Quote:
Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward
One other thing about Nate's choice. He may not be able to get an individual policy at all later. Private insurtance is not required to accept everybody. So they may evaluate Nate and decide not to insure him at all when he decides to get insurance. This is the gaping hole in US health care. Should statisically sicker peple pay more? Yes. But if no insurer will maintain a high-priced high risk pool, access becomes meaningless...
This bites particular hard on older people who have been laid off and have exhausted their COBRA benefits. They may have paid in for 20 or 30 years to a group policy tied to a job, but having lost the job, find themselves antiselected out of any health care policies at all...
|
Well, that's Nate's choice. I expect he's willing to live with it. I'm familiar with that mindset because I have a son who shares it.
You are right about the COBRA thing. But it seems to me that particular problem is something different. Nate's on the outside because he's willing to take the risk. The laid off guy is on the outside despite being willing to have insurance. I have a brother in that situation.
I have a theory that the people who want a government based health system are really people who trust top down systems over bottom up ones. They believe that they can impose order on the messiness of life, and think that government is the tool that will provide that order.
But my experience tells me that it is always better to have more than one place you can go to get things done. So I'm not all that certain that the US health "system" is necessarily all that bad.
Sure, Nate might fall through a crack some day. It's called "liberty." And we will take care of my brother, one way or another. It's called "family." And I, personally, value both of those things more than I value what government offers, which is the enemy of liberty and family, and is called "security," but inevitably turns into "tyranny."