[Strem2]

Originally Posted by WelfarestateChild

I was basing the statement on the hypothesis, that insurance companies have been dishonoring their contracts. It is the last resort i believe, before a bankruptcy. A very bad call though because it makes doing buisness in the future harder.

However, if the insurance companies have been honoring their contracts, and at the point of renewal the insurance company found it untenable to resume buisness then this company would be in its every right to do so. Then it makes sense they would be earning money.

Please, don't just make things up because you think that's the way that life ought to be. The insurance companies in America rescind people's contracts as soon as the person gets sick -- unless they are part of a large enough group that your group has clout with them. If you are an individual, and you develop breast cancer or high blood pressure, they cut you off -- in spite of what their contract says!

Originally Posted by WelfarestateChild

Where you go wrong i think, is the belief that insurance companies can insure you regardless. But because a persons health, or lack of it, lies increasingly within his own control, many, if not most health risks, are actually uninsurable. You have been misleaded if you believe when you sign up with an insurance company and pay x amount each month you are set for life, thats not what insurance is.



I will repeat myself. The criterias government sets up makes it impossible for insurance companies to survive, because they force insurance companies to participate in "overinsuring".

No one is forcing insurance companies to insure anyone. When their actuarial tables say that someone is a bad risk either because of high blood pressure or breast cancer, no one makes them insure you.

This is not at all true in the US that government is making life difficult for insurance companies. I repeat, private insurance companies, in June, reported record earnings. They are doing just fine. No one is making them insure anything. They make the deals and they make the contracts. They are happy to take in as many premiums as they can.

Where the consumer has a problem, is when they take your premiums for 10 or more years, and when you get sick, they cut you off. -- Don't you think that this is a little bit unethical? Just a tiny bit? They are in the risk business, and should honor their contracts.

Originally Posted by WelfarestateChild

You have to consider all the different scenarios. As Henry Hazlitt puts it;
"The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immidiate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for the one group but for all groups."

There is a posibility that forcing insurance companies to insure the uninsurable will lead them to eventually operate at a loss, which, since government has been making the decisions for the companies, will lead to government eventually bailing them out.




The regulation is not about making insurance companes honor their contracts, companies have been doing that for years. It is about changing the role of insurance companies from measuring risks, to simply just cover anyone who gets ill. Unsustainable situation. Without getting into too much detail, that is basically subsidizing the ill and unhealthy which means you get more of it.

Look, there are more healthy people in the US than unhealthy people. This is a large country. The insurance companies have been making record profits. What does that mean? That means that there are more healthy people in the system than unhealthy people. They are in the risk business.

If they have a contract with a business, to insure ALL their employees, then they need to honor that contract.

No one is forcing them to write those contracts. It's up to them. But the new rules won't let them kick people out for getting sick, and it won't let them exclude anyone who has a previous condition. Too bad. If they don't want to write business to insure all of IBM or all of Citibank, they don't have to. But if they do write that contract, the government will make them keep to their contract from now on.

Originally Posted by WelfarestateChild

People will vote for someone elses money to be spent on themselves. So why give them the oppertunity?

I thought that you thought that people are good, and will operate from a good motive. Are you now rescinding that and saying that people are basically thieves?

Even if you are saying that, it doesn't matter. The US health reform bill is not for national health care. The public option is a fair cost health insurance that those who wish can buy into. We assume that young people, (who can't afford more expensive insurance,) other people who have changed jobs and can't get insurance because of pre-existing conditions, those who have witnessed the way the private insurance companies indescriminately cut people off, and those who work for small companies that can't get affordable insurance because they don't have a large enough group to make the private insurance companies give them a fair price, are the ones who will join.

We are not talking about free insurance, and we're not talking about anyone else paying for you. Stop saying that. It has nothing to do with this bill.

Originally Posted by WelfarestateChild

Selfishness is constant, its part of us all. Its why creating an institution that can control other people is a bad idea.

So, let's not do that. We're not talking about controlling people.

Originally Posted by WelfarestateChild

Since companies under free market conditions draw their power from the consumer, it is their number 1 priority to satisfy him/her.

That's what I'm talking about. The private companies are not doing that, so the populace has asked their representatives in government to come up with a solution.

Originally Posted by WelfarestateChild

I still dont have the option to not pay taxes. If i refuse to pay, they will keep escalating violence used against me until i am in jail or dead.

Look, are you self employed?

In the US, if you are employed, your employer with holds your taxes based on a table. If you have deductions, you get money back.

If you don't have deductions, you don't. Unless you are very wealthy with your own company or you live on investments you're not going to be able to refuse to pay. So are you very wealthy? Spend a little money on a lawyer and he'll find deductions for you....

I find it strange that you object to taxes. Didn't you, a little while ago, suggest that a group of several million people ought to be able to get their roads fixed and their bridges mended? Well, we did figure a way. We pay taxes to a government that takes care of those things. We each pay a little bit, and all those things are taken care of....

If you don't like that way, then go somewhere else.... Oh, yeah, you are somewhere else....