Opinion on New Health Care?
- Thread starter Bella789
- Start date
Nightmares
(￣。￣)～ｚｚｚ
What's this? I've never heard of it, so idk, but uh...woo, NHS
What is New Health Care? As someone who's grown up with the blessing that is the NHS, I don't know how other healthcare systems work around the world, other than they're expensive and unaffordable to any regular citizen.
I feel you. I live in Canada and we get free health care! I mean, we do have to pay for the dentist, prescriptions and the eye doctor, unless we have insurance, which not all jobs provide. But it's still loads better than in the US. I honestly feel awful for the people down there. It's screwed. I'm hoping Trump will fix it but that's highly unlikely.
B e t h a n y
I hate pears
Yeah that's what Australias health care is like (Medicare). Pretty thankful for it.
Yeah, I feel for Americans. I think I saw a YouTuber reviewing a product she got in the US that was something like instant veneers. Looking at it, she thought it was a complete joke (admittedly I thought it was funny) but she then said that her sister explained that sometimes people can't even afford a trip to the dentist over there and that products like that can really benefit someone who can't afford to get veneers done at the dentist because it costs like $10,000. It's one of those things where you feel like a complete ******* for laughing.. It's pretty sad.
I live in the UK (where they're trying to get rid of the NHS -_-) and we don't have to pay for healthcare if you're under 16, you're a pensioner or you're on benefits/unemployed and can't afford it. But I think if it's an emergency surgery you don't have to pay (might be wrong).
amanda1983
Senior Member
Sorry I don't know what "New Health Care" is? Which country is this a proposal for? I tried googling but just got results for "[how to get a] new health care card" (which eligible Australians have for even cheaper doctor visits and medications, around $6 per PBS script), or articles about Trump/Ryan's debacle.
It may be an American thing, I also googled and found nothing except a car repair shop in England and some stuff about other countries' healthcare. Nothing about New Health Care
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Could you please get some sources for what you made this thread about? It's hard to talk about something we don't know and all the conversation has been is "what is it" and speculation on what it could be. But without knowing* for sure what you're referring to it's hard for us to have a conversation or form opinions on the topic.
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Maybe they're referring to this.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/06/us/politics/affordable-care-act-obamacare-health.html?_r=0
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/06/us/politics/affordable-care-act-obamacare-health.html?_r=0
I hope Bella comes in to confirm but that seems to be the consensus from the other speculations.
I think RyanCare was just ObamaCare lite and was a horrible idea. I don't like ObamaCare already, although it doesn't affect me personally I know a lot of healthy adults are having a rough time balancing this new forced insurance or penalty with financial responsibilities such as child care and rising housing costs, both young and old. Really, I'm glad people who need insurance and didn't have it before can have it now, but I think it needs to be done in a different way that doesn't negatively effect people who are healthy and don't get insurance through a job. Plus ObamaCare stunts small business growth which I think is bad, too.
Honestly I haven't read much about how taxes on sugary drinks, junk food, fast food, tobacco, liquor, etc, gets distributed but in my uneducated mind I think we should raise taxes on unhealthy items and use those taxes toward healthcare. In addition, I think there should be more private options and people should be able to buy health insurance from anywhere in the US instead of being forced into something through an employer or ObamaCare.
I don't think we should force people to pay for health insurance if they're healthy and don't need or want it. And while I think junk food and other unhealthy things should be taxed and go to pay for ObamaCare rather than forcing people to pay who don't want it, I do get some places don't have access to healthy food options, and I think that's something that needs to be fixed first and foremost. The goal should be for all places in the US to have access to fresh food that's a reasonable price, junk food/unhealthy habit items would be heavily taxed and those taxes would go to universal health care, and also allow private insurance companies compete for business so people still have options but can fall back on universal health care if needed.
***I wanted to add this in, too.
I noticed once ObamaCare really hit that some prescription drug prices skyrocketed. One I can remember clearly is Epi-pen. I think forced insurance like this only allows drug manufactures to go rampant with their prices because people need them and now are forced into insurance or penalized. I don't think that's right. I think we should be negotiating down prices on medical equipment and medicines, not allow them to inflate to ridiculous prices so that people not only are forced onto insurance because of penalties, but are now also forced onto insurance any because prices are so ridiculous.
I think if we can negotiate the crazy prices on medical down, we can negotiate down insurance, and maybe come up with a universal insurance plan that works for everyone. But that won't happen if drug companies keep skyrocketing their prices just because they can.
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Red Cat
On-and-off member
Someone could be healthy and not need health insurance today, but then get serious injured or ill tomorrow and really need it then. That's why it's called health insurance. The whole point is to spread the risk pool. You may end up paying for health insurance and never need it, or you may get really sick or injured and get a lot more out of your health insurance than you payed in. If only sick or injured people pay for insurance, then insurance prices skyrocket because everyone who signs up is going to be making claims. The reason why insurance prices are going up under Obamacare is because healthy people are choosing to pay the penalty which isn't that much instead of buying insurance which is more expensive. The way to bring insurance costs down would be to increase the penalty for not having insurance so healthy people buy insurance and the risk gets more spread out between healthy and sick people.
Taxing junk food makes sense from a health perspective, but that would be even more politically unpopular than the insurance mandate. Michael Bloomberg did that when he was mayor of New York, and he got a ton of crap for it.
This is one of the reasons why many countries have a single-payer system. If there is one main "insurance company", then the drug companies have to play ball with that group or they don't have any customers. Single-payer systems are able to leverage drug companies into charging reasonable prices. In the U.S. it's a lot easier for drug companies to gauge people because there are a lot of insurance companies and it is much harder for them to form a united front to force prices down.
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I'm not going to disagree with you because I know that's definitely why the prices are so crazy, it just sickens me to see people have to choose whether they can pay their mortgage or whether they can pay their forced insurance and they're really stuck in a hard place. And I just don't like the idea of penalizing people for not having something - if you're a 27 year old just getting started not finding a job that fits your diploma, being forced to pay all this extra stuff can be devastating. This is why I think taxing unhealthy habits would be a much better solution.
*Edit - The government doesn't force pedestrians to purchase car insurance even though pedestrians can still be involved in traffic accidents. Health care is definitely more complex but if you see my logic I'm very much in favor of not forcing people to pay for things they don't think they need.
Heck I think a person should be able to opt out of paying for the police/fire if they really want to but then the police/fire have no obligation to watch out for that person. Do I think it's a good idea to opt out of that? Definitely not and I would pay in to keep those services around, but if someone really decides they don't want it, they shouldn't have to pay and they should deal with the consequences of that choice when those consequences arise.
I know what you're saying but this has always baffled me. People really want to have their cake and eat it, too, I suppose. But I think this would be the best solution. If a group of people want to eat unhealthy and do unhealthy things, they can be the ones pooling more towards healthcare since they're typically the ones who will need more healthcare and even if they are healthy in general, these bad habits still have negative effect on health that could bite them in the butt years down the road.
Of course this doesn't solve everything either, because like you said accidents happen, and someone could have done everything right health wise and still wind up needing a ton of medical costs.
I definitely agree with you here. I'm sorry if I wasn't clear but I think ObamaCare only made it easier for drug companies to rocket up their prices because they aren't being price regulated and the government is forcing people to work with insurance companies who allow this inflation to happen.
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Red Cat
On-and-off member
Yes, that's true, but if said 27 year old doesn't have insurance and gets seriously sick or injured, then that person is really screwed. One of the issues with Obamacare is states refusing to expand Medicaid for people who can't afford insurance. More needs to be done to help people afford coverage, but letting people go without insurance is just a temporary bandage which eventually leads to much bigger problems.
I understand that some people are ideologically libertarian on every issue, but sometimes it just doesn't make practical sense. If there is a burning building, the fire department doesn't have time to look through a database to see if a building is covered, and even if they could do it instantly, they have to douse the fire to prevent other stuff from catching on fire. Health care is similar. Doctors take an oath to treat any patient who comes through the doors. It doesn't matter whether the patient was irresponsible or couldn't afford insurance. It still ends up costing money though, and a lot of the cost of treating uninsured patients ends up being paid for by other people anyway, so it isn't that unfair to tell people to get covered or pay a penalty.
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I agree with you. This forced pay just isn't something that sits well with me. I'm for paying a little extra to help people out but I'm in a situation where I can and I know so many who are in positions that they can't afford to do that same.
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