This is all based on a true story .. Hell, It's my story ... I've been working as an independent software consultant for the the better part of the last decade. Ironically enough, I've worked on several major projects involved in automating health insurance claims processing. I've been faithfully paying my premiums to BCBS all that time... (In actuality, they cleverly got me to provide my checking account information to them, so they pay themselves when the mood strikes) Once it was exposed that the uninsured could land in jail... I canceled my policy. I'm now uninsured. JUST DARE ME ... NOTE: mine was a catastrophic policy, and I, as a matter or principle, never made a claim
Feenix, if you do that, then have accident or disease, you can not work. Then you have no money. Then you are bankrupt. Then you go to medicaid. So you take the risk for no insurance BUT taxpayer pay for your risk. Is that fair?
What happens when the private insurance company price is so high more people do not buy it, so have no insurance?
what do you have when there is a seemingly limitless amount of debt (don't get me wrong, i think they are the same question)
It seems to me that this entire charade is geared specifically towards keeping the churn of high realtor commissions along with mortgage brokerage fees going indefinitely. I think that even the biggest skeptics underestimated just how dependent our entire economy is on all of the peripheral beneficiaries of a perpetual real estate boom. I'd love to see the stats on the number of licensed realtors in say 1999 vs 2009, same for mortgage brokers, etc, etc. The federal government (via the taxpayer) eats the losses to keep the realtor and banking lobby happy. Same bullshit, different day.
Probably is the same question...The fundamental question I have regarding the ever increasing premiums is simple. Has the insurance agency essentially reached the point where the demographics of this country (i.e. the largest segment of the population) is approaching the highest amount of insurance payouts for medical claims. The average baby boomer is something like 62 years old combined with probable underperformance in their reserves (i.e. a 10 year flat stock market, very low yields in treasuries, massive losses in any "funky" debt products, etc, etc). So we've reached the point in the ponzi curve where the payouts are going to increase rapidly in the next 5-10 years while the financial means for those to pay into the system is rapidly diminishing. Clearly, the push to force people into buying insurance seems the desperate effort to get those premiums rolling in since there would probably be some serious cash shortfalls in the not too distant future. Then again, this same predicament is what I see everywhere right now. The lack of consumer purchasing power combined with heavy debt loads SHOULD be very deflationary, yet the very structure of many of these industries is entirely dependent upon constant inflows and when there are any investment losses or demographic changes, they have no choice but to raise rates to make up for the shortfalls. In many ways, the nightmare scenario of an inflationary depression are being realized.
Ok, I want to say something I think make sense. Poster (Ghost of Cutten) say in another thread the country that have SMART PEOPLE is the greatest asset to that country when in trouble.( People are resource) To have smart people is when a county have health care, then the health care produce more healthy people to go to school to learn. You look at the world and you see the most poor countrys is because no health care, no education.