Buy-in to Medicare before age 65 (65+, 2014, husband, legal)
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Is this thread even a retirement concern? This is a political argument for supporting legislation that is an end around run for universal health care.
I suppose the topic could be a retirement concern in that retirees should understand exactly how this and Medicare for all would affect them and what might be hidden in legislation used to further a political agenda.
Remember, health care is a finite resource. It's going to be rationed. At stake is who is going to be the arbiter of that resource, the government or the free market. Choose wisely.
In addition to near-universal participation spreading the risk across the board, Western European nations don't have the labyrinth of middlemen and high-profit-margin insurers and providers that we do. They have single-payer systems that help keep the cost of medical procedures and drugs manageable.
Amen. Same thing here in So. America. We pay just $80 a month for both of us. No one goes without health care here, even if they can't afford $80. No middlemen, hardly any paperwork. No co-pays, no deductibles.
It can be done, just not in the U.S.
Is this thread even a retirement concern? This is a political argument for supporting legislation that is an end around run for universal health care.
I suppose the topic could be a retirement concern in that retirees should understand exactly how this and Medicare for all would affect them and what might be hidden in legislation used to further a political agenda.
Remember, health care is a finite resource. It's going to be rationed. At stake is who is going to be the arbiter of that resource, the government or the free market. Choose wisely.
Retirement is the time when most people are concerned with healthcare the most. I am all for the free market. I am all for the government.
I find it interesting that employers were let off the hook, when they were the traditional source of health insurance benefits for those not living at the poverty level prior to the ACA. It was too much of a burden for business it was said.
If it is too much of a burden for a viable and lucrative business, how is it not too much of a burden for anyone who is not wealthy or self-employed with a lucrative business of their own?
Any effort by the government to make healthcare affordable is greatly appreciated, in my honest opinion. That being said, I still want to maintain eminent domain when it comes to my body, or my ability to feed and house myself.
Getting back to leaving the country - there are other first world nations that manage to provide decent healthcare to their citizens without forcing them to pay any greater taxes than we in the US already do.
I live in the US. The greatest country in the world. How is it the greatest can't keep up with the rest then?
Is this thread even a retirement concern? This is a political argument for supporting legislation that is an end around run for universal health care.
I suppose the topic could be a retirement concern in that retirees should understand exactly how this and Medicare for all would affect them and what might be hidden in legislation used to further a political agenda.
Remember, health care is a finite resource. It's going to be rationed. At stake is who is going to be the arbiter of that resource, the government or the free market. Choose wisely.
Actually, I don't think universal health care will ever exist in the US because there are no means to fund it (it exists in Europe because there is also near-universal premium payment from almost every citizen. No country in Western Europe has the welfare burden comparable to the US, ie, a huge welfare class that gets essentially everything in life from someone else. Universal healthcare assumes near-universal payment of national insurance premiums, by almost the entire population covered).
Medicare does not cover everything, and a huge number of retirees are buying supplemental private plans - so, Medicare expanded to cover earlier ages would not erase the private insurance (a lot of people have supplemental private insurance even in countries with universal healthcare).
I would advocate expanding Medicare to earlier ages mostly to save Medicare from financial collapse. Medicare tax collections are getting insufficient to support Medicare. If you no longer have Medicare (into which we all already paid a lot of tax money), what will you do with the elderly who are not able to buy private insurance? You'll have to subsidize them in some other way, which may end up being a far worse tax burden than Medicare.
This is because societally we have decided that we don't want babies born in back allies through decisions which are no fault of their own.
I understand your point, there are other examples of planned vs emergency medical expenses, but at the end of the day people mostly don't "do what they're supposed to do" and we have to plan for those situations. Most of the results from letting people feel the pain of their own poor decisions, we are not willing to accept societally .
Quote:
Originally Posted by RationalExpectations
We can start by saying that insurance is for the unforeseen. The clearest example is that pregnant women and their doctors know 7-8 months in advance that the woman is pregnant and will (we all hope) deliver a healthy baby after about 9-ish months of gestation.
And somehow people would put up with this crap. People would complain, and no one would know what to do.
Indeed there were cheaper plans, but they only existed because the system was able to deny converage to persons with pre-existing conditions and other expensive to treat medical needs. People who prefer that system definitely fall into the "as long as I get mine" mentality.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ncguy50
There is no way for you to know that somebody could not have gotten insurance prior to Obamacare. And many people lost their truly affordable and much cheaper medical policies when Obamacare went into effect.
Indeed this is true. Personally I prefer everyone to be on a equal plane for deciding who receives resources rather than the elite getting to commandeer the most. Perhaps that stems from the fact I know I'll never be in the 1%.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ncguy50
Remember, health care is a finite resource. It's going to be rationed. At stake is who is going to be the arbiter of that resource, the government or the free market. Choose wisely.
Wait a minute, you're supposed to tell us how long you spend waiting, how poor the care is, and ultimately how you end up coming to the US anyways since your system is so broken.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sand&Salt
Amen. Same thing here in So. America. We pay just $80 a month for both of us. No one goes without health care here, even if they can't afford $80. No middlemen, hardly any paperwork. No co-pays, no deductibles.
It can be done, just not in the U.S.
It's easy to fund. We're already funding it. We just pay for it privately instead of publically. My health insurance costs myself and my employer $1100 or so per month. They can raise my taxes by $1100 per month, give me health care, and I literally do not care at all because it makes no difference to me financially.
Single payer would ultimately be cheaper, as it is in literally every other country in the world. People would see a financial net benefit if we implemented it half as well as any other first world country.
Quote:
Originally Posted by elnrgby
Actually, I don't think universal health care will ever exist in the US because there are no means to fund it (it exists in Europe because there is also near-universal premium payment from almost every citizen. No country in Western Europe has the welfare burden comparable to the US, ie, a huge welfare class that gets essentially everything in life from someone else. Universal healthcare assumes near-universal payment of national insurance premiums, by almost the entire population covered).
Actually, I don't think universal health care will ever exist in the US because there are no means to fund it (it exists in Europe because there is also near-universal premium payment from almost every citizen. No country in Western Europe has the welfare burden comparable to the US, ie, a huge welfare class that gets essentially everything in life from someone else. Universal healthcare assumes near-universal payment of national insurance premiums, by almost the entire population covered).
Most other countries also have a VAT tax, which the US doesn't. I'd be curious to know what percentage of other countries' VAT revenue (if any) goes to support their universal health coverage.
This is because societally we have decided that we don't want babies born in back allies through decisions which are no fault of their own.
I understand your point, there are other examples of planned vs emergency medical expenses, but at the end of the day people mostly don't "do what they're supposed to do" and we have to plan for those situations. Most of the results from letting people feel the pain of their own poor decisions, we are not willing to accept societally .
Indeed there were cheaper plans, but they only existed because the system was able to deny converage to persons with pre-existing conditions and other expensive to treat medical needs. People who prefer that system definitely fall into the "as long as I get mine" mentality.
Indeed this is true. Personally I prefer everyone to be on a equal plane for deciding who receives resources rather than the elite getting to commandeer the most. Perhaps that stems from the fact I know I'll never be in the 1%.
Wait a minute, you're supposed to tell us how long you spend waiting, how poor the care is, and ultimately how you end up coming to the US anyways since your system is so broken.
It's easy to fund. We're already funding it. We just pay for it privately instead of publically. My health insurance costs myself and my employer $1100 or so per month. They can raise my taxes by $1100 per month, give me health care, and I literally do not care at all because it makes no difference to me financially.
Single payer would ultimately be cheaper, as it is in literally every other country in the world. People would see a financial net benefit if we implemented it half as well as any other first world country.
Okay, let me try to explain once again... National health insurance in Western European countries is separate from taxes. Almost everyone pays the insurance premium. Low-income people and temporarily unemployed pay the premium too (there is no "permanently unemployed" in Western Europe unless you are severely disabled) because otherwise they do not get covered. Universal insurance means also that it is being universally bought. You pay a premium of x British pounds or x Swedish krona or x Swiss francs to insure yourself +/- your kids. You do not pay 10x US$ to insure yourself, your family and several other impoverished families who are larger users of health care than you are, but do not have money to buy insurance. That is why their single payer system is much cheaper per person (ie, costs x per person rather than 10x per person) than it would be in the US if ever implemented. It is not because they have a single payer system. Whether you have competition between insurances that brings the premium to the lowest level that the market will tolerate, or you have a single payer system, the result is approximately the same premium.
Also, in order to get all possible medical services (eg, experimental cancer drugs) or faster services or services from specific doctors, a certain number of people in countries with universal coverage still buy private insurance.
Agree with WestieJeff above. Anyone who argues that we have a free-market system today and should "keep government out of it" isn't paying attention. We have a crappy accounting system (Rational Expectations nailed it with his "bizarro-world" food distribution example), that the government is already very much involved in and has helped foster, that absolutely no one else on Planet Earth wants to emulate. Medicare is very well-run by comparison to that.
No matter where one is politically, it is fact that we already have a massively government-involved system (NOT free market) that gives away our money to the bizarro-world participants. Although I usually land on the conservative side politically, I'm starting to think we need to unwind the mess we've created, lower our overall costs in the process, and move toward a single-payer system. ALL of the other advanced nations have already figured that out.
Most other countries also have a VAT tax, which the US doesn't. I'd be curious to know what percentage of other countries' VAT revenue (if any) goes to support their universal health coverage.
To my knowledge, national health insurance in Western Europe is funded by a pool of almost universal national health insurance payments that are separate from other taxes. People who do not pay income taxes still pay national health insurance fees - that is something I know with certainty.
Agree with WestieJeff above. Anyone who argues that we have a free-market system today and should "keep government out of it" isn't paying attention. We have a crappy accounting system (Rational Expectations nailed it with his "bizarro-world" food distribution example), that the government is already very much involved in and has helped foster, that absolutely no one else on Planet Earth wants to emulate. Medicare is very well-run by comparison to that.
No matter where one is politically, it is fact that we already have a massively government-involved system (NOT free market) that gives away our money to the bizarro-world participants. Although I usually land on the conservative side politically, I'm starting to think we need to unwind the mess we've created, lower our overall costs in the process, and move toward a single-payer system. ALL of the other advanced nations have already figured that out.
Okay, I can't keep repeating the same thing any more, so please read my previous posts re how all of the other advanced nations have already figured that out. Other advanced nations do not have a massive welfare-dependent underclass to tow financially. The US is a mixture of a very advanced nation and a third-world nation in terms of education and income, which sets it apart from other developed nations. The nation most similar to the US in terms of income distribution is not Switzerland, but India. And India has NOT figured out how to provide universal healthcare, it has a massive number of the uninsured who are massively dying from treatable problems.
I do think though that Medicare needs to be preserved in some form, chiefly because too many people have already paid into it, and have counted on it. Terminating it abruptly would cause unthinkable chaos.
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