Don't sick and/or get accident if you don't have money

[Patience]

mom'sfolly :

Far too many have. Every year the local paper sponsors families in need, all nominated by local charities. This year every family had a major illness or injury. There was everything from cancer and heart disease to cerebral palsy and premature birth. I've also seen it other places. All it really takes is one major illness, without insurance. My neighbors, who have worked all their lives, live in fear that something will happen to one of their uninsured, twenty-something sons, and will wipe them out. They pay for major medical insurance with a $10,000 deductible for that very reason.

The thing that I think most people don't realize is how easy it is to max out insurance caps. I've seen far too many people who thought they were covered until they hit their cap and everything else must come out of pocket. I have an ex who only buys catastrophic because he figures he can handle the upfront costs for most issues, but he's fairly well off. Most people can't do that.​

 

[mom'sfolly]

The cap thing is actually something we look at when open enrollment comes around. Some policies have a $100,000 cap, some $250,000, some a million. It also matters if it is a family cap or individual cap or if it is a lifetime cap. All of this seems like a great deal of money until you see a 50+ year old friend with a stroke, and in a rehab hospital for months. He and his wife are DINKS who had been retired for less than a year, when it happened. Don't know how they are doing now.

 

[Patience]

mom'sfolly :

The cap thing is actually something we look at when open enrollment comes around. Some policies have a $100,000 cap, some $250,000, some a million. It also matters if it is a family cap or individual cap or if it is a lifetime cap. All of this seems like a great deal of money until you see a 50+ year old friend with a stroke, and in a rehab hospital for months. He and his wife are DINKS who had been retired for less than a year, when it happened. Don't know how they are doing now.

Ooof. Yeah, I watched a friend go through this with leukemia. It's terrifying.​

 

[Dunkopf]

The healthcare plan that is in effect right now until the people seeking power get it overturned eliminates caps and exclusion for pre-existing conditions. I know the pre-existing condition clause and the coverage for children on your family policy till age 25 as long as they are not married is in place right now. The cap elimination may be scheduled to phase in 2012.

Meanwhile I guess we'll see what the supreme court says. Hopefully if the mandatory insurance clause is deemed unconstitutional they will leave the rest in place.

 

[newfoundland]

Why do you think that some people feel that paying into a national healthcare plan is unconstitutional. Paying income tax is not so why is it different?

 

[rebelcowboysnb]

A national health care plan would be constitutional. Forcing people to buy commercial insurance is debatabley not.

 

[Dunkopf]

What was really wanted was a national health care plan as outlined by Obama when he was campaigning. A majority of Americans, around 70% were in favor of that at the time. At any rate if you follow US politics at all you know what happened. The insurance companies agreed to lay off the media blitz and quit stuffing campaign war chests if they could get a cut. So now they potentially have another 30-40k customers in exchange for accepting pre existing conditions and eliminating caps and allowing you to keep your young adult child on your policy.

On the face of it the mandatory purchase of insurance is unconstitutional. The reason it will probably not get overturned is because it doesn't actually say you must purchase the mandatory insurance. Instead it is a tax issue. I believe they have made it so that taxes go up by a certain %. Then if you have coverage you get a tax credit. So withholding tables will change and if you have medical coverage you will see no difference. If you don't have medical coverage you won't be eligible for the tax credit and your taxes will be the same as everyone else. They just get the credit and you don't. So you aren't actually forced to buy insurance. It's kind of like the child tax credit. If you have a child between 0 and 17 you get a tax credit. That doesn't mean you are required to have a child. You just have to have a child to get the credit.

Meanwhile all of the Obama death panels will be euthanizing people over 70 and cutting back on Medicare cost.

I heard it on Fox. Not sure if it's true or not.

 

[welsummerchicks]

Of course it's true. And I have some ocean front property in Iowa to sell you, too.

The insurance companies have an incredible lobbying network. Incredible.

 

[mulia24]

People, especially government really need to put themselves into situation that most people feel or get the most, like being a poor man in poor family, or in the middle wealth rate but still have high possibility of "SADIKIN" (SAkit seDIkit misKIN / poor because of disease / poor after 'little' disease) before they make or pass law to People Representative (perhaps Congress in US) because they won't care for the poor or the SADIKIN group before that happen to them..

Stop that useless, too much talking, too "on fire" speech or campaign. People don't need speech, talking or campaign, but they need good policy being issued by their gov. Good policy will NOT ensure high popularity that last forever and can keep people vote you, but that policy will save lots of poor people that unable to pay for they health care, or those SADIKIN group that can only afford to live a 'standard' life for their family and not prepared for any catastrophe/disaster or disease. But DO believe that bad thing can be easily remembered by people, like battle of little bighorn, gen. Custer is not remembered by most people for his success in several battle but for his losses in little bighorn.

But that doesn't matter, good healthcare will keep people health and will pump country economy, social, culture, and more. Just remember, if you do good thing, then you won't only be remembered or favorable by people but you'll also get luck and prosperity.

The old Chinese said, " People who doing good thing, although luck/prosperity is not come yet, but the disaster already gone away, People who doing bad thing, although disaster is not come yet, but the luck/prosperity already gone away " ( I do need to sorry for bad grammar/spelling

)

 

[chickened]

We have heard a great deal about the costs and benefits of a “public option” and “single-payer system.” We have heard about the financial costs—and the other costs—of allowing the government to interfere with matters of life and death. However, we haven’t heard whether the Constitution gives Congress the power to enact these plans. What does this say about the status of the Constitution in the minds our policymakers today? If a concerned citizen asks a proponent of nationalized healthcare to point to the constitutional authority for such a law, he may hear that the “General Welfare” clause, the “Necessary and Proper” clause, or the “Interstate Commerce” clause enables Congress to create national public health insurance to act.

None of these clauses—or any others found in the Constitution—gives Congress the power to create a government healthcare system.
The “General Welfare” clause gives Congress the power “To lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States.” This clause is not a grant of power to Congress (as constitutional law professor Gary Lawson has shown). It is a limit to a power given to Congress. It limits the purpose for which Congress can lay and collect taxes.

During the founding, some Anti-Federalists were concerned that this clause “amounts to an unlimited commission to exercise every power which may be alleged to be necessary for the common defence or general welfare.” But James Madison, the “Father of the Constitution,” explained very clearly that it granted no power to Congress. If the “General Welfare” clause gives Congress the power to promote the general welfare, then why specifically list the other powers in Article I, such as the power to establish post offices and post roads, or to coin money? Wouldn’t it be redundant to list them?

In short, as Madison argued, Congress derives no power from the general welfare clause, which merely serves to limit Congress’s power to lay and collect taxes. Congress can only do so for purposes of common defense or general welfare, in the service of the powers granted to it elsewhere in Article I.

Second, “Necessary and Proper” gives Congress the power “to make all laws necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States.” Like the general welfare clause, this clause was not a stand-alone grant of power to Congress. Rather, it authorizes Congress to make laws that are necessary (and also proper) to make the other grants of authority in Article I effectual.

In other words, the necessary and proper clause cannot itself authorize national public health insurance. One would have to show that national public health insurance is necessary and proper to execute some other power granted in the Constitution.This puts the proponents of nationalized healthcare back where they started.

Lastly, proponents might argue that national health insurance is part of Congress power “to regulate commerce…among the several states.” While progressives have often used this clause to expand the federal government, it does not apply especially to the creation of a national health insurance, because to create and engage in commerce is not the same thing as regulating commerce among the several states.

Nobody during the framing generation expected the commerce clause to expand the federal government’s authority to anything relating to or resembling commerce. James Madison wrote that it is a power “which few oppose, and from which no apprehensions are entertained.” The clause was designed to prevent some states from taxing goods that passed through their boundaries as those goods proceeded to market.

In case proponents of government healthcare latch on to another clause, the three clauses above and rest of Constitution are explained in depth in the Heritage Guide to the Constitution .

Of course, most progressive advocates of national health insurance are unconcerned whether the Constitution authorizes such a law when a pseudo-constitutional reasoning to reach the desired result will suffice. But constitutionalists should not allow such attempts to dismiss the Constitution go unanswered.