Let's care about folks who can pay
May. 22nd, 2019 09:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mprotsenkoI had a discussion recently about different types of healthcare system. Heard a very honest argument along those lines (not verbatim so I may misinterpret it but I do hope I summarize in the right way):
- Yep, the poor are screwed, but what about those who can pay? Shouldn't we care about them too? Does it make sense to prioritize that care? If we start caring about poor, others will suffer and that's bad.
Well, a couple of months ago I took part in a fundraiser. People were collecting money for a software developer (a friend of a friend of mine). Why? After all, if you work in Facebook, you get the best health insurance money can buy. If you work in Facebook - you are not poor, you belong to top 1-5% incomewise. He must have done something really wrong to screw things up so bad he needs to beg. It must be a poor decision. It will never happen to us. Right?
Well, wrong. Turns out - if you have a cancer, if you're too sick to work, you lose your job. After a certain period of time, your disability insurance stops paying - since you're "healthy" enough to be doing something (even if this something is paying 10x-20x less than your last job). You still need to make your mortgage payments (your kids need to go to a good school, right?), but you also need to travel out-of-state to a clinic that specialized in your type of cancer (and pay out-of-network copays and deductibles). And you need to rent another place to stay during your treatment. Ah, and in addition to that you need to make insurance premium payments (fortunately, due to CORBA you get to keep your insurance - but you still need to cough up several thousands dollars a month).
So if you think that a single payer system only benefits poor people - think again. When you are going to become sick (not if, when - it is a matter of time for all of us) - it is going to become about you, not about poor people. (Unless you have a few hundred thousand dollars stashed away.)
The only lucky break here is that you can be old enough to qualify for an existing single payer health coverage (Medicare, yep).
- Yep, the poor are screwed, but what about those who can pay? Shouldn't we care about them too? Does it make sense to prioritize that care? If we start caring about poor, others will suffer and that's bad.
Well, a couple of months ago I took part in a fundraiser. People were collecting money for a software developer (a friend of a friend of mine). Why? After all, if you work in Facebook, you get the best health insurance money can buy. If you work in Facebook - you are not poor, you belong to top 1-5% incomewise. He must have done something really wrong to screw things up so bad he needs to beg. It must be a poor decision. It will never happen to us. Right?
Well, wrong. Turns out - if you have a cancer, if you're too sick to work, you lose your job. After a certain period of time, your disability insurance stops paying - since you're "healthy" enough to be doing something (even if this something is paying 10x-20x less than your last job). You still need to make your mortgage payments (your kids need to go to a good school, right?), but you also need to travel out-of-state to a clinic that specialized in your type of cancer (and pay out-of-network copays and deductibles). And you need to rent another place to stay during your treatment. Ah, and in addition to that you need to make insurance premium payments (fortunately, due to CORBA you get to keep your insurance - but you still need to cough up several thousands dollars a month).
So if you think that a single payer system only benefits poor people - think again. When you are going to become sick (not if, when - it is a matter of time for all of us) - it is going to become about you, not about poor people. (Unless you have a few hundred thousand dollars stashed away.)
The only lucky break here is that you can be old enough to qualify for an existing single payer health coverage (Medicare, yep).
(no subject)
Date: 2019-05-28 07:06 am (UTC)So unless you get seriously sick (and thus cannot work), Canadian system works better.
If you get mildly sick or don't get sick at all - the US system works better. (though it is 2-4x more expensive)
And many people have that illusion that they don't get sick (or hope that when they will get sick, they will be old enough to be enrolled in the existing single-payer system).
It seems that we have no disagreement here.
Indeed, on a personal level, there is no sense in paying healthcare-related taxes or buying insurance until you get sick.
So those suckers who do buy insurance while healthy - will have to pay more (because the patients'/payers' pool is less healthy as a whole and thus have more expenses which insurance will have to cover). So some of them will not be able to afford it, and will drop out of the pool, driving the costs even higher for the rest. And so it goes...
Basics of game theory - in non-zero sum game you can make a move that provides a short-term gain to you, but you pay for it with a long-term loss to both you and your fellow player.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-11-21 07:31 pm (UTC)единственное по чему США впереди всех- это по ценам на медуслуги и затратам государста на медицину. затраты огромные, потому что цены огромные, и потому что много запущенных больных. которым помогает государство (пожилые, бедные, или инвалиды, или все вместе).