Isn't the profit motive a great driver of I N N O V A T I O N
Insurance should be able to do actuarial risk and charge accordingly.
Beriatric surgery should be 100% covered. But if you refuse such surgery and eat yourself into a 400 pound oblivion, then I don't think anyone should have to contribute to managing the ensuing completely predictable problems - insurance is about protecting against unknowns. We know exactly what happens if you drink too much, if you eat too much, if you pickle your organs by eating too much sugar, with 100% certainty.
It is not moral to take resources from responsible people in order to coddle the emotional state of people who want to do what they want because they want to. There's no way to argue it is. Even as an advocate of universal health care I'm hyper aware of the folly that follows which is if I'm paying for you, then I get to have a say in what you consume and your relative activity level, or else you get cut off or sanctioned in some way. The individualism in the U.S., as cowboy mentality as it is, very much expects individual to put in a fair amount of effort in first, in order to get help from others. It's not a ask and you shall receive society, never has been, probably never will be.
It doesn’t work. Life is an inherently dangerous environment. Some of the things we do increase our risk of illness massively, but so many things increase our risk in so many ways that it’s surely better to manage this as a public health matter, rather than simply accepting that people will die en masse.
Coordinated and sustained public health programs can reduce the adverse effects of lifestyle choices. But rationing healthcare on that basis is ultimately going to benefit nobody.
In practice there is a small core group of activities that cause the vast majority of the problems.
> Coordinated and sustained public health programs can reduce the adverse effects of lifestyle
In practice we don’t have the stomach to use techniques that are time tested.
Take obesity - fat shaming works but it’s rough on the people who are being shamed.
Instead of fat shaming though there is a fat acceptance movement.
Even on healthcare, in countries were the system is not so busted as in the us, people choose to have premium insurances over regular ones, to get better care ,and others choose not to.
> But rationing healthcare on that basis is ultimately going to benefit nobody.
Its not rationing healthcare: its bearing the burden of individual choices.
Tell me. Can you explain why that is OK in your narrative?
A rich 60 year old man takes 100k medical treatments from medicare and a poor 18 year-old either has no coverage at all or pays an innordinate amount of insurance out of his salary. How can people justify doing such a blatant robbery of the poor.
I haven’t made the choice to look after your parents.
Everyone gets older. Everyone gets sicker and medical issues start to crop up as they get older. The people that then have to deal with medical bills are the children and relatives. Meaning you have a choice to make: Go bankrupt helping your family, or maintain your status by abandoning their health.
I hope your family never gets ill because otherwise you'll either end up financially bankrupt or heartless.
I disagree. I’m old enough to have been around before we had so many health problems.
It is one of the main drivers of our quickly increasing health costs.
When I was growing up we had smoking and that’s pretty much it.
> It seems you've managed to miss the point entirely.
Most people will change their lifestyle to help their immediate family when they wouldn’t change to help taxpayers as a whole.
> I hope your family never gets ill
It’s far too late for that - I’m an old man and I’ve seen lots of people I love pass away.