Trump: The First Year

Can I buy home insurance after my house burns down?

You can buy another house but a life is quite different. Would you say the same if you had a child born with an ailment and no insurance company will cover you because being born with it is a pre existing condition? If you don’t have the money your only option is to let your child die, On the flip side a rich person can afford all the medical care needed and the child recovers and lives a great life. Is that the America you want? Not I , I think as a nation we are much better than that.

Can you buy health insurance after you’re dead now? Seems silly to me.

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It seems silly to you because you’ve been indoctrinated into thinking health insurance is a right.

Insurance is paying money to cover the actuarial risk of a loss. The risk of loss of a person who already has a catastrophic condition the risk is 100%.

When insurers are required to accept sick people it stops being insurance. The insurance lobbyists agreed to it because they thought they were going to get droves of young healthy people paying premiums. Not so much.

The real problem with health insurance in its current form is that it creates all sorts of agency problems and reverse incentives on both sides. Insurers are incentivised to limit your providers and available procedures and the insureds have no incentives to take care of their health. What do they care, they aren’t going to pay for it.

Any time you have people spending someone else’s money you distort the market.

This is why a limited govt option approach makes the most sense.

The HC market is inherently, hopelessly distorted.

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I agree it’s incredibly distorted. I believe the only solution is to have patients pay doctors directly. No middle men (private or government). There are 2 or 3 doctor “cooperatives” in the US where patients make monthly payments to a pool of doctors. The doctors use their size to negotiate drug costs down. That seems like a really interesting option. I’d rather pay a Dr.'s overhead and margin than pay for that plus govt overhead costs and pvt insuramce. But we’ve talked about this before.

Have you ever shared what type of limited government option you support? I know it’s somewhere between laissez faire and single payer but I’d like to hear your thoughts. New thread maybe?

It seems silly because your example is akin to buying health/life insurance AFTER dying, which is not what is happening. I haven’t been “indoctrinated” into anything, this isn’t a cult. You sound like Zep.

Nearly always not the case. Very few “pre existing conditions” = “100% catastophic.” That’s the GOP Boogeyman used to discredit the pre existing condition. I’m not afraid of boogeymen.

Insurance is distributed risk across a range of people. Being required to accept sick people doesn’t move that needle.

If you talk to ANYONE in the HC industry, nobody of importance truly thought that. They thought the govt would make up the difference.

You mean like the entire govt? Literally every market in the country? Ranging from oil to ISPs?

That is feasible for very basic primary care, but services beyond this basic level would quickly be priced out of reach for all but the very wealthy among us.

Further, do you really want physicians competing on price? Because that is inevitably going to lead to corner-cutting and shorter visit times as physicians struggle to match the price of the guy on the next block. The ‘price to beat’ may well be set by the physician who provides the poorest quality care, which will in turn force other physicians to follow suit.

What you’re describing sounds like a variation on the ‘concierge model’ of HC provision. It’s quite popular, but also tends to be expensive. Again, if you force physicians to compete on price, you run the risk of quality suffering.

Further, you’d have to be a pretty big group to have enough weight to get drug companies to negotiate with you.

I have (I think), but will be happy to recapitulate.

Basic, rationed care for all on the government’s dime. Total Fed HC outlay would be capped (ie, the Congress would decide ‘we’re going to spend X dollars on HC,’ and that amount would in turn dictate which services would be provided). This is key: Citizens would be free to purchase as much supplemental insurance as their hearts desire (and as someone was willing to sell them). Further, fee-for-service (aka Straight cash, homey!) would still be available, as would concierge arrangements.

The govt option would be quite basic. For example, it would not pay for Viagra-type products (unless the price came WAY down). Along those lines, the govt would negotiate with drug companies (the way the VA does now) to keep prices as low as possible. The govt option would not cover hemodialysis in the final weeks of life; it would not cover interminable ICU stays for pts with no hope of recovery. (If you want to keep brain-dead grandma alive on a vent, you will have to do so on your own dime.)

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Now wait just a second there, there’s no reason to hit below the belt lol
 nobody but Raj is as bad as Zep!

That sounds nice in theory, but how would you ensure the spending cap would stay put with Congress and wouldn’t creep out like the Blob? That’s what happens with pretty much EVERY subsidy the government has, and all the more so with the major entitlements.

Also, exactly what does “basic” care entail? And how do you think that will distort the remaining private market?

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Lol I just meant in his usage of “indoctrinated.” Not in GENERAL, sheeeeeshhh.

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If absolutely nothing else, Trump reaffirms my belief that a “well rounded” education is shit. Nothing in life is out of the reach of stupid people. REJOICE!

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I am inspired!

I might even run for president. Not the big one like him. Maybe just a little president of a small town. Baby steps.

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I know, you had me worried haha

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If the public isn’t vigilant, the cap might well creep out like the Blob. Or, the legislation could be written such that it is a ‘hard cap.’

That would be subject to cost-benefit analysis. Certainly futile care (including extended end-of-life care) wouldn’t make the cut. (We spend an enormous amount of money on futile care in this country.) Lifestyle care–Viagra; LASIK; cosmetic surgery–wouldn’t make the cut. Experimental care wouldn’t, except in the form of clinical trials. Relatedly, I could see mandatory participation in organ transplantation being a requirement (eg, a significant increase in the supply of kidneys would save us a great deal of money on hemodialysis).

I am confident the remaining private market will be just fine. There will always be lots of wealthy (or wealthy-enough) people to sustain it.

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Real life example from a Youtube guy: he got a brain tumor of some sort, six figure treatment required, and his insurance company told him
that’s not covered!!! Lucky for him two Youtube buddies (one with 600+k subs and one with almost 4 mio subs) went to bat for him with t-shirt sales and amazingly got donations that would help the afflicted guy cover (most or all, not sure) his costs.

Shocked me, because even though I’m anti-ObamaCare based on my own personal situation, I thought the afflicted guy’s situation was supposed to not happen under OCare, even if he had no health insurance before getting diagnosed (would be kind of a reach in that case though I admit).

Ocare doesn’t force every individual insurance plan to cover everything. You still have to obtain the correct insurance that covers the procedure you want.

Here’s the “reach” though -shouldn’t the guy be able to wait for the next sign-up period, and then just buy the insurance that would cover the procedure(s) he needed? Because in theory, if he had no insurance, paid to get the diagnosis, he could then sign up with his “pre-existing” condition right?

What am I missing?

add: most people who don’t have families buy insurance for “disaster” coverage, and apparently “disaster” procedures are the ones not covered

This is true. Even if the U.S. gets to near-full communism, the ultra-wealthy will still be able to take care of themselves. Every regulation merely prices a few more lower and middle-class folks out of the market. And we beg for more weight. Listen to the first few seconds of this clip to hear the rich talking to everyone begging for more socialism.