-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Thu, Oct 19, 2000 at 01:23:19AM -0400, Steve Furlong wrote:
Nathan Saper wrote:
On Wed, Oct 18, 2000 at 06:36:52PM -0700, Tim May wrote:
"What if nobody will sell Bob the food he wants for the price he is willing or able to pay? Then he'll starve to death!!!!!"
Bob is seeking to pay less money in insurance premiums that he expects to receive in benefits. Insurers are seeking to get Bob to pay more in premiums than they pay out in benefits. Insurance is gambling. Get it through your thick skull.
1) Insurance is a very profitable business. I don't feel sorry for a CEO of an insurance company making millions each year. They can afford to insure people that MAY develop certain conditions later in life.
General Electric's Power Systems division is very profitable. Should it start giving away its stock in trade to poor nations which "need" an electric generation plant, regardless of the nation's prior mismanagement which led to its inability to pay?
That's a different situation. Insurance isn't a product, it's a service. Like someone said in an earlier post, insurance is a gamble. People put in money so, in the event of a sickness, they get more out than they put in. Denying coverage tips the scale in favor of the insurance company.
2) Notice the "MAY" above. Insurance companies consider even the slightest risk grounds for denying coverage.
Bull. The overweight still get coverage.
I was referring specifically to genetic abormalities.
3) Your food analogy above is flawed for several reasons. a) If Bob has as much money as everyone else, he will be sold the food. b) If Bob, on the other hand, has a genetic abnormality that could later lead to heart disease, he can be denied health coverage regardless of his ability to pay the premium. c) In the food example, charities, etc. can help Bob out. In the insurance area, he has no such help to fall back on.
In re b), Bob won't be denied health _care_, regardless of his genetic abnormalities or actual medical history, provided that he pays for it. Also, food and medical coverage are apples and oranges, to torture a metaphor. There is an upper limit to what people spend on food, even given unlimited resources. There seems to be _no_ upper limit on what people will spend on medical care. This is exacerbated when costs are shared.
I agree on the comment about medical spending, as well as apples and oranges. As to care, as I've said a lot before, care is most often more expensive than coverage.
In re c), what, you've never heard of free clinics? Hell, I've donated piles (in terms of my net worth) of cash to clinics, on the premise that helping to control VD will have a societal benefit in excess of many other uses of the money. For that matter, when my son was born I noticed that I had been assessed about $400 to help cover the medical costs of the indigent. (Which pissed me off, since I wasn't notified beforehand that the hospital would do that, nor given a chance to opt out, but that's another topic.)
I've heard of free clinics. But they're extremely hard to find in most areas, and they are often overbooked.
Sadly, you don't know enough to actually carry on a debate. Warmed-over socialist platitudes have been your stock in trade.
You haven't answered a single one of my emails without including a personal attack of some sort. You're being an asshole, and that's not necessary.
Wow, you haven't been reading c-punks long. If Tim makes a personal attack on you, it'll usually involve an observation that you should be killed.
Yeah, I think I've gotten one of those. ;-)
I would say that Tim's comment, above, is more an observation than an attack. I agree with him completely, except that he doesn't go far enough.
That's fine. I have no problem with being disliked. I just think that having an attack in every message is a waste of bandwith.
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