providers and navigate their employers' arcane policies, why not require multi-billion-dollar companies to do the work?

Granted, this would require regulation and oversight to a degree perhaps not currently possible, but would the end result be better or worse than millions of desperate citizens scrambling to understand the intricacies of insurance law on the fly?


Just a thought. I don't pretend to understand what the particulars would entail, but that is likewise part of the problem.

[Vincardog]

1. Good answer. Anyone want to ask the candidates?

[Justitia]

2. I like it. Let's do away with "pre-existing conditions" exclusions - like Medicare does. -eom

[China_cat]

3. A mandate for people to have health insurance

isn't a mandate for the companies to pay for care, as far as I can see. The companies will have to accept you and take your money but nothing says they have pay anything. And nobody has even pretended that they will.

[warren pease]

4. Not good enough. Private, for-profit medical insurance has to go...

We're not really talking about medical insurance anyway; it's protection money extorted by an organized crime syndicate to keep medical providers from stealing your house, cars, bank accounts and anything else that isn't bolted down in case something serious (i.e., expensive and maybe requiring hospitalization) happens to you.

So why do we put up with this bullshit system? Simple. We're idiots.

The US is unique in the world in its child-like belief in corporate good citizenship and the intrinsic benevolence of a medical system based solely on profits. This is not only naive and dumb as dirt, it can't happen under existing US law and SEC regulations. These require a publicly owned, for-profit corporation to base its entire business model on achieving one single objective: maximizing shareholder equity. Which is to say, increasing profits, usually by cutting operating costs to the bone.

So anything that bumps the stock price is good, and anything that lowers it is bad. Paying claims is bad because it sucks money from the bottom line, while denying claims is great because it saves money that contributes to corporate profitability, which ultimately helps raise the price of the stock, keeps the investors happy and keeps the SEC off the CFO's back for another quarter.

In short, it's literally impossible for a US for-profit publicly held medical insurer to live up to its opposing obligations to both its subscribers and shareholders at the same time. And, as noted above, if somebody has to get screwed, by law it's going to be the peasants.

This so-called system has been rejected as unworkable and anti-humanitarian by all other "rich" industrialized countries. The US is alone among 19 "first world" countries in trusting for-profit corporations to deliver first-class health care at reasonable cost.

But again, because we're idiots, and easily manipulated ones at that, we resist logic, refuse to think this issue through, and would rather believe the professional liars feeding us industry spin and feel-good advertising.

So we're getting exactly what we deserve, brought to us by the enormous population of American dimbulbs and apathetic dullards. Unfortunately, the rest of us have to suffer right along with them.

I thought the US system of government was supposed to mitigate against the "tyranny of the majority." Must have slept through that class.


wp

[Orrex]

5. That, alas, is a very good answer

Over the past nine years, I have had reason to contest every single insurance claim I've filed due to late payment by the carrier, or erroneous denial of coverage, or ambiguous billing, etc. My cynicism has all along let me to suspect that this has been part of a scheme calculated to maximize profit for the insurance company (no shit, right?) while screwing with the policy holder and making her or him do much more legwork than should be necessary.


And it doesn't help that the terminology is pointlessly and deliberately obscure. I've worked in financial services, where terminology is legally established and pretty much vital to the function of the industry, but even there the wording is consistent and reasonably transparent to the novice. Not so insurance companies, with premiums, deductibles, copays, out-of-pocket, and a zillion other ways they say "you're paying this."

[Fireweed247]

6. This is not the answer at all

If we all know the insurance companies must be removed from the equation, why don't the candidates?

We need to elect a new Congress that will pass HR676 which already has 80 cosponsors
www.peacecandidates.com

[Orrex]

7. True--they're machines for generating profit, pure and simple

But it seems to me that no candidate with any airtime is going to suggest abolishing them, so at the moment that's just a noble pipe dream.

In the meantime, doing something to take the burden off of the individual strikes me as a good idea.


Otherwise, I agree with you! :hi: