No flak here. Health insurance is NOT a right.

Smokers would be denied almost any kind of treatment, even for a hangnail.

There are a lot of treatments and tests that people could do without, though, so for those things I think you are right. My personal pet peeve is people who believe they have a right to reproduce, therefore insurance should pay for their expensive infertility treatments. I don't think people have a right to expensive interventions just because they can't accept their fate in life. There are too many kids who desperately need to be adopted.

No flak here. Health insurance is NOT a right.

If they're delinquent on what is determined to be a fair portion, tough shit when they come in the next time

Add in the fact that with mandatory insurance, millions who didn't before, will now start using (and abusing) the system for every hangnail and sniffle. This will gridlock the system and drive the actual medical costs through the roof. Collectively, we'd be paying more for the insurance and more for the actual care. A double whammy.

They might brag to their friends: "My insurance is so good that I never even saw a bill for that procedure", even if it's the only health care service they used all year and would have only cost them $600.00 out of pocket. On the back side, they're paying twice that amount EVERY MONTH for the insurance. It's craziness.

You can't be serious! Who's going to dictate this? The Big O?

The market should determine what anybody is paid. Right now, the medical community is so tied up in insurance and gov't regulations and red tape that nobody really even knows what a doctor or a nurse or an appendectomy is even worth. Again, minimize insurance' role, get gov't out of the medical profession, encourage (or even force) personal responsibility, and let the market finally determine what the value of all these things are.

I think a big part of what drives the costs up, in addition to what you said about “well visits,” is just the fact that people equate health care and health insurance. In fact, people seem to assume there is no such thing as health care where the individual pays the fees. I think the nearly universal dependence on health insurance is a fairly recent historical development, and so is the perception that individuals have a right to have every conceivable health condition covered by their insurance, including Viagra.

Emergency care should be I believe though

Which is what i am saying should be done now. Can't afford it, tough shit.

Emergency care should be I believe though.

What ever happened to the practice of paying small amounts on medical bills over time, until they got paid off? It used to be that people who were in dire financial straights could pay $5 a month or something on their medical bill until the balance was zero. As long as you were attempting to pay something, nothing bad would happen to you.

The only thing you're forgetting is the fact that emergency room personnel are human beings. So if someone was in a car accident and they were brought into the emergency room and had no insurance, the emergency room personnel would be put in the horrible situation of watching someone screaming in pain and bleeding to death on the gurney.

It's not just the patients, but the medical personnel whose feelings have to be taken into consideration. I doubt if any doctors or nurses would be willing to work in a trauma center where patients were left to bleed to death on the floor. If we want people to work in emergency rooms, we can't ask them to endure that kind of mental anguish on a daily basis.

Too many were either defaulting or doing runners. I know when i was living in england where they started a payment program they lost over 70% of the payments in the first YEAR!.. they canned it 2 yrs later iirc.

I will give you that, but imo there has to be some breaking point. I know several friends who went almost bankrupt paying for their services, while seeing others (mostly illegals and health tourists) come in, get theirs done and not pay shit.

You make health insurance mandatory and gov't will make sure that everyone who falls at a certain point, or below, on the economic ladder will be either partially or fully subsidized by the rest of us. The subsidization just to pay for these folk's insurance will cost a hell of a lot more than the damn medical care those folks would typically need. Cheaper to just use taxpayer money to cover necessary services for those that truly can't afford to pay. But everyone should be liable for at least a small portion of the expenses they incur. If they're delinquent on what is determined to be a fair portion, tough shit when they come in the next time. Sometimes, personal responsibility has to be learned the hard way. Especially in this age of entitlement.

Those that are determined to have the resources to carry insurance but choose not to and have a "catastrophic" event? Fine. Give them the choice of either paying the medical bill in full out of their pocket or buying a high deductable insurance plan and paying the premiums retroactively for, say, 24 months (kinda like COBRA). The bill for the services will likely always be less than the premiums plus the deductible. Again, if you're delinquent on payment, NO MORE SOUP FOR YOU!

People seem to be happy, or at least complacent, about dropping $14,000 a year on insurance so they don't have to see the bill for a $200.00 check-up and a new pair of $300.00 glasses. They might brag to their friends: "My insurance is so good that I never even saw a bill for that procedure", even if it's the only health care service they used all year and would have only cost them $600.00 out of pocket. On the back side, they're paying twice that amount EVERY MONTH for the insurance. It's craziness.

The reason I'm against government health care is that they will use it to try to coerce people into living the lifestyle they deem fit. Total control is the name of the game. I think smokers will face additional villification and the lifestyle police will poke their noses into every area of everyone's life. In my opinion, if this goes through it will be good for nobody but the government.

The only way to eliminate the stress people are putting on each other about lifestyle is to actually scrap all insurance and let everyone pay their own way for their actual procedures. Any type of system where people pool their money, and then only a minority get the money, is going to create bitter resentment among the people who don't get anything back. No one wants to pay for anyone else's health problems.

The media is constantly focusing on tobacco use and many non-smokers get very self-righteous about paying for smokers' costs, but we smokers also pay for other people's health issues, including the myriad expenses that non-smokers generate dragging their children to the doctor for every sniffle. We pay for all the expenses generated by the 80% of people who don't smoke, plus their dependents, and you don't hear us complaining constantly and expecting anyone else to change their personal behavior to suit us.