Althouse: At the Sunrise Café...

January 13, 2020

At the Sunrise Café...

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... you can talk about whatever you like.

215 comments:

«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 215 of 215

Achilles said...: Iran is about to get some new leadership.

The reporters in the Iranian media are resigning and famous people are attacking the regime in ways that make it clear they don’t think the regime will be around long.

Nancy Pelosi hardest hit.; 1/14/20, 2:42 AM
Owen said...: Inga: sorry for your loss. Prayers up.; 1/14/20, 3:41 AM
Chris N said...: Sorry for your loss, Inga. I’m glad you’ve at least been able to get some closure.

Regards.; 1/14/20, 4:07 AM
gadfly said...: Trump said: "I will always protect your Pre-Existing Conditions, the Dems will not!"

It is my understanding that the GOP has been trying for years to dump the not-affordable preexisting conditions wrapped up in Obama's Health Care Plan - but all that has disappeared so far was the mandatory tax for not electing to pay huge premiums required of some people but not others . And there ain't no actions before congress to change anything else.

So how is it that Trump somehow told the truth?; 1/14/20, 4:09 AM
Unknown said...: Nice information,for more knowledgeknow more; 1/14/20, 4:19 AM
Bruce Hayden said...: “It is my understanding that the GOP has been trying for years to dump the not-affordable preexisting conditions wrapped up in Obama's Health Care Plan - but all that has disappeared so far was the mandatory tax for not electing to pay huge premiums required of some people but not others . And there ain't no actions before congress to change anything else.”

You can’t get rid of insuring preexiting conditions, because then it wouldn’t be insurance. Why carry insurance if you are going to lose coverage, or have greatly increased premiums, if and when you develop some malady that costs the insurance company too much? The big reason to carry health insurance to to protect against just that - developing a malady that is going to cost more than you can afford. The traditional solution to this was to lock in your insurability for as long as you maintain your policy. Lose it, and you are essentially SOL. which was fine, except that insurance companies would terminate customers for any legitimate reason, such as being late on playnents, even if they would waive those sorts of terminations if the policyholders were still healthy. And if that didn’t work, insurance companies would migrate healthy customers to newer, less expensive, customers, but not make that option available to less healthy customers. The result is that older policies would fill up with unhealthy policyholders, and their premiums would skyrocket as a result, ultimately forcing the healthy to switch to newer policies, and the less healthy to drop coverage. And, now, they were typically uninsurable due to their (now) preexisiting conditions.

So, Obamacare went the opposite direction. You could get insurance despite having a preexisiting condition, that earlier would have made you uninsurable. But you cold also go naked, and not carry health insurance at all, as long as you pay the specified penalty (now zero). You do this year by year, which means that you could could go naked until and unless you developed an expensive malady, at which time, you could then sign up for insurance during the next open enrollment period. This is called “adverse selection” in the insurance industry.

You might think then that the answer would be to just require health insurance, but then that requires a definition of acceptable health insurance. And bureaucrats being bureaucrats, and Democrats being Democrats, they couldn’t resist forcing numerous mandates onto the the public by specifying the mandates as required coverage. Many of these mandates were of interest to only very small, but very vocal, constituencies. Larding on one might not have been that bad. But larding on a bunch of them was expensive, to little benefit to most policyholders. So, premiums skyrocketed. Duh. The other thing was that the federal government did not actually have the power and Constitutional authority to mandate impose mandatory health insurance. The Commerce Clause cannot force you to participate in commerce, but rather can only penalize you instead if you don’t, under Congress’ taxation power.; 1/14/20, 5:41 AM
Rusty said...: Ah. The dead child card has been played. Absolute moral fucking authority! I'm trying to decide if this is better or worse than Chucks trying to constantly engage our hostess.
Hmmm.
Cynical? You bet. Losing the argument? Roll out the dead relatives.; 1/14/20, 5:48 AM
Hagar said...: Why carry insurance if you are going to lose coverage, or have greatly increased premiums, if and when you develop some malady that costs the insurance company too much?

Disappointing reasoning. If you develop some malady later, it isn't pre-existing, is it?
In fact, this is just what real insurance would be about and I am so old I can remember that is exactly what I bought insurance for.; 1/14/20, 6:13 AM
Hagar said...: Pre-paid medical care for all and any ailment whatever is not "insurance," but a social scheme. Running it through the insurance industry cartels and pretending it is private business at work is fascism.; 1/14/20, 6:48 AM
Michael K said...: You can’t get rid of insuring preexiting conditions, because then it wouldn’t be insurance. Why carry insurance if you are going to lose coverage, or have greatly increased premiums, if and when you develop some malady that costs the insurance company too much?

I assume that was "preexisting". "Pre-existing conditions" are not insurable if you are talking about real insurance. Those conditions were handled by risk pools and that is how they should be handled. Cancelling policy holders who develop diseases, usually cancer, is a feature of annual renewals. The way to deal with that is long term policies or guaranteed renewal like life insurance.

I have long advocated something like the French system, which includes a market mechanism to control costs. Markets are anathema to Democrats but Republicans could use a system like this to reform health insurance.

Hillarycare failed because it excluded insurance companies. They opposed it with a successful ad campaign. The Obama/Pelosi people learned from that but went the reverse and let them write the bill.

Insurance companies hate health insurance. They are fine acting as Administrative Service Organizarions, which is what they do in employer plans. They process the claims and the employer pays the claims. This is how Obamacare was supposed to work. The insurance companies would process the claims, which is how they make their money, and the feds would pay the claims. That is why the cheap policies that healthy young people bought had to be removed. No profits for the insurance companies.

The French system is funded by payroll deductions but unemployment is so high in France that too much relies on taxes. The concept is simple. Doctors can charge what they market will pay but the health plan pays a flat rate per service. Medicare does the opposite. All doctors are limited to what Medicare pays.; 1/14/20, 7:45 AM
Inga said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 1/14/20, 8:15 AM
Inga said...: To all the commenters who expressed condolences thank you from my heart. It’s life affirming to know that world views and political differences can be set aside by most people when it comes to life and death.; 1/14/20, 8:45 AM
wildswan said...: " Inga said...
———————-
My son, aged 35 while in Maine, April 18, 2019, working as a contractor fell off a floating pier into a 41 degree river with flooding and a fast current."

I am indeed sorry for your loss, Inga.; 1/14/20, 10:53 AM
Clyde said...: Inga, I just read your story. I'm sorry for your losses. This just reinforces why we should all try to be kind to each other, even if we disagree on important matters: You never know what struggles other people are going through in their lives. Be kind to them.; 1/14/20, 11:02 AM
Ray - SoCal said...: Inga,

Best wishes for your continued dealing with the unexpected death of your son. Unexpected deaths are among the most stressful, and it will take time to work through. Time as in years. A support group, in person, can help a lot. As well as doing other activities to help your mental state.

Ray; 1/14/20, 11:05 AM