Healthcare is expensive, but it's cheaper than medical care.

I look at like this... insurance is all about mitigating risk. So many people out of a hundred are going to get this or that. Why not get the whole country on an insurance plan? To pay for it? Lottery? Tax on beer.... cigarettes ...... wine... whiskey? And I think the treatment should be fair for all.... No charging more for those what makes more. But maybe a monetary penalty for misuse of the system. Like using the emergency room for a splinter.

 

You seem to think people can’t do both. I have always had health insurance while ALSO living a healthy lifestyle. I’ve exercised 5 days a week since I was 16...I am now 52 and haven’t slowed down one bit. My wife and I also hike most weekends. We also eat healthy while also enjoying a “cheat meal” once a week.
I have yet to meet anyone who thinks because they have health insurance that they automatically have ‘healthcare’. My friends who are overweight and look like a typical 52 yr old know damn well they look the way they do because of the choice they make. It has nothing to do with having or not having insurance.

 

It doesn't really matter what it costs to me since I have enough to pay for it out of pocket. Medical insurance, like any other type of insurance, is a for-profit business based on odds. The odds of using it while you're young are slim. I used those odds, and my good habits, to my advantage.

 

Everybody's a millionaire on the internet. Whatever.

Staying healthy can be expensive. My wife shattered her elbow while we were riding our bikes to stay healthy. $100,000 is what it would have cost if we hadn't had insurance - plus 6 months lost work.

Takes about 1 second to undo years of healthy living.

 

Here’s hoping something that is out of your control doesn’t happen to you.

Cancer treatment alone starts around 150k and can run into the millions depending on the type

Need major cardiovascular surgery, that’s 200k+

Trip and fall with a head injury that’s develops into a clot, that’s 500k+

 

You told Sobo that you are a Russian.
That’s a historic fact. Can't run from it.
You pretend to be an American and now you pretend to be a millionaire.
As I said, you 1 million of Russian rubles don’t account for much here.

 

You seem to be confusing healthcare and medical care. There is no insurance for healthcare. You can't hire out or subcontract healthcare. The vast majority of the cost of medical insurance goes to underwriting other people's lack of healthcare. I don't want to participate in that.

 

Most of the cost of medical insurance goes toward subsidizing other people's lack of healthcare.
It's a risk to be sure. I could easily lose more money than I save. So far, I've saved over sixty four thousand dollars even after some out of pocket expenses. I will get medical insurance eventually. Whether I win or lose financially will depend on timing, just like it does with many other risk/rewards.

 

It's definitely a risk, and the rewards are not chump change either. I'm banking about eight grand a year every year that I don't underwrite other people's lack of healthcare. As with most things in life, the biggest difference between the winners and the losers is that the winners quit while they were ahead. It's all in the timing.

 

Millionaires, in general, are not stupid. Usually they think logically, like would I risk my $1M to things I have no control over, or do I pay a few hundred dollars each month and eliminate the risk of such loss.

You are a phony millionaire!

 

You're always lucky ... until you aren't.

 

I am sensing a widespread belief that most, if not everyone, will eventually require financially devastating medical care. That is almost universally true among those who do not care for their own health, but it is the exception among those who do.

 

Death is free. I'm not one to cling to life at all costs. There are a number of things that I value more than life. Medical care can easily provide the tipping point between prolonging life and prolonging death.

 

It doesn’t matter what insurance company does with the money it collects from its premiums. What matters is that they signed a contract with you and will pay your medical bills when necessary.

Your thinking is completely wrong about this issue. Everyone should treat health insurance as a tax, albeit a flexible one - it is a necessary expense, but you can chose to pay more for more coverage or pay less for less coverage. Nobody should be thinking that they can elect not to pay it at all, because if enough people start doing that we will all be forced to pay by the government and the health plan will be universal, the one that they shove down your throat. Universal healthcare is like a low quality HMO - you are assigned to a doctor based on where you live and to see a specialist you need a referral. And to see that specialist you might be placed on a list with the next possible appointment being many months out. You might literally die of a condition waiting for specialist to see you.

So, by not buying even cheapest catastrophic insurance you are literally contributing to the cause of universal healthcare advocates who claim everyone should have universal coverage. If and when they win, you can blame only yourself for being forced to pay for lowest quality coverage possible. Private insurance companies are driven by profit, seeking to eliminate inefficiencies, but when government starts to run this, with giant buorocracy, you’ll end up paying as much as you’d pay for decent PPO, while getting a low quality HMO.

 

This old soldier goes to the VA and I enjoy having great medical care unlike when I had to carry private insurance when Reagan cut us off until Bush jr allowed us to go to the VA again...
Those people at the VA ara godsend. My last major operation was to take seven inches of collapsing herniated vertebrae and degenerative disk disease to relieve pressure on my spinal cord. I could barely walk 50 feet until the operation.You see some of us don't get a choice to be senior and a braggart about our health. I grow my own food and eat healthy but that has not a damn thing to do with my disability.

 

None of those have to cause death, they don’t even have to cause a serious decrease to your quality of life.

They do require massive amounts of money and seeing that we have double to 10 times the cost for similar treatments I guess death is the only option for some.

 

Do you have kids?

 

No offense to VA hospitals but I’ll take the hospitals in my state any day over ANY VA hospital.

 

The VA allows the use both..

 

That’s great. I would never need nor want to use a VA hospital given the choices I have but that’s great have that choice.

 

O **** too. It's god-cursed lile and freaking death, what's more important than that? The military having the latest carrier jet to go hunt down hill bandits in Toyota trucks? The government being able to tell when you poop and how much? And please no more bullshit about FFRREEEDDOOOMMM. Freedom is no use whatsoever if you're dead

 

I really don't care how much money you stand to lose if your uninsured gambling game fails.

If you could hang a sign around your neck that read "In case of emergency, leave me here to die." it'd be all good and fine, but you know that's not how it's going to work. You know the EMTs would cut you out of the wreck, and you know the ER staff would try and save you, and you know the trauma surgeons would try and put you back together. If that happened, the $64,000 you selfishly kept to yourself would be chump change compared to the financial burden you have just put upon insured society. If that happened, then you would become every bit the drain on the system as the irresponisble fatties that you heap your scorn upon.

What you're doing is making a very selfish gamble. You're playing a game of chance in which you get to reap the rewards, and, if you lose, society will have to pick up your slack, and pay the penalty for your selfish irresponsibility.

You see, you get to opt out, but we who do contribute to the system aren't granted the same luxury. We're still on the hook if you go flying up in the air, and then land on your dumb, selfish head.

That's the reality of your situation. Unless, of course, the expensive cold pressed juices have turned you into the invincible man of steel. Is that the case?

 

Actually, a huge portion of healthcare expenses involves geriatric, and end-of-life care.

If you sign the "No nursing home. Just turn me into soylent green" waiver, and thereby guarantee you won't become a burden on the system you've refused to contribute to, then I'll be totally cool with the uninsured dice you're rolling.

 

Whatever Ukie. You wouldn't know one if you saw one. As far as the german stalker, you shouldn't rely on hearsay.

 

I strongly suggest that you go out and get healthcare. Not getting healthcare is just gambling with your finances.

No

Bricklayer gets cancer. $200.000. Whats the plan?