The many vague, and poorly thought up economic policies of the far left.

[Silvanus]

Because we aren't discussing only the breadth of insurance. We are discussing the overall impact. Yes, there are some who will benefit from being insured, and others will not. Such is the purpose of insurance.

Who, exactly, has less access to a medical procedure when they're insured than when they're not?

The millions that have "access" because of the ACA is the measurement of those paying in, not the minority that actually benefit. People could always pay for medical care.

lol, no they fucking couldn't. Fees for the uninsured are exorbitant.

If the ACA provided access through employer mandate, there is absolutely no reason to exclude it. That's completely arbitrary.

The meaningful questions are whether people are healthier and whether they are paying less. If neither of those is significantly true, it's not reasonable to argue that act made healthcare better or more affordable.

A subtle shift away from "access", and onto metrics with which you can give less focus to the underprivileged, I see.

 

[Agema]

You: "Millions of your countrymen are choosing to gain health insurance."
Me: "No, it's through employers."
You: "Who cares?"

Why are making specific cases that you don't care about?

I don't care that you want me to address a Swiss cheese argument of some arbitrary numbers and hypothetical waffle boiling down to nothing but a claim you doubt anyone knows. Especially when it's just a digression to avoid conceding the ACA improved healthcare access.

People could always pay for medical care.

Except, obviously, for the fact that a lot of them couldn't.

The meaningful questions are whether people are healthier and whether they are paying less.

Yeah. I wonder if any researchers have done anything ... like ... that?

 

[tstorm823]

Who, exactly, has less access to a medical procedure when they're insured than when they're not?

I didn't say that.

A subtle shift away from "access", and onto metrics with which you can give less focus to the underprivileged, I see.

What you don't see is that for every underprivileged person benefitting from having health insurance, there are a dozen that don't have major health expenses and are having thousands of dollars pulled out of their pay for services they aren't using. The burden isn't gone, it's only shifted onto others. If you see it as a tax, it is a highly regressive one.

Especially when it's just a digression to avoid conceding the ACA improved healthcare access.

Improved healthcare access... by forcing people to pay for insurance that they already could have bought on their own.

 

[Agema]

Improved healthcare access... by forcing people to pay for insurance that they already could have bought on their own.

Are you being deliberate obtuse or just pettily obstinate?

 

[Silvanus]

I didn't say that.

You said some would not benefit from being insured. Perhaps I misunderstood, but in a discussion about healthcare access, that seems to imply that some people either have worse access when insured, or their access is entirely unchanged whether insured or not.

What you don't see is that for every underprivileged person benefitting from having health insurance, there are a dozen that don't have major health expenses and are having thousands of dollars pulled out of their pay for services they aren't using. The burden isn't gone, it's only shifted onto others. If you see it as a tax, it is a highly regressive one.

The shift of burden onto the broadest shoulders-- thus ensuring that individuals do not need to bear ruinous costs-- is pretty much the opposite of regressive.

 

[tstorm823]

Are you being deliberate obtuse or just pettily obstinate?

I'm being consistently correct. I don't think you know what Medicaid is.

their access is entirely unchanged whether insured or not.

There you go!

People could always buy insurance for themselves. People could always pay for insurance for themselves, many chose not to. A young person now working full time has thousands taken out of their paycheck annually for health insurance that they're not even going to hit their deductible on.

The shift of burden onto the broadest shoulders-- thus ensuring that individuals do not need to bear ruinous costs-- is pretty much the opposite of regressive.

The broadest shoulders being full-time blue-collar workers?

 

[Silvanus]

There you go!

People could always buy insurance for themselves. People could always pay for insurance for themselves, many chose not to.

Except they actually couldn't, could they? The uninsured are not generally people just making a comfortable personal decision to risk life and limb and bankruptcy. They're people pushed into that 'decision' by precipitous economics.

The broadest shoulders being full-time blue-collar workers?

No: the broadest shoulders being everyone who pays in, as opposed to an individual full-time blue-collar worker going bankrupt to pay for an unexpected expense.

 

[tstorm823]

Except they actually couldn't, could they? The uninsured are not generally people just making a comfortable personal decision to risk life and limb and bankruptcy. They're people pushed into that 'decision' by precipitous economics.

No, I don't think so. The majority of uninsured are young adults, who statistically lose out by paying into a system that supports older people than them. People are smart enough to figure out the math here. If insurance was so universally desired, they wouldn't have even considered a law like the individual mandate.

No: the broadest shoulders being everyone who pays in, as opposed to an individual full-time blue-collar worker going bankrupt to pay for an unexpected expense.

Instead, they can all sacrifice a little to pay for the healthcare of the 60-year-old who owns the company, eh? It's not a "from each according to their means" system, it's a "from every worker equally" kind of system you're defending, with beneficiaries tending to be the older crowd.

 

[Gergar12]

My points in a cartoon. Note I don't agree with everything they state in all their cartoons.

 

[Agema]

I'm being consistently correct. I don't think you know what Medicaid is.

You are either deeply ignorant about how the ACA and many parts of it work, or you are being deliberately dishonest. If the former case, please educate yourself and then maybe come back. If the latter case, just f*** off.

 

[tstorm823]

You are either deeply ignorant about how the ACA and many parts of it work, or you are being deliberately dishonest. If the former case, please educate yourself and then maybe come back. If the latter case, just f*** off.

You've switched the specifics of your position every time I've shown you things you didn't comprehend. I live in this health system, you don't know crap.

 

[Agema]

You've switched the specifics of your position every time I've shown you things you didn't comprehend. I live in this health system, you don't know crap.

So dishonest then.

Thank you.

 

[Silvanus]

No, I don't think so. The majority of uninsured are young adults, who statistically lose out by paying into a system that supports older people than them. People are smart enough to figure out the math here. If insurance was so universally desired, they wouldn't have even considered a law like the individual mandate.

This is a bit like arguing that tax must not be going to stuff that people want, because if it was, they'd just spend it on those things themselves and it wouldn't need to be a tax.

Instead, they can all sacrifice a little to pay for the healthcare of the 60-year-old who owns the company, eh? It's not a "from each according to their means" system, it's a "from every worker equally" kind of system you're defending, with beneficiaries tending to be the older crowd.

No: the beneficiaries are anyone who needs a medical procedure. The poor, who would be bankrupted if they had to pay out-of-pocket individually, are absolutely prime beneficiaries as that catastrophic danger disappears.

 

[Silvanus]

My points in a cartoon. Note I don't agree with everything they state in all their cartoons.

It doesn't "risk the entire economy", because it doesn't force them to sell off the corresponding shares to pay it.

The suggestion that companies worth over 100m simply don't have enough liquid capital to pay a relatively minor tax unless they panic-sell is bullshit.

 

[tstorm823]

This is a bit like arguing that tax must not be going to stuff that people want, because if it was, they'd just spend it on those things themselves and it wouldn't need to be a tax.

No, it isn't, there's a difference between not wanting something and being better off not paying for it. Like, all else being equal, few if any people will say "I don't want to be insured", but all else isn't equal, it costs thousands of dollars a year. The vast majority of people in their 20s have relatively good health and relatively little money, and many would be perfectly rational on an individual level to keep the money they have rather than pay for less healthy people's medical care. That is the population targeted by the mandates, the people who would rationally choose not to be insured. There aren't people who really want and need insurance but are just stupid people who wouldn't buy it until the government forces them to, these are rational people who were making the optimal choice for themselves.

 

[Agema]

No, it isn't, there's a difference between not wanting something and being better off not paying for it. Like, all else being equal, few if any people will say "I don't want to be insured", but all else isn't equal, it costs thousands of dollars a year. The vast majority of people in their 20s have relatively good health and relatively little money, and many would be perfectly rational on an individual level to keep the money they have rather than pay for less healthy people's medical care. That is the population targeted by the mandates, the people who would rationally choose not to be insured. There aren't people who really want and need insurance but are just stupid people who wouldn't buy it until the government forces them to, these are rational people who were making the optimal choice for themselves.

You keep talking about these stupid hypotheticals rather than referring to actual data. None of your arguments appear to be based in understanding of the ACA's provisions or data on its impacts. If your logic does not match the real world, the problem is with your logic.

From what I can see, the uninsured population of 19-25s appears to be currently just under 15%. Before the ACA it was about 33%. That gives some idea how many young people are happy to have insurance. And I don't want to hear any more of your bullshit about them being forced to buy insurance: there is no individual mandate anymore, whether through an employer or the marketplace.

This is what I mean by ignorance or dishonesty. Although frankly, if you're arguing against something from a position of gratutious ignorance, that is just a form of dishonesty.

 

[Silvanus]

There aren't people who really want and need insurance but are just stupid people who wouldn't buy it until the government forces them to, these are rational people who were making the optimal choice for themselves.

Risking bankruptcy or loss of life/limb is not the 'optimal choice' for anyone who has realistic access to the alternative. It is, however, a choice people can make out of economic desperation. And desperation is not stupidity.

I get that the American right-wing would like to envisage a world in which nobody is pushed into an invidious position through economic hardship. A world in which the ills can all be blamed on the individual, so that the comfortably wealthy don't need to feel bad about how shit others are having it. But that's not the world we live in.

 

[tstorm823]

You keep talking about these stupid hypotheticals rather than referring to actual data. None of your arguments appear to be based in understanding of the ACA's provisions or data on its impacts. If your logic does not match the real world, the problem is with your logic.

From what I can see, the uninsured population of 19-25s appears to be currently just under 15%. Before the ACA it was about 33%. That gives some idea how many young people are happy to have insurance. And I don't want to hear any more of your bullshit about them being forced to buy insurance: there is no individual mandate anymore, whether through an employer or the marketplace.

This is what I mean by ignorance or dishonesty. Although frankly, if you're arguing against something from a position of gratutious ignorance, that is just a form of dishonesty.

What you're refusing to understand is that you're just wrong about things. You think I'm dishonest because I'm saying different things than what you think is going on, but it's not me being dishonest, it's you being misinformed.

There is an employer mandate. I do not know why you think there isn't. It requires businesses to cover their full-time employees and their dependents up to age 26. It is comical to me that you think the drop in the uninsured rates is indicative of how much people want to buy insurance when the demographic you use is specifically those mandated by the law we are discussing to be covered through their parents' employers.

I don't know, maybe read up on the ACA and come back when you understand even the most basic provisions.

Risking bankruptcy or loss of life/limb is not the 'optimal choice' for anyone who has realistic access to the alternative.

It is, and you're silly to not see it. It's all money, the whole thing is just money. People aren't out there losing arms because the doctor refused to treat an infection. And it's funny to me that bankruptcy has got such a bad reputation among people like you, it's a government managed program to lift the burden off of people who become financially insolvent. And like, if you're in serious financial problems, there are a myriad of other programs to help you get out of the hole. It's crazy that I'm the one who has some faith in the government programs for the poor, and you're all defending the law that makes people pay money to private corporations to avoid the government doing things for people.

Anyway, back on track, it is optimal. It's the same calculation as gambling. Most people pay in and get less than their spending back as winnings, few people hit it big and win a bunch of money, but overall the winnings are less than the amount people spent. With insurance, most people pay in and get less than their spending back as winnings, few people have major health issues that get paid large amounts in their name, and overall the amount paid by insurances is less than what is paid to them. It is no more financially beneficial to buy insurance than it is to play the lottery. The average person, by the most basic of calculations, is losing value by buying insurance, and the thing they get in return is peace of mind, which is a fine thing to have, but overall you're paying more than if you were uninsured. Now imagine a lottery where the chance of winning is scaled to your age, where being 20 meant that you were almost guaranteed to lose every cent you spent with nothing in return. Why would they choose to play? Why would they spend like 5% of their income just in case they hit the 1-in-a-million?

 

[Agema]

There is an employer mandate. I do not know why you think there isn't.

The problem is your dishonest bullshit trying to pretend it is single-handedly responsible for the entirety (or near-entirety) of the people who have been additionally been able to access healthcare due to the ACA. You've got no reasonable data for this claim, of course: that's why it's bullshit.

All your argument on the ACA has been evasive, digressive, nonfactual bullshit. It's one of the most spectacularly dishonest performances you have ever put on in this forum.

 

[Silvanus]

Anyway, back on track, it is optimal. It's the same calculation as gambling.

Bast almighty, it's like you have zero comprehension of human motivation, or how gambling relates to this situation. Because it absolutely does relate, in the exact opposite way.

The biggest gamble possible is to remain uninsured. An uninsured person bets their livelihood that they won't need a serious medical procedure. The potential loss is immense, life-destroying; the potential 'winning' is saving the cost of insurance. So immense cost, relatively low reward. A terrible gamble, that people make out of desperation.

Meanwhile, insurance is sort of the opposite of gambling. Gambling is about uncertainty of outcome; insurance decreases that uncertainty, decreases risk, in exchange for a predictable and set cost. Insurance is the removal of a precipitous gamble.

And it's funny to me that bankruptcy has got such a bad reputation among people like you [...]

I think it was at this point I lost any hope of reason or rationality getting through to you. Have a nice evening.