Re: [OT] Alcohol Now Rated Behind Obesity....

On 2008-01-14, Briarroot <Briarroot@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I can't understand why people think medical cost insurance is a
requirement.

Because normal people cannot afford to buy medical services in the
current market.

And yet most "normal people" *are* doing so.

The uninsured normal people I know of just don't get medical care unless
it is an emergency. That means when they do get sick it will probably
be worse and more expensive than if they had been dealing with their
health earlier. The fact that Americans die younger than our western
European counterparts can partly be attributed to our lack of preventive
health care.

hospitalized for some other reason have no ability to pay their bills.
Uninsured people very often shift their costs to insured people.

But just above, you claimed that "if you can't pay you die." Well,
which is it?

Depends on how big the bill is and whether your illness is acute or
chronic. Doctors and hospitals will shift costs from uninsured people
but not on a consistent basis. Emergency rooms are required by law to
stabilize patients which often means they perform services for "free"
(that means someone else pays). Trouble is, once a person is stable
they get kicked to the curb still sick. They will be even more expensive
to stabilize next time or they will die.

So the answer is both - you get to die slowly on someone elses tab.

In other words, when people think they're getting something for
nothing, they more apt to request services that they wouldn't
ordinarily consider if they were paying for them themselves. That's

My medical policy will pay for a thorough physical once a year or once
every five years depending on age. The cost is significant and it takes
several hours to complete. If you miss a scheduled appointment you get
charged several hundred dollars and may be excluded from this option in
the future. The reason they will pay for this is because getting early
screening saves them money in the future. Most people would not pay for
this themselves but to the insurer it is a cost saving service.

These sorts of "extras" are part of the reason medical care is so much
less expensive under universal coverage.

which is what John Edwards has proposed as part of his plan (*). The

Our current crop of presidential candidates are wasting our time with
their health care proposals. None of them are willing to step up to
the plate and tell people to look to France for our model.


<chuckle> I take it you haven't yet read anything critical about the
French system.

Of course I have. But so far it still sounds better than what we have.
I would still like to learn more - we need some French participants.

Without some infusion of new information we have also come to the point
of talking in circles. I suspect both of us are fully informed on each
others' opinions. It's not that I am opposed to long discussions but we
may have beat this one to death.



--
"But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty
gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."
-- Thomas Jefferson, 1782
.

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