The Morality of a Single Payer Health Care System

[DarkLight]

Source, please, that this is true of Catholic or other health share plans. Are you telling us that you’ve been turned down by these plans?

And if it is true, maybe that would change if the cap on the number of these types of plans was lifted.

It’s on their websites. It’s not exactly that I’d be turned down, but that since I have preexisting conditions those wouldn’t be covered (or there’s a long waiting period). So solidarity, for example, excludes any condition I’ve had treatment for in the 2 years prior to joining, for the first year. The next 2 years have expense caps. Curo excludes preexisting conditions and mental health.

 

[JonNC]

JonNC:

Source, please, that this is true of Catholic or other health share plans. Are you telling us that you’ve been turned down by these plans?

And if it is true, maybe that would change if the cap on the number of these types of plans was lifted.

It’s on their websites. It’s not exactly that I’d be turned down, but that since I have preexisting conditions those wouldn’t be covered (or there’s a long waiting period). So solidarity, for example, excludes any condition I’ve had treatment for in the 2 years prior to joining, for the first year. The next 2 years have expense caps. Curo excludes preexisting conditions and mental health.

Sorry to hear that. Again, government needs to lift the cap on the number of health share opportunities, and voluntary associations. Competition leads to lower prices and better service.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

Sorry to hear that. Again, government needs to lift the cap on the number of health share opportunities, and voluntary associations. Competition leads to lower prices and better service.

You already have evidence presented to you that someone with a preexisting condition cannot get adequate coverage through existing health share plans. And your remedy is to have more health share plans. How many health share plans must there be before you admit this person is just not going to get coverage?

No amount of competition is going to make any organization take on a guaranteed loss.

 

[DarkLight]

The fundamental worry people like me have is that, as an individual, I’m almost certainly going to be a net loss for any insurance company or group or other form of cost sharing. Large companies are going to favor contracts that severely limit the amount of care they provide to me. Or they will raise the cost to me by a large amount (which ends up being effectively denial of care).

As far as pure capitalism, there just isn’t any incentive to provide someone with me like care. And an organization not bound to do so by the government isn’t likely to sign a contract that makes them provide me with care.

 

[SuperLuigi]

Government has no incentive to be nice, kind or productive.

That’s why up and down these forums and elsewhere big government apologists need excuses, personal attacks and logical fallacies.

The facts betray them at every turn.

 

[SuperLuigi]

As far as pure capitalism, there just isn’t any incentive to provide someone with me like care. And an organization not bound to do so by the government isn’t likely to sign a contract that makes them provide me with care.

Pure capitalism is all about supply and demand. If there is demand for service, there will be a supply.

We won’t ever have that exactly, but you’ll be better off without the government not involved in your life. If you need private charity and the government gets off people’s backs, they would be willing and able to help you a lot better than the federal government.

State governments also do a better job at it than the feds do.

 

[DarkLight]

Pure capitalism is all about supply and demand. If there is demand for service, there will be a supply.

A better way to put it is that there’s a supply for a service, if there’s a demand that can provide sufficient profit. If I’m costing maybe, what, 6k medical bills a year? That’s probably pretty realistic for what this past year has been, might even be a bit low. I’m an entry-level worker, I don’t have that to spare if I’m also paying all the other bills that adults normally have to pay. Even with insurance, I’m managing right now because I’m living with parents and thus have no housing costs.

Personally, I’m skeptical about private charity, for a lot of reasons. Many of our churches can hardly meet their own expenses, let alone provide a lot of charity care. And again, the amount of testing I’ve had over the last year alone runs into several thousands, and that’s with not getting a fair amount of care I should be getting. I have yet to see a charitable organization that has that kind of budget, and I suspect that has nothing to do with government interference and everything to do with that most people don’t want to help. Or in many cases, just don’t get what’s needed - a lot of people I know are shocked at how expensive even fairly common chronic conditions are, or don’t realize that lifestyle changes are of varying effectiveness, or don’t realize that a lot of conditions themselves are of varying degrees, or something like that. They also tend to be ineffective at reaching poorer or less populated areas.

 

[JonNC]

JonNC:

Sorry to hear that. Again, government needs to lift the cap on the number of health share opportunities, and voluntary associations. Competition leads to lower prices and better service.

You already have evidence presented to you that someone with a preexisting condition cannot get adequate coverage through existing health share plans. And your remedy is to have more health share plans. How many health share plans must there be before you admit this person is just not going to get coverage?

No amount of competition is going to make any organization take on a guaranteed loss.

Sure they will. As I noted before, a large voluntary association of free citizens will have the negotiating clout to hammer out a reasonable price for all its members.
If the major concern is pre-existing conditions, keep that statute in place.
Single payer, or any other authoritarian government plan, isn’t needed for the vast majority of Americans, and is a dangerous usurpation of power.

 

[JonNC]

As far as pure capitalism, there just isn’t any incentive to provide someone with me like care. And an organization not bound to do so by the government isn’t likely to sign a contract that makes them provide me with care.

That’s why you need to be in a very large voluntary association that negotiates for the entire association. You by yourself? Not a good chance. You as just one member in, say, 200,000, a very good chance.

 

[DarkLight]

That’s why you need to be in a very large voluntary association that negotiates for the entire association. You by yourself? Not a good chance. You as just one member in, say, 200,000, a very good chance.

Right, but when they’re on their own? The insurance companies are going to say, they won’t sign a contract with that association unless they get to exclude or seriously limit people like me.

That’s the whole reason they didn’t want to make Obamacare voluntary. Realistically, people like me get insurance coverage because other people’s premiums are more than the cost of their care, so that money covers my healthcare. If you make a system where people don’t have to sign up, but insurance companies don’t have a choice but to take people like me, they lose money and stop offering those contracts at all.

 

[JonNC]

Right, but when they’re on their own? The insurance companies are going to say, they won’t sign a contract with that association unless they get to exclude or seriously limit people like me.

Then the association takes their business elsewhere.
I’m not going to leave my family behind. Plus, I already conceded that the statute could stay in place.

 

[JonNC]

That’s the whole reason they didn’t want to make Obamacare voluntary. Realistically, people like me get insurance coverage because other people’s premiums are more than the cost of their care, so that money covers my healthcare. If you make a system where people don’t have to sign up, but insurance companies don’t have a choice but to take people like me, they lose money and stop offering those contracts at all.

And frankly, that’s immoral. Government coercing some to pay for others is theft. But voluntarily being in that association is moral. Being willing to pool resources to help others is moral, but not by government coercion

 

[stinkcat_14]

And frankly, that’s immoral. Government coercing some to pay for others is theft. But voluntarily being in that association is moral. Being willing to pool resources to help others is moral, but not by government coercion

Can you cite some Church teaching that suggests redistributive taxation, such as social security and medicare is theft? I realize you may think it is theft, but your opinion is not really that useful here, since you don’t claim any special expertise in moral theology.

 

[JonNC]

JonNC:

And frankly, that’s immoral. Government coercing some to pay for others is theft. But voluntarily being in that association is moral. Being willing to pool resources to help others is moral, but not by government coercion

Can you cite some Church teaching that suggests redistributive taxation, such as social security and medicare is theft? I realize you may think it is theft, but your opinion is not really that useful here, since you don’t claim any special expertise in moral theology.

Can you site scriptural references that claim that helping your neighbor by forcing property out of others is moral?

 

[Vonsalza]

stinkcat_14:

JonNC:

And frankly, that’s immoral. Government coercing some to pay for others is theft. But voluntarily being in that association is moral. Being willing to pool resources to help others is moral, but not by government coercion

Can you cite some Church teaching that suggests redistributive taxation, such as social security and medicare is theft? I realize you may think it is theft, but your opinion is not really that useful here, since you don’t claim any special expertise in moral theology.

Can you site scriptural references that claim that helping your neighbor by forcing property out of others is moral?

I don’t think he has to. Christ himself said that we must “render unto Caesar”.

In a few years, this is something Caesar is going to require tax-money for. Just like “he” currently demands it for the myriad of other public goods and services I’m sure you rail against.

 

[Vonsalza]

JonNC:

That’s why you need to be in a very large voluntary association that negotiates for the entire association. You by yourself? Not a good chance. You as just one member in, say, 200,000, a very good chance.

Right, but when they’re on their own? The insurance companies are going to say, they won’t sign a contract with that association unless they get to exclude or seriously limit people like me.

That’s the whole reason they didn’t want to make Obamacare voluntary. Realistically, people like me get insurance coverage because other people’s premiums are more than the cost of their care, so that money covers my healthcare. If you make a system where people don’t have to sign up, but insurance companies don’t have a choice but to take people like me, they lose money and stop offering those contracts at all.

Gadzooks! It’s almost like for-profit healthcare creates an agency problem between the providing company and the Hippocratic Oath!

But we’re not talking about that… We’re talking about a single-payer insurance provider that funds a still-private system. And non of the arguments I’ve seen your foe provide are very convincing. For example, SCOTUS obviously interprets the Commerce Clause differently than he does…

 

[o_mlly]

You already have evidence presented to you that someone with a preexisting condition cannot get adequate coverage through existing health share plans.

If one maintains continuous health care insurance and does not leave the state or employer in which the insurance is issued or offered then one does not face exclusion. In either case, a choice was made – i.e., to leave the state of issuance or to change jobs. Or the person decided to roll the dice and not purchase health insurance. Some personal responsibility exists for those now faced with exclusionary clauses, no?

 

[stinkcat_14]

Can you site scriptural references that claim that helping your neighbor by forcing property out of others is moral?

If the government decides to collectively provide health insurance and pay for it through taxation, there is nothing inherently immoral about that. Whether that is desirable or not is left to our prudential judgement, but if the country decided on single payer, there is nothing inherently immoral about that.

“Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” – Matthew 22:21

 

[LeafByNiggle]

LeafByNiggle:

JonNC:

Sorry to hear that. Again, government needs to lift the cap on the number of health share opportunities, and voluntary associations. Competition leads to lower prices and better service.

You already have evidence presented to you that someone with a preexisting condition cannot get adequate coverage through existing health share plans. And your remedy is to have more health share plans. How many health share plans must there be before you admit this person is just not going to get coverage?

No amount of competition is going to make any organization take on a guaranteed loss.

Sure they will. As I noted before, a large voluntary association of free citizens will have the negotiating clout to hammer out a reasonable price for all its members.
If the major concern is pre-existing conditions, keep that statute in place.
Single payer, or any other authoritarian government plan, isn’t needed for the vast majority of Americans, and is a dangerous usurpation of power.

What statute are you talking about? A statute about pre-existing conditions is incompatible with a system of private insurance unless the coverage of those individuals is subsidized by the same government that issued the statute. That is why Obamacare is having such difficultly - because it has rules as if we had single payer but it tries to implement those rules by coercing/cajoling private insurance companies to adopt those rules. Without subsidies the insurance companies would not agree to take on people who they know for 100% certain are going to cost them money. And your large voluntary associations of free citizens have no incentive to invite into their group someone like that either.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

stinkcat_14:

JonNC:

And frankly, that’s immoral. Government coercing some to pay for others is theft. But voluntarily being in that association is moral. Being willing to pool resources to help others is moral, but not by government coercion

Can you cite some Church teaching that suggests redistributive taxation, such as social security and medicare is theft? I realize you may think it is theft, but your opinion is not really that useful here, since you don’t claim any special expertise in moral theology.

Can you site scriptural references that claim that helping your neighbor by forcing property out of others is moral?

I cite the Catechism section 2240 that says it is the duty of citizens to pay their taxes.