Brent posted this up over at the Weekend Pundit:
I find that this sums up my understanding very well. Although I could comment on a bunch of other stuff brought up in that sentence, I will limit myself to the following.
When I became unemployed, I was told I could keep my health insurance if I paid the full price (COBRA). That is great, but the full price is more than I make on unemployment (literally!). So if this was 2 years in the future, and WS worked for a company that didn't offer insurance, we would be up a creek; if I didn't continue our insurance, I would be fined, or I could hustle tricks on the side to pay for food, rent, utilities and transportation (and at my age, those would be desperate guys!).
Fortunately, I am married, and although WS works for a very small company, with very crappy insurance ($5k deductible before anything is covered - for each of us), the cost is about 1/2 of what COBRA would cost (although more than what I paid when I worked), so 2 of my unemployment checks go to that. At this time we chose to have insurance, we are not forced. At other times in our lives we have chosen not to have insurance, or to only cover one person. This time, I thought about only covering WS, as I am so disgustingly healthy, which would have cut the cost down by almost another unemployment check.
If, instead of mandating insurance, the plan had come across ways to reduce insurance costs - especially for those who have no recourse now (work for a small employer, self-employed, laid off etc.), I think the majority of us would be happier.
Thanks for the cute video!
Health insurance was at one time a really good thing. It was communities coming together to spread the burden of health misfortunes among their members.
When I am elected Queen of the Universe, I will abolish all health care insurance, removing the cost of all of the health care insurance company owners/managers/workers/overhead from the cost of health care.
Posted by: Cop Car | October 07, 2012 at 12:41 PM
I would support insurance abolition. When we were poor, and couldn't afford insurance (and it's use wasn't common as it is now), we could still afford the occassional trip to the minor emergency center (which WS used several times, as did I when I scratched my eyes).
Just look at Lasik - used to cost big bucks, now is affordable to the average person; insurance wouldn't pay for it so market forces were put to work.
Posted by: bogie | October 07, 2012 at 01:27 PM
Yep, and that little trip to the ER last night for stitches probably set us back as much (or more) than WS makes in a month. So what we have to pay bills with is 2 of my unemployment checks (which is about 1/8 of what I used to make). If we didn't have any savings, we would already be in trouble, just for a couple of stitches!
Posted by: bogie | October 08, 2012 at 09:49 AM
Bogie--Somehow you have things screwed up. It's us old folks who are supposed to take a large portion of the medical care - not you youngsters. I'm just glad that you didn't lose your thumb! It is easy enough to understand, though, how those who don't make as much as you/WS have made and/or who don't save as well as you/WS have done (for which, I'll grant, there is little excuse) could be in dire financial straits caused by very little health problems. Those with major health problems could be/mostly are in a world of hurt. I've forgotten what proportion of bankruptcies are brough about by health problems; but, it isn't tiny.
Posted by: Cop Car | October 11, 2012 at 05:13 PM