[Mongoose]

Taxes = Socialism = Communism = the Devil Incarnate.

Or at least that's my take on the US mentality.
God knows what they're thinking.

Methinks you'd do better to defer to someone from the society in question.

There is an ingrained anti-tax sentiment among Americans in general, one which I generally ascribe to at least to some degree myself, and it's something that can definitely be traced right back to the birth of the country.  The Founding Fathers had a fundamental mistrust of a powerful central government, probably based on their interactions with Great Britain, and this was reflected in early US history.  Our initial government setup, under the Articles of Confederation, didn't give Congress any real powers of enforcement over collecting taxes from the individual states...this worked out about as well as one might expect, and was one of the main factors that led to the creation of the US Constitution.  Even after that, taxation wasn't exactly looked on in a favorable light; the US first implemented a federal income tax well after its founding; the modern income tax system as we know it didn't come into play until 1913.  Looking beyond that particular aspect, there's been a long-running sentiment in American culture against a large federal government with broad powers; one of many reasons for this is the widely-held viewpoint that government by its nature will be markedly inefficient in many fields when compared to private enterprise.  The sentiment following from that is that one does better by holding on to one's own money and choosing how to spend it oneself than having it taken by the government and wasted to some degree.  I'm not commenting on the validity of sentiments like that, but they definitely exist in significant numbers.

I think the widespread opposition to the healthcare plan as it stands, opposition that does cross party lines to some degree, is from a combination of factors.  You have the fiscal conservatives that don't want to see our already-record deficit balloon even more, the traditional small-government proponents who don't want to see the Fed sticking its fingers into even more pies, the anti-tax groups who'd rather keep as much of their money as possible in their own pockets and choose where and when to spend it, and those who are satisfied with the healthcare they currently have and worry that it might be taken away from them.  As much as I agree that having over forty million uninsured Americans (counting out those who choose to be uninsured) is disgraceful, I see at least some merit in each of those counter-arguments, and I want those up top to be damn sure that whatever solution they do attempt to get passed is the best it can be given the resources on the table.

[iamzack]

It's not just the uninsured that are at risk. Millions of people with insurance get denied coverage or dropped as soon as they actually need it. And then there's things like lifetime or yearly caps, where if you require too much money, the insurance company pays to a point and then says "**** you."

[Mongoose]

That's a very good point.  I don't know if anyone in here follows the blog Marissa's Bunny, but some of the run-ins its author has had with his insurance company over his daughter's care bring those issues to light all too well.

[SpardaSon21]

Those caps are part of a contract you willfully enter into with the insurance company.

[General Battuta]

Those caps are part of a contract you willfully enter into with the insurance company.

That doesn't justify them at all.

[Flipside]

In fact, it's somewhat sad that an insurance company can be so brazen as to include those in the first place, people will argue 'but it's a business, it has to make profit', to which my reply is 'and that is the entire problem'.

[Flaser]

Those caps are part of a contract you willfully enter into with the insurance company.

...so if I don't like those parts of the contract then I can...
...not sign them and in the event of medical need be unable to pay.
...look for another insurance company with better terms...
...and not find one, so I need to sign it as is...
...and still die if I go "over budget".

...and God help you if you actually have a condition and are not one of the filthy rich.

[Scotty]

Those caps are part of a contract you willfully enter into with the insurance company.

It is legal for you to modify a contract, provided that the insurance company agrees to any modifications.  If they agree to your taking out that part, they are still legally bound by that contract, and cannot terminate treatment due to a cap.  However, the key issue would be getting them to agree.

[High Max]

 

[iamzack]

And why would they? They don't really need the very, very, very few people who would have the knowhow to change the contract, but nearly everybody needs them.

[Akalabeth Angel]

Those caps are part of a contract you willfully enter into with the insurance company.

A contract whose terms are dictated by the insurance company. So, is your signature a choice? I can choose to get insurance or I can choose not to, and be not covered.

I think I'll sign my name to not die.

[Kosh]

Guys check out, an interview with former Vice President of Corporate Communications for the CIGNA corporation about the shady BS insurance companies have been up to. Why people keep fighting for these guys is a mystery to me.......

[Nuke]

insurance is the biggest legal scam out there. they say if you have our policy youre protected, then they stab you in the back with the fine print legaleese that nobody but a lawyer can understand. then you wind up with 2 big ass bills to pay.

[karajorma]

Yep. Remember that insurance companies are the only ones still claiming that Shergar is still alive.

[NGTM-1R]

@Nightmare:

I'm going to try not to derail to the thread, despite the fact you're...well you're trying to dodge Fury's lock and doing so duplicitiously. (For the record, I PM'd a global mod and they didn't take action before now.) You say this, but it's unproveable, therefore irrevelant, but probably false anyways since you didn't try to improve your arguments against the supposedly predictable attack. Backwards does not work that way. Your definition of maturity is invalid in this context, and also demonstrably wrong.

You present publically available information as though it is some great secret (for the record, it's nearly all out of date. Yes, even the name. I don't answer to it these days.) and are pitiably self-congradulatory about it. You think I didn't know anyone who wanted could get at that stuff? You think being able to click a couple hyperlinks makes you smart?

I've seen multiple people try to play at being the same person, it doesn't work. You're too consistant. And Judge Floro is a known version of the Disassociated Press program.

[Kosh]

Those caps are part of a contract you willfully enter into with the insurance company.

It's a Death Panel.

[Sushi]

I'm still wondering:

1. Why can't people buy insurance across state boundaries? Who is enforcing that? It sure doesn't help the problem: competition is greatly reduced, driving prices up and quality down.
2. What's wrong with letting the states do this themselves? I still haven't heard a convincing reason for doing this at the federal level instead of the state level.
3. How can we reduce the overall price of health care? IMHO this is the real problem.
4. Can we please keep personal flaming and bickering out of this?

[Kosh]

2. What's wrong with letting the states do this themselves? I still haven't heard a convincing reason for doing this at the federal level instead of the state level.

Because if there are cost overruns the states can't run deficits. Look at the crappy job they've done with education, this will just add another thing to the chopping block whenever someone *****es and moans about taxes.

1. Why can't people buy insurance across state boundaries? Who is enforcing that? It sure doesn't help the problem: competition is greatly reduced, driving prices up and quality down.

Good question

3. How can we reduce the overall price of health care? IMHO this is the real problem.

That would require government interference and price caps in "the market", which IIRC under the medicare prescription drug act the government isn't allowed to do. With all the lobbying money sloshing around Washington, I don't believe they will do anything about it.

[Turambar]

3. How can we reduce the overall price of health care? IMHO this is the real problem.

Because that would be regulating the market and that's socialism.

[McCall]

As for anecdotes<stats... you can sit at the other side of the pond looking at numbers all you like; some of us have that little thing called experience. Beats the crap out of book-learning any day. Ask any honest statistician (that has left college).

Hmm. So, my Grandmother, who has lived through some serious **** in her time and survived it with not so much as a scratch, and thus has some experience living, is a better source of medical advice (or advice on anything, really) just because of her experience?

Sorry, but facts (cold and hard ones, backed by statistics and studies and book learning and all that) beat personal experience any time.

She'd be a good source of info on stuff she'd experienced. If she happens to be a doc, yep, I'd go with her medical advice over a bunch of video gamers quoting what they got off the internet. If she'd been in and out of hospital a lot as a patient, I'd surely want to talk to her about the experience - if I was looking to find out how good the service was.

Look at it this way: I commute each and every day, squeezed in a cattle truck of a train. It's crap, overcrowded, and damned unreliable. ****, I'm glad I got far enough up the chain to set my own working hours, because having to hit a definite start time was a *****. Wanna prebook a long-distance journey? Make sure you leave a train or two spare 'cos you cannot depend on them. But it doesn't matter, because every month they print a shiny new set of stats and figures telling me just how good the service is, and how the reliability is better than ever. Meanwhile, I sit back and think horse****.

I even have to produce KPIs. Trying to defend yourself with 99% uptime when things went to **** during peak time does not buy you many friends. So I don't rely on the figures. They're a nice-to-have for the senior management.

You won't sell me on stats over experience. I'm gonna marry a professional statistician. She knows more about how they get screwed around with than any of us put together.
 
As for book-learning, I could hire book-learned folks all day, but they wouldn't do me any good. That's why we stick them in the kiddie pool on dog**** wages to learn. Hell, I was book-learned once and thought I knew everything; then real life smacked me in the face. It happens to us all eventually... except maybe academics.