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View Poll Results: Should America adopt a free for all health plan funded by taxes?
Yes.
40 60.61%
No.
21 31.82%
I don't care.
4 6.06%
I haven't thought about it.
1 1.52%
Voters: 66. You may not vote on this poll

Scholar
#376 Old 2nd Oct 2009 at 12:06 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Doc Doofus
The reason that you can't just change insurance companies if you are "unsatisfied" with their performance is that they already have your money. In effect, it's as if you have been paying in advance for a product (in this case, health care). If they refuse to pay up for that health care when the time comes that you need it, what are you going to do? Walk away?

Imagine the same situation with car insurance, just to make things simpler. You pay faithfully every month for your car insurance. Then you have an accident and total your car. You ask the insurance company to pay for the repairs or to cash out your wreck. They say no, we'll only pay for the front bumper. "Well, that's unsatisfactory!" you say. "I'll take my business elsewhere!" They will laugh at you. Of course you are free to take your business elsewhere. They already have your money. Now that your car is totaled, from their perspective, you can go f*** yourself. Your dissatisfaction is pretty much irrelevant at that point.

There are plenty of other reasons that you can't just change insurers when you are "unsatisfied." The biggest one is that most people never get to choose who their insurer is. They have no choice in it at all; it's chosen by their employer. If your boss puts your company in Pacificare's hands, and if you don't like Pacificare, well, you better find a new job. For most people, that's not feasible. You can complain to your boss about it. People do that all the time. But your boss has his own problems.

Another reason you can't just change insurers when you're unsatisfied is that by the time you want to change, you have acquired a "preexisting condition." For instance, if your wife is in the middle of a troubled pregnancy, you can't just change insurers because the new insurer will say that that's a preexisting condition. So you're stuck.

It's even worse if you develop cancer and your insurer decides to screw around with you in terms of treatments they will allow and specialists you can see. They would LOVE for you, the cancer patient, to say, "I'm unsatisfied and I will take my business elsewhere!" You can't take it away fast enough, as far as they are concerned. However, you can't really take it anywhere at all, because no insurer is going to cover a new patient with cancer. You're stuck and you're going to spend your last days with the insurance you have.

About your only recourse in such a situation is to sue the insurance company for failing to live up to its contract. However, some states are actually trying to make it HARDER for sick people to sue insurance companies that cheat them.

Great post. Lots of examples of this.


"When the moon is in the seventh house
And Jupiter aligns with Mars
Then peace will guide the planets
And love will steer the stars"
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Scholar
#378 Old 9th Oct 2009 at 9:45 AM
Dutch healthcare helps ALL people, including people who are poor and have no jobs. People in holland ALWAYS get help, we have great public healtcare. There isn't a much more helpfull and sacrificing healthcare than in Holland and the west european ones. Our healthcare already helps everyone, its not like the USA. People like John Q always get help, even if they are too poor, because our healthcare helps everyone.
You mention a sacrificing system, loving everyone etc. Hollands healthcare helps everyone, unlike the USA. Here everyone gets help, no matter how poor they are. Isn't that what you would wish for the USA?

3And if I (I)give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I (J)surrender my body [a]to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.

I agree with you that Americans need good healthcare, I agree a lot with you here. I am FOR public healthcare. Thats why every elections I vote FOR public healthcare for everyone and not agaisnt.

What kind of healthcare a country gets is decided by the people who VOTE. If more than half of the people in the USA would vote FOR healthcare you would have it. The best way to get healthcare is to vote for it and ask your friends to vote for it. Do you vote?


"When the moon is in the seventh house
And Jupiter aligns with Mars
Then peace will guide the planets
And love will steer the stars"
Field Researcher
#380 Old 9th Oct 2009 at 5:46 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Vanito
What kind of healthcare a country gets is decided by the people who VOTE. If more than half of the people in the USA would vote FOR healthcare you would have it. The best way to get healthcare is to vote for it and ask your friends to vote for it. Do you vote?


This is wrong. Universal/nonuniversal healthcare isn't going to be on a voting ballot. The Congressmen/Congresswomen elected by the people are the ones that will decide what kind of healthcare we have. We can write letters to them and ask them to vote a certain way, but in the end, it's those in Congress who decide.

Cait

"If a kid asks where rain comes from, I think a cute thing to tell him is ‘God is crying’. And if he asks why God is crying, another cute thing to tell him is ‘Probably because of something you did’."
- Jack Handey, Deep Thoughts
 
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