Lew Hodgett wrote:
Somebody wrote:

The one thing I'm pretty sure of is that the inclusion of large
segments
of currently under- or uninsured without a commensurate inclusion
into
the payment pool by some means is going to be another federal
welfare
program that will not be able to be funded w/o massive deficits or
taxes
of one form or another.

The problem is we are already paying the increased costs to cover the
under insured as hidden costs of doing business as a society.

As an example, emergency room visits that go unpaid which in many
cases requirement of a medical program that has advanced because
preventative medice was not available due to cost.

The E/R becomes the court of last result along with it high costs.

In the end it becomes a hidden cost we all pay which is higher than
necessary if all were insured.

It becomes a matter of "PAY me now or PAY me later"
....
For the record, the "somebody" was actually me--

Of course much of the high cost is the cost of the under/non-insured
being paid by the responsible/insured. But, I fail to see how/why
people seem to think that adding additional clientele who aren't payers
to the system is somehow going to reduce the actual expenses--it's only
going to raise demand and (at least everything I've seen proposed so
far) take money from a government pocket to artificially reduce
_apparent_ individual cost. Meanwhile, non-itemized expenses in the
form of alternative and higher taxes (remember, the whole point of the
proposed C cap&trade fiasco is to generate a multi-billion revenue
stream to the federal government to pay for this) is going to skyrocket.

Unless and until there's some technique to generate more actual revenue
from those who are actually in the pool that aren't currently paying
there's no relief. I've yet to see proposals that seem to be effective
in doing that.

My suggestions to open up the existing large insurance pools to the
self-employed and for small businesses that currently can't afford any
or at least very good programs for themselves and their employees would
allow for a large population to actually contribute that currently aren't.

In addition, I think it should be required that all salaried workers
contribute something to a plan regardless of salary level--opting out
unless demonstrate are covered under a spousal plan or independently
(similar to showing proof of auto insurance for registration) would not
be allowed.

Also, the earlier point someone made upthread of raising contribution
limits and relaxing restrictions on usage of the various health savings
plans would allow for more people to be able to do better in becoming
self-insured either fully if of high-enough income or partially if
lesser. There would be far more participation in these if, for example,
it wasn't "use it or lose it" on a yearly basis as the most obvious.

More controversial, the inevitable cheats who don't have coverage at the
minimum as outlined above get nothing but the most basic of services.
There have to be consequences for bad behavior or there is no incentive
for the irresponsible and as is currently the case the good will
continue to carry the bad.

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