Insurance companies *definitely* make money by insuring people!!! That isn't the same as getting care to people. And the insurance companies have done great by cherry picking populations, denying claims for preexisting conditions, et cetera.
You're moving the goal post. (What are you, a Republican?) The point is not to get insurance that's better than what we have now; it's to get some level of coverage to people who have none.
Insurance companies definitely go out of their way to avoid paying for expensive things. We all have that specter hanging over our heads of getting cancer and our insurance getting cancelled because we didn't report that ingrown toenail we had twenty years ago.
However, until that happens, I'm still able to pay $30 for a month's medication instead of $500 or more. I'm still able to make an appointment to see a doctor for $10. And that's far better care than the uninsured are getting now, because they're getting none.
I haven't kept up in many years, but I think that there are tons of studies in this area and many at least show that the uninsured delay seeking care for longer periods, are sicker when they show up (in the ER) and cost more to fix.
While that's a perfectly reasonable way to interpret what I said, that's not what I meant.
What I meant is that the whole population of people who are currently uninsured shouldn't cost the insurance companies (significantly) more per capita than the set of people who are. Yes, the sick uninsured are likely to be more expensive than the sick insured due to their conditions festering, but the ratio of the sick uninsured to the healthy uninsured is likely to be about the same as the ratio of the sick insured to the healthy insured.
OK, you can blow off cost if you want. But you can't.
Cost is key. All health care systems ration in some way to restrain costs.
Yes, including the one those of us with insurance currently have, and which is self-sustaining. I fail to see why adding a new group of people to it is wildly expensive. Yes, there will need to be subsidies from the government for the poor, but we're subsidizing them now when they go to the emergency room.
Previous Topic
Index
