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Tobacco for Sev


Westside Steve

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Farce........ sure

 

You would think people would learn after the Tobacco/cancer debacle..... No than bring on the Ozone Man made and Caused CFC debacle......... here it is again.... seriously Lemmings are smarter.

 

I yanked this from a MMGW thread as it seems to be a recurring theme.

 

There is an ironic similarity.

 

Does it increase the risk of cancer?

Sure probably so.

How much? Well it differs.

Are there other factors as or more important? No doubt.

Are smokers stupid to smoke? And annoying? Yes sir ree.

 

And yet...

 

The tobacco hysteria has created fortunes for a lot of groups.

Cheap to grow and process.

Billions in lawsuits from stooges who pretend they didn't know it was bad for you.

Billions in taxes for state's pet projects.

So nobody's in too big a hurry to outlaw it.

 

WSS

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Hey, Steve. As an aside, was wondering how much your individual health insurance premium was recently bumped. Everyone out here is going nuts. Work with a six-month pregnant woman who is one of the famed "39% hike club" you're probably reading about. Her monthly premiums are nearing the cost of her mortgage.

 

Oddly enough when I re upped in November it was only a few bucks.

That said I have to have a referral for anything from my PCP and no prescriptions, no dental, no eyeglasses and no psychiatric. (no jokes here :blink: )

It's just under 700$ a month.

 

A shitload in my opinion.

 

BTW I earn just about the Ohio average, self employed.

Mediocre dough for a guy my age but great dough for my chosen profession I guess.

 

Why do you ask?

 

 

WSS

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Steve the example of pseudo science that industry and also their republican puppets to "confuse" the public about their was no "scientific consensus" and that government did not need to regulate private industry........

 

Yes people need to take personal responsibility.... that was never in question it was the fact that people mostly on the right were positioned for years that the "science" was not sound about the links to cancer and addiction even though their were literally mountains of data pointing otherwise.....

 

It was the PR machine paid for by lobbyist from the tobacco industry propping up some random scientists with their opinions.... funded by non profits...... sound familiar?

 

this literally is the same tactics....

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Just wondering. Everyone I know in the individual market is getting clobbered as the healthy, younger, and unemployed drop out to save money, leaving a smaller pool of people like you with the tab.

 

I suppose I'll not be as lucky next time.

 

And yes it sucks that responsible people (or semi responsible in my case ;) ) eat the shit for the deadbeats.

 

BTW Kos, add the co pay and deductible and well over 150 bucks a month for meds.....

 

WSS

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Do you think we should require those "deadbeats" to carry health insurance? It'd help balance the costs for insurers between the healthy and cheap, and the unhealthy and costly. It would reduce your costs, and everyone else's.

 

 

Heck have you read anything I've posted about health care "reform" or are you taking issue with someone else?

 

I've been a proponent of the public mandate all along.

Obama campaigned against it.

 

 

Some people seem to be under the illusion that everyone without insurance is destitute and just can't scrape up the funds for a policy.

That's not the case.

 

Do I recall correctly that you're a single payer guy?

 

WSS

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I'm not taking issue with anyone. I'm just wondering what you think.

 

And no, I'm not a single payer guy. I also don't think single payer is a horrible thing. But I think would could craft a better system than that, something more like France has.

 

But you know what polls the lowest of all health care reforms? The mandate to carry insurance. I've never understood that. Like you said, it leaves people like you carrying the bag. And especially you, because you're in the individual market. (My insurance costs are spread out over a larger pool and less subject to fluctuations than yours is.) You'd think that'd piss people off. But the government requiring you to carry health insurance is what pisses people off.

 

What I find far more frustrating is that the proposal that polls the best is the ban on denying people because of pre-existing conditions. That's very popular, and both parties say they're for it. But you can't have that ban without the mandate. It doesn't work. One requires the other, or else it's entirely useless.

 

But guess which party's plan says it's for the popular one and not for the negative one? And guess which party has a plan for the popular one and requires the negative one because that's the only way the policy works?

 

Ah, politics.

 

 

 

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What I find far more frustrating is that the proposal that polls the best is the ban on denying people because of pre-existing conditions. That's very popular, and both parties say they're for it. But you can't have that ban without the mandate. It doesn't work. One requires the other, or else it's entirely useless. Heck

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Okay. I don't see this. Banning the denial of insurance to people with pre-existing conditions is one thing.

 

Requiring all Americans to carry health insurance is another. Not mutally required to exist at all.

 

You are saying that people with pre-conditions must be REQUIRED by law to buy health insurance, or

 

the insurance provider will not be required to give it to them? Nope.

 

But, the refusal of Dems to allow sales/purchases of health insurance interstate, providing huge competition to keep rate abuses down, and their refusal to support tort reform...

 

is very telling. And not very honest. If the intentions are to do the right thing, why avoid those two right things?

 

I think most of us know why. Health insurance is like man made global warming. A manipulative tool to gain more political and financial power for the gov.

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Yes, one requires the other. That's not what I'm saying. That's reality.

 

Let me walk you through it, Cal. I think you'll see how it works.

 

If you simply make that a law - that insurance companies can't deny people with pre-existing conditions - two things will happen: one, people who are sick or unhealthy (as well as the people who are currently healthy but will later become sick) will wait until they get sick before buying the insurance policy. Why pay all those premiums when you can just buy it when you need it? Imagine allowing this with motorists - people wouldn't carry insurance until they got in an accident. Then they'd file claims.

 

This would bankrupt the insurance companies, and quickly.

 

On the provider side, if you make that a law without a mandate, insurers will say, "Sure, we'll cover everyone with heart problems and liver problems, etc." And guess how much their premiums would be? ....Enough said. This isn't going to help anyone because no one would be able to afford these policies. Take Steve - he's already paying $700 a month plus over $100 a month on drug costs. How much do you think they'd charge someone who was unemployed and had a heart condition? $3000 a month? $5000? More?

 

In other words, what's the point of mandating that they be covered if no one is going to be able to afford the coverage?

 

That proposal will help absolutely no one. It's just something politicians can say because it's popular.

 

So what you need to do is to mandate that everyone carry insurance so that the insurance companies can spread their costs out among the healthy and the sick. And if you're going to mandate that everyone carry insurance you're going to have to help the people who make less afford those plans because they're still going to be expensive. Then you have to create a series of regulations that only allows insurance companies to charge a certain amount for the policies so they can't do what we were just talking about - agree to cover everyone, but price them out of the market so that, in the end, they don't have to cover them. This is called community rating.

 

It's a compromise between the people and the insurance companies - we'll give you 30 million more customers, many of them young and healthy, if you agree to cover everyone regardless of pre-existing conditions and employment status. That way the insurance companies can balance out their costs with all the new revenue from premiums.

 

So that's it: regulations on the insurance companies so they can't dick over people, a mandate to buy insurance, with community rating and subsidies for those who can't afford the insurance.

 

That's it. That's basically the Senate plan. And it's also paid for.

 

Now check out all those people screaming about socialism and death panels and government takeovers and ask yourself just how clueless and irresponsible those people are.

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people who are sick or unhealthy .....will wait until they get sick before buying the insurance policy.

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They are already sick or unhealthy. I get your point, but what you are missing, is

 

the desire to solve problems. If you require everybody have insurance, and have a gov option, then employers

 

will simply not offer it anymore. And, with all the regualtions and red tape, private insurance carriers will not

 

be able to compete, if they can even survive.

 

That is what some single payer advocates have said: a public option is inevitably a single payer, gov health over all.

 

The gov NEEDS all to hedge their bets on their health insurance plan to at least have enough trillions to work at a low level.

 

BUT, it is proven time and time and time again, gov health care doesn't solve all the problems, it just creates new ones.

 

Like the Canadian Premier ran into. If you were middle class, can't afford to go to America for EXCELLENT health care...

 

you are stuck, all too often tragically. And, with this public option, Obamao and Congress admit that millions of current health care

 

customers will LOSE their coverage.

 

This gigantic health care bill is a politically oriented power grab that causes many serious problems. Scrap it and start all over again

 

with ALL members of Congress.

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