It's been like that in Massachusetts for a few years. Pretty ridic.

Frankly, I'd rather pay the fine than pay for my health insurance. We pay $300 a month (soon going up to $400) for the ABILITY to purchase health care. Except, it doesn't cover many meds and it doesn't cover a lot of doctors visits, and 90% of the time when someone tries to bill my insurance, it bounces back and I end up paying out of pocket and getting reimbursed a few months later. I'd probably SAVE money just paying the fine.

 

Hey Amish, next time you see my wife you should ask her about that.


Ask her about wastes of fucking skin sucking billions of dollars of taxpayer money because they wantonly make poor choices about controllable aspects of their health over and over again, and then expect someone to pick up the tab when they fuck it all up.

Yeah no.

Fuck that.


I don't see why all the wingnuts have a problem with this, I really don't. Someone enlighten me, please. It stops massive, massive waste.





I also LOL at the Fox News link.

I'm sure they are leaving huge amounts of pertinent info out, at their convenience.

 

Hey Amish, next time you see my wife you should ask her about that.

Ask her about wastes of fucking skin sucking billions of dollars of taxpayer money because they wantonly make poor choices about controllable aspects of their health over and over again, and then expect someone to pick up the tab when they fuck it all up.

Yeah no.

Fuck that.

I don't see why all the wingnuts have a problem with this, I really don't. Someone enlighten me, please. It stops massive, massive waste.

I also LOL at the Fox News link.

I'm sure they are leaving huge amounts of pertinent info out, at their convenience.

I can see where something like this would definitly encourage people to actually get off their ass and get coverage. It is a solution, I'm not yet sure this is the RIGHT solution.

I'm of the mindset, if you don't go to the effort to get heathcare, and you don't have coverage, you don't get heathcare.

I think emergency rooms and urgent care should be able to turn people away. It pisses me off when my fiance takes our kids to urgent care at 8pm at night because the kid has diarrhea, and she doesn't want to take time off of work in the morning to take him to the clinic. What does urgent care do? tell her to give him pedialite (gatorade) and freezie pop popcicles to keep him hydrated. She and the kids are on MNcare so she doesn't pay a dime for an urgent care visit.

Improper use of healthcare facilities are what is keeping costs high. Now you're going to have similar minded people, prompted to get insurance coverage, the majority who go on the subsidized plans like MNCare. These people will think "I have health coverage now, I can go to urgent care for my runny nose!". Where if they have a regular plan through a normal provider (like BlueCross) they're more likely to get dinged for misuse of emergency services.

The problem isn't with uninsured, as most people who are not insured because they can't afford it, can apply for medicaid or other programs, and typically will get it within 60 days of their visit to the docor. It's the illegal aliens who are not qualified for ANYTHING who are the drain on the sytem.

I say when Juan comes in because he sliced his hand open on the lawnmower blade, they stitch him up, and ship him home (to his home country) with a bill.

 

Ive never been one to take Fox at face value (Bill O'Reilly?), but it makes sense because we have to find some amazing miracle of a way to recoup the costs of our spendy government.

 

^Um. You're missing about nine thousand other reasons that health insurance and health care are prohibitively expensive. Medical care is expensive because malpractice insurance is expensive because we put a high dollar value on our health, so we self perpetuate that cycle. And, drugs are expensive because of all the R&D that goes into them and xyz is expensive because QRST. Blah blah blah.

I don't like illegal immigration or socialized medicine either (this coming from someone with health insurance who pays $200 a month out of pocket for a pill that keeps her from vomiting blood with each meal) but, come on. If you're going to argue against something, make a little bit more sense.

 

Malpractice insurance/lawsuits are a tiny, tiny fraction of overall health costs. In the neighborhood of 1 percent or so.

There are some subspecialties in some states where malpractice premiums have gotten out of hand, but they are not a general cost driver on a national scale.

 

I think people should be outraged that the gov't may tax them if they don't have insurance. Our 'representatives' in washington don't realize the real values and needs of their constituencies. These politicians are nothing but demagogues, saying whatever they need to say to look good at a particular moment. They're PR robots and it makes me freaking sick. If they lived in the real world, they'd know that the people who don't have insurance are generally the people who CAN'T AFFORD IT. So what do you do to those people? Well, the gov't apparently thinks that penalizing them, taking MORE money out of their pocket, is the answer. I wonder if they ever considered whether HELPING those people, rather than taxing them would be a better idea. Stuff like this makes me want to move to Europe, lol.

As for healthcare though, I think that one of the most often overlooked reasons why health insurance is so expensive can be found in the educational costs associated with becoming a doctor, pharmicist, chemist, etc...

When it costs over 80-200k in student loans, you're talking about the need for massive salaries to sustain life and it's associated expenses. And when doctors or pharmicists get in the position to start working, they have high other costs...costs of an office or building, malpractice insurance, and marketing costs (especially if a pharm company).

And what pays for it all? What pays for the salaries of these medical workers? high drug prices, high procedure prices, high hospitalization prices, etc etc etc.

So to me, I tend to see the problem generating from a few main factors:
1. Citizen problem: Non-responsible, unhealthy americans/people with NO insurance drawing from the system

2. Generation of service provider problem: Costs associated with becoming a provider or the costs associated with developing, marketing, selling drugs/medicines/health services etc. Some say the pharm companies are greedy, but they have to charge what they do to cover their costs. Nothing is free.

 

I think people should be outraged that the gov't may tax them if they don't have insurance. Our 'representatives' in washington don't realize the real values and needs of their constituencies. These politicians are nothing but demagogues, saying whatever they need to say to look good at a particular moment. They're PR robots and it makes me freaking sick. If they lived in the real world, they'd know that the people who don't have insurance are generally the people who CAN'T AFFORD IT. So what do you do to those people? Well, the gov't apparently thinks that penalizing them, taking MORE money out of their pocket, is the answer. I wonder if they ever considered whether HELPING those people, rather than taxing them would be a better idea. Stuff like this makes me want to move to Europe, lol.

This fine will be for people with absolutely NO healthcare coverage at all. Translation = people too lazy to apply for medicare, medicaid or any number of other social healthcare programs available on both a federal and state level.

Yes, there may be an incredibly small number of people who don't qualify and somehow still have this fine applied(I'm not sure if this is possible, and I doubt anyone here or at Fox News is either) but there's always going to be at least one person who gets fucked over in practically anything in life.

 

I thought Faux News was legit?*

 

x2...Fox News is one of the least likely news organizations to actually provide factual information.

 

So why have someone else spin it for you?

 

Here's an idea (shoot me down if you don't think it'll work)

The government sets up its own health care, with public hospitals, etc. When you are still in school (around the year everyone turns 16) a doctors come and visit your school and explain how the health care works, even brings out forms so you can join up (during the same visit students can meet one on one to discuss 'personal' issues, and hand out free condoms). Since you've joined up you now get a health care card.

Feeling unwell, turn up at a medical centre and show them your card and you see a doctor for free. The doctor tells you to get some drugs, go down to the pharmacy and get some government subsidised drugs.

Need to go to hospital? Thankfully the government has them as well.

Also if it ends up that you are super sick and spend over $1,500 on drugs, specialist tests, specialist doctors, etc, then the government thinks you've paid enough and starts helping you out.

Of course the government thinks that if you are a high earner then you should chip in to help cover costs. So if you earn over $70,000 a year or more you pay 1% of what you earn to help the government cover health care costs.

Say you want special treatment. Get yourself private health insurance and the government pays you 30% of the cost, yeah say you pay $100 a month for health insurance the government will give you $30 a month. Also if you earn over $70,000 and you are paying the 1%, well you don't pay that anymore if you have private health. On top of private health benefits you are still able to use the government provided care as if you didn't have private health care.

 

Of course the government thinks that if you are a high earner then you should chip in to help cover costs. So if you earn over $70,000 a year or more you pay 1% of what you earn to help the government cover health care costs.

Sounds good overall, but I don't agree with the progressive tax on $70k+ income earners. Unless the average earner making over 70k is using a larger proportion of health care per year versus the average earner making below 70k, they should not pay a higher tax. I say, just because you make more money doesn't give the government the right to tax you a higher percentage of your earnings.

And, just as a side note, $70k a year is hardly a high earner. I think the middle class stretches up to about $200-250k.

They are no better than many other new agencies, but what is incorrect and twisted is when they insert their opinion

Have you ever watched Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews, Dan Rather, Katie Couric, Peter Jennings, etc? No, none of them have ever inserted their opinion into anything.*

Really, FOX is the only clear conservatively-biased news network on TV. The rest? Liberal. So it's really quite amusing when people slam FOX for its bias, especially since every other network could be accused of the same.

And since I'm already posting, may as well say something about illegal immigrants. Many in here believe that they are working jobs Americans don't wanna do. That's not it, not it at all. They are taking jobs at wages lower than what Americans are willing to work for. If you remove illegal immigrants, companies would have to pay higher wages for those shitty jobs (because of their obvious shitty-ness), and you would find many Americans that would be much more willing to perform them.

Although, I have read numerous case studies that show illegal immigrants actually bring a net gain to our economy. I am split on my beliefs on the subject. If they are good for the country as a whole, then why send them all home?

 

ah fox news...