Repeal of the Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. Obamacare)

gimmepie said:
It doesn't. The whole point of socialised healthcare is to provide decent healthcare to you regardless of your income.
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You made the claim that we have an obligation to help others, and this obligation justifies socialized healthcare. Support the claim.


gimmepie said:
Well you see, if you're in a system of socialised healthcare you wouldn't need to fork over any money directly in either situation since a minute fraction taken from your taxes (and everyone else's) would already have covered the cost leaving you free to do as you please with your spending money. I would recommend giving the man having a heart attack CPR though.
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We are talking about obligations. If you say I owe a minute amount, what is the correct percentage?

Okay, change heart attack to literally anything else. That part of the question isn't as important as the answer.
 
Not that I've been following the conversation super closely or that I even really understand economics and healthcare and whatnot, but idk, it sorta seems to me that you think that universal healthcare is "you must fork over money to pay for other people's healthcare", when like universal healthcare seems more to me like "everyone is chipping in so everyone can actually fucking pay their medical bills cuz that shit ain't cheap".

¯\_(ツ)_/¯
 
Nah said:
Not that I've been following the conversation super closely or that I even really understand economics and healthcare and whatnot, but idk, it sorta seems to me that you think that universal healthcare is "you must fork over money to pay for other people's healthcare", when like universal healthcare seems more to me like "everyone is chipping in so everyone can actually ****ing pay their medical bills cuz that **** ain't cheap".

¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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You can look at it both ways. I have a problem with that fact that you can't opt out of universal healthcare. If I dont want to receive the benefits and instead purchase private insurance, I have to pay for 2 healthcares, and the private insurance is 30x more expensive because its only rich people that would ever buy it. Meaning I couldn't afford it. So I have no choice. I believe that (to an extent) choice is freedom.
 
BadSheep said:
You can look at it both ways. I have a problem with that fact that you can't opt out of universal healthcare. If I dont want to receive the benefits and instead purchase private insurance, I have to pay for 2 healthcares, and the private insurance is 30x more expensive because its only rich people that would ever buy it. Meaning I couldn't afford it. So I have no choice. I believe that (to an extent) choice is freedom.
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I don't know. Here in Spain you can purchase private insurance in the market for a 35yo single man with no preexisting conditions for as little as 55€/month - about $88 if we run it through currency exchange and purchasing power parity rates. One of my friends (who isn't particularly rich) has private insurance. Turns out, when the competition costs effectively zero, private companies have a lot of incentives to keep their services as inexpensive as possible. And since sick people can be easily discriminated against by those same companies because they are already "enrolled" in an alternative plan that costs them zero out of pocket, those private companies can focus on on "normal Joes" and save a lot of expenses, driving those prices down as well.

And anyway, the whole reason behind having universal coverage and universal contributions (aka taxes) is mostly economic: the more people insured and paying, the lower the average cost per person. Yes, I'm sure that some rich, young and healthy people are paying more than they would if they could purchase private insurance, but the whole point of having a Government is to organise stuff that benefits all of society on average- even if some few individual people are personally worse off. There are many examples of this- like, I don't own a car, why should I pay taxes to mantain the roads in my city? But that's the cost of living in a society, and not in individual units of families at war with everyone else.
 
BadSheep said:
You can look at it both ways. I have a problem with that fact that you can't opt out of universal healthcare. If I dont want to receive the benefits and instead purchase private insurance, I have to pay for 2 healthcares, and the private insurance is 30x more expensive because its only rich people that would ever buy it. Meaning I couldn't afford it. So I have no choice. I believe that (to an extent) choice is freedom.
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But why would any private insurance company bother covering what the public system already covers? Isn't that obviously inefficient on the part of the insurance company?
 
Kanzler said:
But why would any private insurance company bother covering what the public system already covers? Isn't that obviously inefficient on the part of the insurance company?
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I was wrong, and Ivysaur correcting me: my original point was that private insurers would be incredibly expensive because they would only appeal to really rich people unsatisfied with the public healthcare. Ivysaur stated that in Spain private insurers still exist and have incentives to be more affordable. This means private insurers exist and there has to be at least some competition, meaning that the private insurers aren't that inefficient.

Let me revise my point to: there is less choice because its less likely for an individual to afford private insurance AND the taxes required for universal healthcare. And the less choice, the less freedom (to an extent).
 
BadSheep said:
I was wrong, and Ivysaur correcting me: my original point was that private insurers would be incredibly expensive because they would only appeal to really rich people unsatisfied with the public healthcare. Ivysaur stated that in Spain private insurers still exist and have incentives to be more affordable. This means private insurers exist and there has to be at least some competition, meaning that the private insurers aren't that inefficient.

Let me revise my point to: there is less choice because its less likely for an individual to afford private insurance AND the taxes required for universal healthcare. And the less choice, the less freedom (to an extent).
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What do you think it means to be competitive as a insurance company?
 
Kanzler said:
What do you think it means to be competitive as a insurance company?
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What Im saying is that they are most likely competitive. They may offer services outside the universal healthcare, but universal healthcare is pretty expansive. Im not sure what you're getting at.
 
BadSheep said:
You made the claim that we have an obligation to help others, and this obligation justifies socialized healthcare. Support the claim.
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I think we have an obligation to do what is best for our society otherwise society ceases to function, or at the very least isn't functioning as well as it could. What justifies socialised healthcare isn't the obligation, it's that it is a better system for society as a whole. It's not about a moral obligation it's about logic.




We are talking about obligations. If you say I owe a minute amount, what is the correct percentage?
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Like I have said several times now, a minute amount comparative to the amount you earn. You can't seriously expect me to be able to give you a concrete number without knowing how much you specifically earn and the cost of every utility and luxury that makes up the cumulative cost of your lifestyle.

Okay, change heart attack to literally anything else. That part of the question isn't as important as the answer.
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Everything else I said still stands either way.

BadSheep said:
Let me revise my point to: there is less choice because its less likely for an individual to afford private insurance AND the taxes required for universal healthcare. And the less choice, the less freedom (to an extent).
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Firstly, why would you even need an excessive amount of choice if a cheaper service was already providing everything you could possibly need.

Secondly, I don't think more choice equals more freedom when the price for giving those who can afford it that choice is to take away important access to healthcare from an even greater number of people.
 
BadSheep said:
What Im saying is that they are most likely competitive. They may offer services outside the universal healthcare, but universal healthcare is pretty expansive. Im not sure what you're getting at.
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If an insurance company wants to be profitable, then they should offer policies where they have a low risk of paying out. I don't think that's always good for the consumer.
 
BadSheep said:
What Im saying is that they are most likely competitive. They may offer services outside the universal healthcare, but universal healthcare is pretty expansive. Im not sure what you're getting at.
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I'll expand: in our country, private insurance companies offer:

a) Dentists, since they are (for some obscure reason) not covered by our national healthcare system.

b) Skip-the-queue services. As in, if you get sick, you get treated in one week instead of, say, 2 months.

In the end, a normal person can normally wait in a line for a couple months for most illnesses (after all, if you have a real urgency, you are treated immediately), and you can most likely afford paying a dentist out of pocket when you need it unless your mouth is a black hole. But if you want to avoid surprises and skip waiting times, you can always pay a "private premium" for it.
 
Esper said:
Any thoughts on the Republican replacement plan?

My general view is that's it's like 50% still Obamacare and 50% unaffordable to most people.
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I have to look into the bill myself before formulate an opinion on it, but from what I've gathered, everyone on the left AND the right hate it.
 
Paige said:
I think the republicans need a healthcare bill that benefits the middle and lower class citizens and leave the wealthy to fend for themselves since they have the money to get fancy doctors.
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Except if they did that they wouldn't be Republicans any longer. They'd be Democrats. Or Independents. But what you are describing is the exact opposite of what the Republican Party stands for.

You see, the Republican ideal is to cut as many taxes from the rich as possible while leaving the middle and lower class citizens to fend for themselves because "it's their fault" that they are poor so fuck them. This is what the AHCA is: a massive tax cut for millionaires at the expense of the poor. And just wait until you see Trump's budget or Ryan's tax reform proposal.

If you want a politician to care about the poor, you know, there are many options. Just don't expect to find them with a R next to their name.
 
The Congressional Budget Office (an independent body) estimates that the Republican plan would save hundreds of billions in the long run (which is, to be fair, a lot of money) but at the expense of 24 million people losing health insurance (14 million of them just by next year). And really, that's sort of to be expected. Stuff costs money. If you don't budget enough money for something, you can't provide as much of it.

Really, it's a terrible plan, but the craziest thing is there are some Republicans who think it's still too generous. Still, that means it'll be hard to get any plan that all Republicans can agree on. The more centrist ones (few though there are) don't want to see anything too harsh, and the crazy extremist end won't agree to anything that has any kind of government assistance (which is more or less necessary to ensure everyone can be covered - or in other words, they won't agree to a plan unless it involves leaving millions to fend for themselves).
 
Paige said:
Republicans are hell bent on cutting medicare/caid, and the house plan calls on nearly a trillion dollar cut to those programs. I'm disappointed with them for not wanting affordable healthcare.
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I imagine it doesn't come as a surprise though. I can't remember a time they were for good healthcare.
 
The vote for the new GOP HC bill has been delayed.

They're supposedly having trouble securing the votes of the Freedom Caucus - because to them, the new healthcare bill doesn't cut enough healthcare benefits, including the pre-existing conditions and 26 years of age clauses. In other words, the FC wants a bill that is all-or-nothing. Either everything about Obamacare gets cut in the new bill or they won't vote on it. If they do cut more however, then they risk losing the votes of the more moderate republicans. If the bill loses more than 22 republican votes, it dies on the floor. That puts a huge blow to Ryan and Trump's agendas (side-note, I don't consider that a bad thing.)
 
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