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Politics : A US National Health Care System? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RetiredNow who wrote (14373)	3/11/2010 11:06:09 AM
From: Road Walker	Respond to of 42652

That's not a good thing and it means that my family, which is active and healthy and slim, will be paying for all the fat, unhealthy Americans out there who don't take care of themselves. I don't like that one bit. You are doing that now... though you pay less when your insurance company cancels someone that gets sick I suppose. Same thing with auto insurance... if you are a safe driver and even if you get a "safe driver discount" you are paying much more for all the reckless drivers. I've never made an auto insurance or home insurance claim. I wouldn't know where to start.

To: RetiredNow who wrote (14373)	3/12/2010 9:55:55 AM
From: Lane3	Respond to of 42652

to a paradigm that looks more like government controls on utilities that sell electricity today. It's hard to tell just what the pending legislation will produce. We have some clues but not the details. I've seen people suggest is that what we'll end up will be for the most part the utility paradigm and that's a possibility. I'm thinking, and I've argued elsewhere, that what we will end up with is mostly like the government contracting out paradigm. If there's a set package of benefits and if there's community rating and guaranteed listing, all of which the legislation specifies, and if there some kind of rejiggering or risk among the insurance companies over time, which was at least discussed and may be in the legislation, then we are pretty much guaranteed set pricing. There just isn't much room to compete on price. So effectively, the feds make all the policy and the companies what process it will just be doing the registration and claims. They may or may not use the contract as the vehicle but that's effectively the contracting out paradigm. Contracting out is closer to socialism than is the utility model. Regardless, though, of whether the paradigm ends up closer to contracting out or utility, it sure ain't the insurance industry.