The arguments presented by this piece are total bullshit. The whole purpose of any insurance is to protect against unseen events that would break your bank.. To suggest that you at a young age shouldn't be paying for an event that could happen (or not) is a waste of money and bad for the economy..
One of the lines in this piece that fry's my ass is the moral hazard of spending too much on medical care and that you shouldn't have to have insurance to pay for everyday happening.. Just what the hell everyday happenings are he doesn't say. His line of thinking is so outside the box in everything else in this world.. by his thinking ..we shouldn't have care insurance because most likely we won't have an accident.. or we don't need life insurance when were young as we are not likely to die... The insurance industry has spent zillions convincing you of exactly the opposite.. He is so full of shit I am shocked that it was the LA Times that published it...
Things happen in everyday life that for instance can cause a visit to an emergency room.. In my house of late a few hours long visit to an emergency cost $8000. Just last week my wife went to the emergency room for advancing pneumonia and stayed 5 days, the bill ain't in yet but I'm betting will be in the $50K range.
The thought in this day that you can negotiate for the cost of care is so far from reality . Days when your lucky to even find a doc taking patients and even harder to find one that knows shit.. Most seniors do negotiate their cost (it's called Medicare) which is much more cost effective than dealing with it on your own. Now days when you owe a hospital , very shortly they sell your debt to a collection agency and then you get harassed to death and your credit is destroyed in the process...
Jeffery Miron should have his ass kicked for writing such a dishonest piece.
His comment of solving the problem is making care so expensive for the individual that they could not afford care and would choose croaking instead.. When the mean senior income is 31k paying 6400 for health care is undo able... Miron should be ashamed (after he recovers)
The real fix to the Medicare problem is so simple... Medicare for all make the program doable while fixing the budget to boot.
My wife's step brother has been living in Antiqua, Guatemala because he lost his sail boat / home in a hurricane awhile back and can't afford to live in the US.
ReplyDeleteIn Feb. he came to the US on his way to Bangkok and got sick while he was here. His two trips to the Emergency room in Santa Barbara cost thousands of dollars. The medicine he took with him to Bangkok cost $90. At the Bangkok hospital, it cost $6. His MIR and doctor appointments there are about 15% of the US charges.
The GOP wants to cut the people's benefits and raise the fees with no limits or cuts to the hospitals or drug costs. Nope, they don't want to cut the corps. profits. Oh, I forgot to say the meds in Bangkok were made by the same US drug company.