Qutzupalotl Donating Member (1000+ posts) Journal Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list Donate to DU! Sat Aug-22-09 01:22 AM
Original message
Why does it have to be mandatory?
Serious question. I really don't understand why everyone will be required to buy insurance. Why not let people who don't want insurance opt out entirely?
This is coming up in my debates with right wingers, and I don't have an answer. They see this as an affront to their freedom. Any help you can offer would be appreciated. Thanks!
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6367114You have an answer its just not the one you want.
The bill in its present form will mandate that we either buy insurance or pay $2,500 to uncle sam every year.
Abq_Sarah (746 posts) Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list Sat Aug-22-09 01:24 AM
Response to Original message
1. If you let healthy people opt out
It's more expensive for the sick. Any plan with mandatory coverage really depends on healthy people and people who rarely use their coverage to subsidize those who are in ill health. It helps to lower the cost.
I would wager it wont lower the cost it will increase the cost. More people insured more people going to the doctor because they are forced to pay for it they may as well get something out of it.
Qutzupalotl Donating Member (1000+ posts) Journal Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list Donate to DU! Sat Aug-22-09 01:29 AM
Response to Reply #1
5. Thanks. One more question:
Would it make sense to let the plan be more expensive and let the people opt out who want to? Some of them are never going to budge on this.
If only we could expand Medicare. They'd still be paying for it, but it wouldn't seem like an imposition.
Hmm kind of sounds like how the insurance companies do it now. It's more pricey because only those who want coverage pay into it. And if they have coverage they will use it at some point.
Davis_X_Machina Donating Member (1000+ posts) Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list Sat Aug-22-09 01:31 AM
Response to Reply #5
7. Then a.) they'd either turn up in the ER and get treated on our nickel...
Edited on Sat Aug-22-09 01:33 AM by Davis_X_Machina
...after their savings ran out, or b.) we'd let them die in the streets after their savings ran out
Oh, wait a second, we're Democrats. Scratch b.)
We already do option a.
Selatius (1000+ posts) Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list Sat Aug-22-09 01:50 AM
Response to Reply #16
18. Personally, I'd rather copy France's system and expand gov't health insurance to all people.
There should be no profit-taking at all in the realm of health insurance.
The most one could do now with Congress is write clauses into federal bills allowing state legislatures to pass single-payer systems. Hopefully, states less influenced by corporate powers would be able to set up an example that people here in the US could study. California came closest if it weren't for the fact that Arnold, the idiot, vetoed the legislation. Since then, the bill has been pigeonholed indefinitely or at least until Arnold is gone out of office.
So doctors, hospitals etc should run out of the goodness of their hearts.
voc (72 posts) Journal Click to send private message to this author Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list Sat Aug-22-09 01:30 AM
Response to Reply #2
6. Think Car Insurance...
At least in my state it is illegal to drive without car insurance. Health insurance is more important,obviously.
Try that as an argument/analogy.
Yes but, auto insurance can be opted out of. You can choose not to own a car and not to drive.
Davis_X_Machina Donating Member (1000+ posts) Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list Sat Aug-22-09 01:39 AM
Response to Reply #9
14. Subject to civil fines and penalties, yes...
...with garnishing of income, IRS style, for non-compliance.
If it's not mandatory, it's not universal, and it's not mandatory without some coercion.
Single payer and UK-style NHS-model plans are equally coercive, but the money is rolled up in your general tax obligation, so the tie to health provision is arms-length, and not obvious. And we know what happens when you don't pay your taxes.
(This is actually an argument in favor of either single-payer or NHS-style provisions, by the way.)
I can imagine the gnashing of teeth and wailing at the DUmp when they get their wages garnished for medical treatment.
yodoobo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list Donate to DU! Sat Aug-22-09 02:10 AM
Response to Original message
26. Because health care is a civil right and a responsibility
If an individual drops out, they are reducing the size of the pool. Both the risk pool and money pool to pay claims of fellow citizens.
When you opt out, you are essentially denying every else their civil rights in a small but real way.
When enough people drop out, the pool collapses and then everyone is denied that right.
True dummy mentality here, if you go to work and earn money you owe it to others to help pay their bills too.
ixion Donating Member (1000+ posts) Journal Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list Sat Aug-22-09 07:17 AM
Response to Original message
47. mandatory insurance is a handout to Big Insurance
nothing more.
Hmm this DUmmy may be getting it.
ixion Donating Member (1000+ posts) Journal Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list Sat Aug-22-09 12:42 PM
Response to Reply #63
68. Medical Care is one thing, insurance is another
if I pay into a fund that guarantees that I get medical care whenever I need it w/o getting a huge bill, that's one thing. But mandating that I buy into one insurance scam or another, that's something altogether different.
Obama is hoping to make us buy into the largest insurance scam in history and it will be run by the federal govt.
Generic Brad Donating Member (1000+ posts) Journal Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list Sat Aug-22-09 10:11 PM
Response to Original message
106. What if someone cannot afford it anyway?
Would the government impose an unfunded mandate on people? Forgive me if that sounds like a stupid question, but I know a lot of people who cannot afford health insurance now. What good is a mandate if people still cannot afford even government provided health insurance?
Good question. Will the so called public option be affordable?
Libertas1776 (592 posts) Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list Sun Aug-23-09 01:39 PM
Response to Original message
117. Forcing
people to purchase private health insurance is wrong. If they mandated that everybody had to at least join a public tax payer funded plan, that would be different. But punishing somebody for not buying insurance from a private company to serve their profit margins is not only wrong, it is un-democratic, if not dictatorial. Single payer, public option, or nothing at all.
Yet you are supporting just that and calling those of us who don't nazis.
Looks like some people are starting to see that what the dems are pushing isn't so wonderful but, they will blindly support it anyway.
