Obama's Health-Care Bill

[flintauqua]

Not ghosts . . . Gremlins!!!!!!!!!!

[pamsback]

Lol, I had just what I wanted to say hit post and it disappeared! Stupid gremlins.........Lol maybe they were tryin to save me from myself

[flintauqua]

I'm thinking more along the lines of a mogwai that has been fed after midnight.

[sixdogsmom]

Say, I drove a Gremlin all through school and beyond; called it the Little Blue Scoot, but it disintegrated to Pooter-Scooter! LOL!  It was a great little car, got me where I needed to go.

[pamsback]

Hey I had a genuine Levi's edition gremlin when my boys were little! Denim seats and interior little red tags and all, Levis emblem on the side...it was cool LOL

[larryJ]

The gremlins are alive and well here in SoCal, too!!!!!!   I recently copied a rather lengthy article from my local paper thinking it would be interesting reading for the members of the forum.  I had it all typed and almost ready to post when I was called away to do something else.  When I returned, it was gone.  I searched all over the place to see if it was posted and didn't find it.  By this time, I had lost interest in retyping it again.  But you would have enjoyed it and now I wish I could remember what it was about!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was thinking (smell the burning wood) that maybe there should be a local health plan.  How about this scenario:  Say, a town of 1000 people pay a premium of $50 a person towards local health care.  So now you have $50000 in the town's bank account.  The town has A doctor and being a small town, a clinic, and so on.  Hire the Doctor at a certain wage, say $15000 a month leaving $35000 a month to run a clinic.  Use volunteers to help with the clinic who have a little medical training for CPR, immunizations, and minor injuries. 

OOPS!  Sounds a little socialistic.  Unreal, because a family of four is paying $200 a month in premiums while they are young and maybe in better health and a single senior citizen is paying $50 a month and requires more health care because of age.  So why would the family of four want to pay for the other guy?  Yep, sounds socialistic pretty much like the health insurance reform bill before us now.

Larryj

[Anmar]

Larry,

For starters, the plan proposed gives individuals the right to choose their own health care providers.  That is not socialism.  Furthermore, the scenario you described above works exactly the same way as your local police, fire, and school services.  Are those socialist programs too?  Do you want to get rid of those?

[larryJ]

Sorry, Anmar, but a health insurance premium is basically a "ponzi scheme" so to speak.  You are placing your money with a company to insure that should you ever need it, you will be taken care of medically when needed.  In the meantime, the insurance company is investing your premium in ways for it to earn money.  In the meantime, others who buy their insurance from the company are being treated for their problems maybe with your money.  You are not getting anything for your money, i.e. interest on the investment by the insurance company, other than a contract that says if your health problem is qualified you will be covered. 

Police, Fire, and schools are paid for with taxes.  Your taxes go to these entities to guarantee that should you need their services, they will be there for you and your kids will go to school and learn what they need to know in order to live their own lives.  There is no "sorry, but your house isn't covered by our fire district, you will have to put it out yourself" clause.  Taxes are taxes, premiums are premiums.

From Wikipedia:

Insurance, in law and economics, is a form of risk management primarily used to hedge against the risk of a contingent loss. Insurance is defined as the equitable transfer of the risk of a loss, from one entity to another, in exchange for a premium, and can be thought of as a guaranteed and known small loss to prevent a large, possibly devastating loss. An insurer is a company selling the insurance; an insured or policyholder is the person or entity buying the insurance. The insurance rate is a factor used to determine the amount to be charged for a certain amount of insurance coverage, called the premium. Risk management, the practice of appraising and controlling risk, has evolved as a discrete field of study and practice.

A tax "is not a voluntary payment or donation, but an enforced contribution, exacted pursuant to legislative authority" and is "any contribution imposed by government [...] whether under the name of toll, tribute, tallage, gabel, impost, duty, custom, excise, subsidy, aid, supply, or other name."[

Big difference------------------------

Larryj

[Anmar]

Larry, the logical solution based on your argument would be to either abolish insurance companies and leave people to fend for themselves, or tax people to provide them health care as a service.  Neither solution is within the framework of capitalism, so what would you suggest?

[larryJ]

I wasn't saying, that there is a "logical conclusion" at least I don't think I said that.  Abolishing insurance companys is not an answer, as far as I know.  Maybe a way to regulate them to a certain degree, but they will always be around, probably.  Taxes are taxes imposed on us, voted for by us, and used to support our government and all its services.  No other suggestions from me, I am just not that smart.

Larryj