IFP in USA Today

[TXINSURANCE]

How come it works fine in every other modern Western nation?

We're going to have universal coverage in the USA in your lifetime. Anyone who believes otherwise is in total denial.

It's going to happen. Get over it.

It does not work in other nations the care is horrible. Good care costs money, and lots of it.

Profit yields investment, research and good care.

That being said the system is full of problems, big ones - but a complete tear down and rebuild is not the solution. Free markets are the solution, but that would require you believing in capitalism and America.

I would love to see our non portable Group Insurance model ripped to shreds, but an individual model requires personal responsibility, segregating the sick, and standardization reform - none of which will ever happen.

A complete government hostile take over will never happen. A hybrid "compromise" system will be slowly implemented over time.

We are many years off even if Obama gets in, I would argue we might even be closer if McCain gets in - as much as I dislike Obama I think the Health Industry might be safer, where McCain might actually get something through that will be damaging.

 

[Guest]

We heard all of the same crap in 1963 with Medicare.

We heard the same crap about voting rights in 1964.

We heard the same crap about getting to the moon.

We heard the same crap about people who carped about the New Deal.

You people have your collective heads up your collective a$$. No one cares about taxes or anything else. We have free public education (dismal as it is) and we will get universal care... just like every other industrialized nation has had for the past fifty to one hundred years. No one believes it will be terrific, but no one will lose their house or their life savings or have to spend down because they are sick.

I can see all of you posting here in 1962. "We'll never have socialized medicine... can't happen, will go broke, we can't afford it."

It's going to happen and you and all the right-wing whackos and all the left-wing pinkos, and all the *** libertarians, and all the angels in heaven saying it won't .... won't make a difference.

Wake up and smell the coffee. People (even some people here) want wholesale change of the health care finance system... and it will happen. Only you folks who are too young or too stupid to know history believe it won't.

Is there anyone here with more than a 10th grade education? I don't think so... not when I read the idiotic logic as posted in this thread.

Capitalism, taxes, budgets, individual rights... it's all BS. There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come... and the time for total overhaul of the health care system is here. Deny it all you want, bitch about it all you want, write tomes about how it won't work... but it's all been done before... and whether you believe it or not... healthcare reform is going to happen.

Those of you with half a brain will start the learning curve to some other line. The rest of you will simply vanish and I'm sure we will see you as a greeter at your local WalMart or asking people "You want fries with that" at your local Burger King.

Jeez, Louise is there anyone here who has ever read a history book on the labor movement of the 30s or the civil rights movement of the 50s or the anti-poverty movement of the 60s? Ignorant children. I'm surrounded by ignorant children!

The Jackass

 

[TXINSURANCE]

We have free public education (dismal as it is) and we will get universal care...

Well put, I don't even need to comment on our horrible and wrongly funded education system. My property tax rates are around 4% to fund schools which illegals can attend. Is that fair?

We heard all of the same crap in 1963 with Medicare.

And look how that is going...

Is there anyone here with more than a 10th grade education

Speak for yourself I finished all 11 years

Sad thing is you may be right...

 

[sman]

We have free public education (dismal as it is)

Really? So no tax dollars go to fund government education? According to the U.S. Census Bureau the government spent an average of $9,138 per student in 2006. Public school systems (government schools) received $521.1 billion in funding from federal, state and local sources.

That doesn't sound very "free" to me.

 

[TXINSURANCE]

That doesn't sound very "free" to me.

Its only free if YOU do not have to reach in your wallet and give it back or write a check.

You can't miss what you never had. Like deducting group insurance premiums from your check vs. mailing a check for individual coverage.

 

[Crabcake Johnny]

We have "free" education Al?

You mean that my son goes to Piney Orchard Elementary which is in the 98% percentile of schools in our county with a 98 and 97 respective math and English scores and Baltimore city kids go to a run-down inner city school that's in the 68% percentile?

That's the answer? Using your "free education" example - poor people should get **** treatment and upper class should get better treatment?

 

[sman]

Its only free if YOU do not have to reach in your wallet and give it back or write a check.

You can't miss what you never had. Like deducting group insurance premiums from your check vs. mailing a check for individual coverage.

I hope you aren't serious about that. I consider the checks I write every quarter and send to the IRS "reaching in my wallet". As should anyone who is in the top 50% of wage earners in this country since they pay 97% of the federal income tax bill.

 

[Chkndinner14]

I live in a Canadian border city. I have received two calls in the last 60 days of Canadian residents wanting to buy IFP. While I am no expert on this topic, they must be calling for a reason.

Also, the top tax bracket in Canada is somewhere in the 47%-50% range. Can you imagine working for 50 cents on the dollar?

 

[TXINSURANCE]

Can you imagine working for 50 cents on the dollar?

I don't need to imagine, I already do when you factor in ALL of the tax not just income tax.

 

[URDRWHO]

My wife was covered under her employers plan. Economics...what the heck the employer paid for it 100%.

Wife was in her mid fifties when she got the pink slip. The problem is that by the time you are in your mid-fifties you have a high probability that something in your lifetime has need medical attention. The have you within the past 10 year question can rider out a lot of things. I had a guy in his 30's get a rider on acne. For Christ's sake...how insane! I had to do a dance to place that one.

My wife had a current on going medical condition. No individual carrier would offer a policy. Of course there was Cobra. A lot of people find that at layoff time, Cobra's high premium is not going to happen but we could swing it. Eventually she got another job and was covered under group.

So it is my opinion that, to keep the government at bay, a Certificate of Credible Coverage (COC) should be accepted by individual carriers. Even if you are changing from one individual plan to another individual plan, the new plan should accept a COC. I've talked about this with my Regional Rep with one of my health carriers and he agrees with the idea.

It isn't like you've been flying uninsured, find you have cancer and want a GI policy. People that have been participating in the private system should not be given a short shift by the underwriting system. The insurance companies need to band together and treat the system as one mind or else the government will take over.

On the other hand, insurance companies would want nothing better than having the government declare you must have health insurance. Then the insurance companies can offer plans no longer need a sales force and the companies can offer plans without health agents.

Insurance companies want to sell insurance and could care less about agents or how the insurance product is distributed. They just want it distributed with the highest profit margin for them.

Imagine that another left wing article!!!

How dare they decline someone with risk!