Everyone on Facebook has been complaining this year about how everyone else seems to be posting political stuff, and they can't wait for November 6 to pass so everyone will just shut up and go home. It's not going to happen with me. I'm political ALL the time.
Why?
A few years ago, one of my best friends came to me in tears because she couldn't get a job. She was doing okay health-wise on her medication (she has epilepsy and bipolar, which cause her to be disabled when she doesn't have her meds) but here's the kicker - she could only afford her meds if she was on MEDICAID. If she got a job (she wanted to be a phlebotomist) it would pay her just enough to lose her Medicaid benefits, but she wouldn't get good enough health insurance benefits for her to be able to afford her own medication.
Um, so I pretty much hate the Democratic party for this. (And don't get me started on why I hate the Republican party, too!) Keep everyone dependent on the government and spend lots of money so you can keep your power and control over the people? It seems to me that this follows that the goal of the Democratic party would be to make everyone poor and make everyone slaves to the party/government. YES, I understand the actual goal is social liberalism and to make sure everyone has equal rights and life is "fair" ... but ... reality? You tend to make people poor, sick, and dependent on the government. And you don't treat people equally - you pick and choose favorites. Your favorites are the poor and disadvantaged and people who make bad decisions and you want everyone else to pay for it. Great. Thanks for forcing charity on me because obviously without your mandates I wouldn't be charitable.
It makes me see how vital a role religion and charity play in society, and why although regimes fall, religion carries on. There is a sense of choice with charity, and you understand why you have the desire to help those who are struggling. When you start attaching numbers to things, that sense of charity and personal responsibility and intrinsic motivation disappears.
Ugh.
Friday, October 26, 2012
Thursday, October 25, 2012
Health Insurance
So Mace had his 6-month well-check at the doctor's office this morning, and as I walked into the clinic, I thought about the other patients there.
I thought about how some people who have the most expensive medical needs are those least able to pay for it. Medical conditions can be debilitating and expensive. It made me think about how ... I don't know ... if we want our country to thrive, if we want healthy, productive people in our society, we really need to find a way to make health care affordable and accessible for all.
How could we do that? I hate Obamacare. It looks like it's set to make costs skyrocket, while attempting to get everyone equal access to health care. The free market WOULD do a great job with health care if they didn't discirminate against sick people (which they should, if they want to minimize costs and maximize profits.) But how does it make sense to PUNISH the sick people by making them pay higher premiums?
This isn't like life insurance, where they are weighing out your probability of death in the next X number of years. If you are a smoker or if your sister is bipolar or if your father died of a heart attack at 40, you DO have some kind of risk of dying. But as far as health is concerned, we're ALL at risk of SOMETHING expensive catastrophic happening to us (ie. Mace's $20k fever in May. He just had a virus, but we spent 3 days in the hospital as they pumped him full of antibiotics to make sure he didn't have meningitis or something. That sort of thing, you know, KILLS 1-month-olds.)
And with auto insurance, which everyone has to have because car accidents are EXPENSIVE (just like medical issues!), people can CHOOSE whether or not they have a car, and whether or not they drive. With health insurance, it's like, "Hm, do I want to be alive, or not?"
I've always had really good health insurance. Mark and I got married right after my freshman year at BYU and we had BYU health insurance, which was WAY WAY CHEAP (I thought it was expensive because we had no money.)
After Mark graduated and got a job, we had pretty decent health insurance through his employer. His employer's health insurance was REALLY REALLY EXPENSIVE, though, because the company was small and I think someone had cancer and his daughter had some other medical issue. So the insurance companies saw that, and saw that the company was small enough that they could charge an arm and a leg for the group's health insurance. Or something.
Then we moved to Austin, and Mark had *amazing* health insurance. Like, we-had-no-deductible health insurance. I had Mace in a hospital with an epidural and it cost us $500, but if I had done it in a birthing center it would have been FREE.
Then last month, Mark got a new job (and we moved into a house, thus I haven't written in this blog AT ALL) and I had a new experience. I got to pick out MY OWN INSURANCE PLAN. First of all, it kind of made my brain explode ... but at the same time, it was kind of neat.
Our employer would pay up to a certain amount (say, $400) of the premium, and if the plan we chose cost more than that, we'd pay the difference and it would come out of our paycheck (before taxes, woohoo!) I had about a dozen options to choose from, and then I found three plans that were similar but had different copays, deductibles, and %-after-deductible paid by the insurance companies.
I chose the one I thought would fit best for our family for the next year. Next summer, we get to pick out a health insurance plan again for the next year. Let's just say I hope not to get pregnant and have a baby this year. ;)
It got me thinking, wouldn't it be great if everyone had the opportunity to do the same thing with THEIR health insurance plans? Wouldn't it be great if everyone could be a part of some kind of "group" plan (that, as far as I know, can't really discriminate against individuals) and everyone could choose what's right for them?
It kind of sounds like a voucher system. EVERYONE would have the government pay the first $X00 of people's insurance policies (would it have to be a little more for families than for individuals?) and then we go out and pick an insurance plan we like.
The insurance companies have to charge everyone the same price for the same plan, so they better figure out how to balance their budgets and quick!!! That way, everyone has access to health insurance and health care just like Mark has through his work, only it's through the government, but the government is still letting the free market take care of individuals. Then, NOBODY needs Medicare/Medicaid because everyone has their basic insurance through the government. The very basic plan (the plan that is completely paid for by the government's subsidy) would cover basic wellness/preventative and emergency/catastrophic and prescriptions. But, seriously, let the insurance companies design the plans themselves and offer them to people. They'll find a way to do it effectively. The people will make sure of that (by not buying the crappy plans and switching the next year when they get to pick a new plan!)
This plan is about 1000x smaller than the behemoth they pushed through Congress, and encroaches on WAY fewer rights. Because people need health care to be healthy and productive, and frankly, not everyone can afford it, although our nation can afford it for them. The key is that everyone is treated equally, though ... rich and poor receive the same subsidy, but the rich can buy the fancy insurance if they want and pay the extra $1000 for it.
I thought about how some people who have the most expensive medical needs are those least able to pay for it. Medical conditions can be debilitating and expensive. It made me think about how ... I don't know ... if we want our country to thrive, if we want healthy, productive people in our society, we really need to find a way to make health care affordable and accessible for all.
How could we do that? I hate Obamacare. It looks like it's set to make costs skyrocket, while attempting to get everyone equal access to health care. The free market WOULD do a great job with health care if they didn't discirminate against sick people (which they should, if they want to minimize costs and maximize profits.) But how does it make sense to PUNISH the sick people by making them pay higher premiums?
This isn't like life insurance, where they are weighing out your probability of death in the next X number of years. If you are a smoker or if your sister is bipolar or if your father died of a heart attack at 40, you DO have some kind of risk of dying. But as far as health is concerned, we're ALL at risk of SOMETHING expensive catastrophic happening to us (ie. Mace's $20k fever in May. He just had a virus, but we spent 3 days in the hospital as they pumped him full of antibiotics to make sure he didn't have meningitis or something. That sort of thing, you know, KILLS 1-month-olds.)
And with auto insurance, which everyone has to have because car accidents are EXPENSIVE (just like medical issues!), people can CHOOSE whether or not they have a car, and whether or not they drive. With health insurance, it's like, "Hm, do I want to be alive, or not?"
I've always had really good health insurance. Mark and I got married right after my freshman year at BYU and we had BYU health insurance, which was WAY WAY CHEAP (I thought it was expensive because we had no money.)
After Mark graduated and got a job, we had pretty decent health insurance through his employer. His employer's health insurance was REALLY REALLY EXPENSIVE, though, because the company was small and I think someone had cancer and his daughter had some other medical issue. So the insurance companies saw that, and saw that the company was small enough that they could charge an arm and a leg for the group's health insurance. Or something.
Then we moved to Austin, and Mark had *amazing* health insurance. Like, we-had-no-deductible health insurance. I had Mace in a hospital with an epidural and it cost us $500, but if I had done it in a birthing center it would have been FREE.
Then last month, Mark got a new job (and we moved into a house, thus I haven't written in this blog AT ALL) and I had a new experience. I got to pick out MY OWN INSURANCE PLAN. First of all, it kind of made my brain explode ... but at the same time, it was kind of neat.
Our employer would pay up to a certain amount (say, $400) of the premium, and if the plan we chose cost more than that, we'd pay the difference and it would come out of our paycheck (before taxes, woohoo!) I had about a dozen options to choose from, and then I found three plans that were similar but had different copays, deductibles, and %-after-deductible paid by the insurance companies.
I chose the one I thought would fit best for our family for the next year. Next summer, we get to pick out a health insurance plan again for the next year. Let's just say I hope not to get pregnant and have a baby this year. ;)
It got me thinking, wouldn't it be great if everyone had the opportunity to do the same thing with THEIR health insurance plans? Wouldn't it be great if everyone could be a part of some kind of "group" plan (that, as far as I know, can't really discriminate against individuals) and everyone could choose what's right for them?
It kind of sounds like a voucher system. EVERYONE would have the government pay the first $X00 of people's insurance policies (would it have to be a little more for families than for individuals?) and then we go out and pick an insurance plan we like.
The insurance companies have to charge everyone the same price for the same plan, so they better figure out how to balance their budgets and quick!!! That way, everyone has access to health insurance and health care just like Mark has through his work, only it's through the government, but the government is still letting the free market take care of individuals. Then, NOBODY needs Medicare/Medicaid because everyone has their basic insurance through the government. The very basic plan (the plan that is completely paid for by the government's subsidy) would cover basic wellness/preventative and emergency/catastrophic and prescriptions. But, seriously, let the insurance companies design the plans themselves and offer them to people. They'll find a way to do it effectively. The people will make sure of that (by not buying the crappy plans and switching the next year when they get to pick a new plan!)
This plan is about 1000x smaller than the behemoth they pushed through Congress, and encroaches on WAY fewer rights. Because people need health care to be healthy and productive, and frankly, not everyone can afford it, although our nation can afford it for them. The key is that everyone is treated equally, though ... rich and poor receive the same subsidy, but the rich can buy the fancy insurance if they want and pay the extra $1000 for it.
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