Dont Want Insurance, dont offer insurance? Get Fined!

[catnapper]

I personally feel this is a concept whose time has come! I cannot tell you the number of uninsured people in the ERs. Even if they have a cold, they go because nobody is refused care in an ER. Insured or not. So those of us with insurance sit for HOURS waiting with our problems because the ER is clogged with uninsired people with regular problems a regular doctor should see.... but they won't go to a regular doctor because they don't have the money to see a regular doctor. So they go for colds and basic stuff handled in your family doctor's office.

The problem isn't a "free will" issue when its not just you who's footing the bill for millions of unisnured people who flood the ER for non-essential things. Its only free will when you take care of the bill yourself for $50,000 for a one day stay in the hospital. At that point, the $500 monthly copays for insurance start looking mighty cheap. In the past few years, I've had several family members in the hospital for one thing or another. And the cheapest bill would have been $50,000 --- the most was over $500,000. It was all paid by insurance, minus a couple hundred dollar deductible. Of course, we worried about paying the deductible, but its nothing compared to the real bill.

[RICHARD]

Everyone wants the regime to stay out of their business, but they want to be dictated to when it comes top their health.


Does that include mental health benefits?

[Twisterdog]

The problem with folks who don't have insurance ... and I was one of them for ten years, not by choice ... is that they do not actually take the risk of that decision on themselves.

If it were the case that someone who elects to deny insurance coverage, like Blue, could be denied treatment they could not afford, then it would be simple. Choose not to take the coverage, the face the consequences if you become ill or injured. That's fair. That's the ulitmate "government out of my business" theory.

However, it is not the case. Uninsured people cannot be denied emergency room treatment. This is why our emergency rooms are clogged with people who have a cold, a rash, a sore throat, a toothache. This is why an apirin costs $45 and a bandaid costs $69 at the hospital ... the people who can afford to pay, usually via their insurance, are paying for the hundred people that day who couldn't pay for their treatment.

It has to be all or nothing ... no insurance, no treatment. Or ... require people to carry insurance if you are going to require hospitals to treat them.

[RICHARD]

This is why our emergency rooms are clogged with people who have a cold, a rash, a sore throat, a toothache. This is why an apirin costs $45 and a bandaid costs $69 at the hospital ... the people who can afford to pay, usually via their insurance, are paying for the hundred people that day who couldn't pay for their treatment.

That is the problem- the 69 dollar bandaid. BEFORE THEY begin to mandate any HC for the masses the government/BO has to take care of the costs.

This is the effing stupidity that all evil empires put into place, for the good of the people, that kill the people-

It's the old 'carrot on a stick' ploy for us drones. If we don't take the carrot, they will beat the crap out of us with the stick.


How much will implementing all the regs cost us, what happens when you get caught without insurance? Will they get the IRS to dock your pay?

Put you in jail?

Take away your home?

"Oh, NO! they'll send you a bill!"

Find out who the lobbyists are who are paying these morons to pass that bill.

We'll end up paying more for the people who refuse to get insured becausee they will delay going to see a physician and be in worse shape when they do.

The current regime is hell bent on passing so many laws/bills they do not realize the real woirk that needs to be done to put a 'national HC system' into place.

The person who cannot afford HCI will be fined, putting them farther behind the curve when it comes to their finances, then we can spend more money employing thugs to track them down and get the money.

[blue]

blue, how will you manage if you get hurt in an accident or have an illness? i am curious. thank you joyce

So it shouldnt be my choice not to have health insurance? I am curious, why it shouldnt be my choice and my problem?

I could have lost my leg last year and I am still paying off that debt, my job at the time didnt offer insurance. Jim, my boss at the time, would have fired most of his employees if he was forced by the feds to cover us.

Our government was supposed to work from the bottom up, not from the top down.

[katladyd]

I had a job that offered health insurance, once. I could in no way afford it. It would have taken almost one-half of my paycheck! I still can't afford health insurance and I work three jobs! If they want to fine me, let them fine me. I won't be able to pay that, either. Sorry for all of you who can afford insurance who are inconvenienced by those of us who can't. I have to decide between health insurance and eating. I take eating. It would cost me over $600 per month, and that's without dental or vision insurance. I can't afford that!

[pomtzu]

Sorry for all of you who can afford insurance who are inconvenienced by those of us who can't.

It could come down to a whole lot more than just an inconvenience if there is no triage team to sort out the sniffles or diaper rash or headache of the uninsured, from more serious issues of the insured. I would hope that all ER's have one, but I would suspect they don't. I would have been one p.o.'ed puppy if I had been treated on a first come/first served basis when I fractured my wrist. As it was, my surgeon told me that several people ahead of me that had been waiting several hours, complained when I was taken back after only about a 15 minute wait. So sorry that the woman with a headache, and the one whose baby had diaper rash and with no insurance, was inconvenienced by me. And by the way - I'm paying their bill too!

And to all of you that say you can't afford it - what about state aid - Medicaid? If your income is at a level that you can't afford a pricey commercial policy, have you checked out other options? There's a lot out there that doesn't cost an arm and a leg. You just have to look for it, because it's not going to come to you. Even minimal coverage, is better than none at all.

[joycenalex]

no blue that is NOT what i asked.....you know that emergency/ critical/chronic health care is expensive, and my question IS just that....how do you plan to pay for that? When you use health care from the 21st century medical services, "someone" has already paid for the equipment that takes the xray, the medical physicist that makes sure the machine is running safely, the information systems gal that makes sure the images gets to the radiologist who reads the film, the technologist who takes the images, the maintenance contract on the digital image plate that holds the images that the radiologist needs to see if that bone is broken or there is an infection in the bone. "someone" packs and sterilizes the tray that cleans the wound to make sure that the patient isn't allergic to and sutures the wound, "someone" in pharmacy drew up the syringe that has the right antibiotic to 1-treat the infection and 2- would not cause an anaphylactic reaction (which means medical records pulled the any chart for the ER doc to check before meds are ordered and used and the pharmacist checked the electronic medical records lists of(possibly allergic drugs too,) so the safety double check happens ) . then to the saints in the ER...the admission clerk who gets as much info to start the process....john doe #1 if non responding, john doe #15 on a bad night..., the the nurse who pulls a sterile intubation tube to open an airway so john doe #8 keeps breathing while an or tech shoves packing into the wound so the blood stays in the person instead of making the floor slippery while the ER doc keeps the whole circus going, and the person from housekeeping(who gets no respect and minimal thanks) who mops then sterilizes the floor, so the next patient getsa a clean bay too and the supply clerk who whisks in to restock the trauma cart, ....and remember blue, this all happens da** fast, cause no one wants to wait, EVER in an ER...and when it's your kid or your elderly mom, it's a hundred times worse. we want 21st century almost instant medicine, yet having 19th century notions of (re)payment isn't gonna work. the days of a small town doctor, making due, with out xray or lab like the movies show is gone. and it's more then just your one person problem, it's become a problem for the whole of society.
blue, i'm not attacking or criticizing you, i'm seriously asking how do you pay for 21st century health with 19th ideas?

So it shouldnt be my choice not to have health insurance? I am curious, why it shouldnt be my choice and my problem?

I could have lost my leg last year and I am still paying off that debt, my job at the time didnt offer insurance. Jim, my boss at the time, would have fired most of his employees if he was forced by the feds to cover us.

Our government was supposed to work from the bottom up, not from the top down.

[joycenalex]

and i see insurance as this....i'm betting that i will need that service (auto/home owners/health/disability income) and my monies go to pay for it, in a group with a whole bunch of other people, and the insurance company is betting i won't need it.
i have gone years, when i was in my 20's without regular health care, but as i aged, things changed, and i need more health care, now in my 50's, i'm a pretty savvy consumer, having some choice in my care, so my bet with my (crappy employer provided health care) is different.
and insurance companies making billions of profit is immoral. making profit is not, no one works for free, but making so much money is gouging people. ....this is the company that is my employers choice for our health insurance provider(from the NYT article of 7/31/2007................."Humana, based in Louisville, posted net income of $216.8 million.....Revenue rose 19 percent, to $6.43 billion, compared with $5.41 billion a year ago, ....Michael B. McCallister, Humana’s president and chief executive, called it “probably the best quarter we’ve had” since he became the company’s chief executive in 2000. He said it was a result of “virtually every line of business doing better,” noting improvements in the commercial segment and expansion of the company’s Medicare business. "

[blue]

no blue that is NOT what i asked.....

Ive managed this long so far, Ill manage in the future. I allmost lost my leg last year and Im still paying for that infection. Its my choice and Im paying for it. I shouldnt be fined for that choice in this Country.