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Bill Prohibiting Genetic Discrimination Moves Forward
An anonymous reader writes "The bill to ban genetic discrimination in employment or insurance coverage is moving forward. Is this the death knell of private insurance? I think private health insurance is pretty much incompatible with genetic testing (GT) for disease predisposition, if said testing turns out to be of any use whatsoever. The great strength of GT is that it will (as technology improves) take a lot of the uncertainty out of disease prediction. But that uncertainty is what insurance is based on. If discrimination is allowed, the person with the bad genes is out of luck because no one would insure them. However, if that isn't allowed, the companies are in trouble. If I know I'm likely to get a certain condition, I'll stock up on 'insurance' for it. The only solution I can see is single-payer universal coverage along the lines of the Canadian model, where everyone pays, and no one (insurer or patient) can game the system based on advance knowledge of the outcomes. Any other ideas? This bill has been in the works for a while."
What if I don't want health insurance, and am willing to run the risk of getting cancer and dieing because I can't get it treated? Why should I be FORCED to pay for it?
In other words, it doesn't matter to you that millions of people are unable to afford routine preventive health care, and are forced to wait until their problems become emergencies (because the ER can't turn them away for non-payment), driving up costs for the rest of us.
Although certainly anecdotal, I've seen a number of people who "can't afford routine preventative health care" who actually would be able to if they were to make sound financial decisions. Rather than wisely spending their money, they would purchase what, in the long run, amount to "toys." Out of curiosity, do you perchance have a study that takes into account spending habits and financial management in addition to income, or similar study?
It doesn't matter to you that medical expenses are the leading cause of bankruptcy in the United States, and for millions of Americans, getting sick or injured at the wrong time can destroy their savings and ruin them for the rest of their lives.
I would venture to say that the leading cause of bankruptcy is NOT, in fact, medical expenses. Recent housing market ah...issues aside, greed is the most common cause---living beyond one's means. Medical expenses, even those that are the incremental dollar triggering a bankruptcy, are not the "cause" of the bankruptcy. There's always choices in medical care, and often it's a trade-off---treat, or don't treat, expensive experimental treatment, or traditional drug therapy, etc., but a choice none the less.
It doesn't matter to you that millions of people are unable to move to better jobs, even when those jobs are available, because they're dependent on their current employers for health insurance.
It's all about choices, isn't it. They ARE perfectly able to change jobs. They just CHOOSE not to for whatever reason. Hmmm, I'm sensing a trend here---do you actually have hard data for these claims that you're making? Or are you just expressing some kind of entitlement mentality?
No, apparently all that matters to you is how well the system works for the wealthiest individuals, and to hell with everyone else.
Apparently, and rightly so, what matters to them is market dynamics and the ability of said dynamics to effectively manage quality better than a bureaucrat.
Actually, they often do. Private health insurance (especially HMO) doesn't guarantee that you'll be treated any more quickly than people in Canada or the UK.
A market-based approach does guarantee that you'll be able to be treated as quickly as you want to be. Now, whether or not you can afford to be treated THIS INSTANT is another question altogether. In a nutshell, with a socialized system, and even to a degree government-subsidized systems, top-line revenue is effectively capped by reimbursement * capacity, as opposed to market rate * capacity. The only incentive to boost bottom-line revenue is cutting costs, either through operational efficiencies, or by reducing overall quality. HMOs try to do both.
If your private insurer won't pay for a facility that can provide those "basic services" immediately, I suppose you can shop around and find a facility that will, but you can also do that under the national health care systems that Obama and Clinton are proposing.
Shop around? As I mentioned previously, because reimbursement is basically the same (there is SOME variation based on geography, etc.) you'll probably find a quality-based market, with shortages and long waits for the medical professionals you WANT to see, and a glut of those who'd make you prefer to tough out being sick than actually go see. Anyway, the long and short of it is that medical care isn't a Constitutional right, any more than gasoline, flush toilets, running water, or food are, and those are certainly basic needs as well that are neither Constitutionally addressed, nor provided to the masses by the government for no cost bey