Healthcare Is A ‘Privilege,’ Not A ‘Right’ For All Americans

More people are declining employer health coverage in favor of saving on their own.

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The percentage of people declining employer-provided benefits because of cost has been rising since 2001, reaching 23% in 2005, the last year for which data are available, according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute. (Of the other 77% who turned down coverage, most did so because they had insurance through a spouse's policy.)

Uninsured by choice.

A common assumption is that most uninsured Americans simply cannot afford the cost of coverage. However, the evidence points to other factors in many cases. For example, during the last decade, the ranks of the uninsured have increased among affluent households and decreased among low-income households.

From 1993 to 2002 the number of uninsured people in households with annual incomes above $75,000 increased by 114 percent.
The number of uninsured in households with annual incomes from $50,000 to $75,000 increased by 57 percent.
By contrast, the number of uninsured people in households with incomes under $25,000 fell by 17 percent.
About three-quarters of the rise in the number of uninsured over the past four years has been among households earning more than $50,000 per year, and almost half of that has occurred among households earning more than $75,000 per year. In fact, almost one-third of the uninsured now live in households with annual incomes above $50,000 and one in five live in households earning more than $75,000 annually.


NCPA

Another large chunk — approximately 20 percent of the uninsured — is uninsured by choice. Typically young and feeling "bullet-proof," they opt to spend their money on entertainment and other things, rather than on insurance.

Another 25 percent qualify for federal health coverage but, for whatever reason, don't enroll. Plus, uninsured non-citizens, including those here illegally, get rolled into the 46 million as well.

One key thing to remember: Insured or uninsured, legal resident or not, everyone residing in the United States can get medical care. The Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act of 1986 guarantees access to health services. No one is kicked out of a hospital emergency room because he can't pay.

Inject Choice...

At least 44% of the uninsured are uninsured by choice, and the number could be much higher than that. An Urban Institute study found that:

One in every four uninsured persons is eligible for Medicaid or SChip, but has not enrolled.
One in five has a family income in excess of $58,000 and presumably can afford coverage.
This is a minimum estimate. Of those who earn less than $58,000, there are undoubtedly many who can afford coverage because:

They have access to an employer plan, (almost one in five uninsured turn down employer coverage.)
Even if their employer does not provide health insurance, they have opportunities to work for employers who do, but choose not to.
They are young and healthy or live in rural areas and face premiums much lower than the $9,961 annual premium assumed by the Urban Institute scholars.
They are near retirement and can draw on assets to pay premiums until they become eligible for Medicare.

Uninsured by Choice

Free speech is a right. healthcare is a product or service if you will that must be paid for. If you have to pay for something how can it be a right?

When I was in school, I had health insurance that cost $100 a month with a $1000 deductible. There are plans out there with lower monthly payments, but higher deductibles so it is very affordable.

When I got sick, I dealt with it. When I got hurt, I went to the doctor and paid for it. If I ran up more than $1000 in a year, insurance picked up the rest.

People have no problem leasing $30,000 cars, blowing $400 every month, finding themselves upside down with it, only to take it back and sign a new lease for a new car.

Yet, ask someone to pay for a doctor's visit or some medicine, no they can't do that. They need the government to take care of them.

Makes no sense.

Yes, for some reason they all think that doctors, nurses, and ancillary personel are getting government pensions and paid by the government. They don't realize somebody is going to have to pay these people to work. They are not going to continue to do the dirty things that no one else will do unless they are paid to do it.
There is no such thing as a free lunch.

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Originally posted by tigrtrek:
Free speech is a right. healthcare is a product or service if you will that must be paid for. If you have to pay for something how can it be a right?

Under law, they are required to at least stabilize patients—even if those patients cannot pay. Healthcare should be a moral obligation.

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Originally posted by Nobluedog:

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Originally posted by tigrtrek:
Free speech is a right. healthcare is a product or service if you will that must be paid for. If you have to pay for something how can it be a right?

Under law, they are required to at least stabilize patients—even if those patients cannot pay. Healthcare should be a moral obligation.

Yep. You should be morally obligated to provide heathcare for yourself and your dependents.

''Yep. You should be morally obligated to provide heathcare for yourself and your dependents.''


I pay my way thank you!! I think the corruption we have with insurance companies and health care has got to stop and make it affordable for all!

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Originally posted by Nobluedog:
''Yep. You should be morally obligated to provide heathcare for yourself and your dependents.''


I pay my way thank you!! I think the corruption we have with insurance companies and health care has got to stop and make it affordable for all!

The term "you" was not aimed in your specific direction. It was used generically.

What corruption? Be specific. Examples. Sources.

So who should take the financial beating? Insurance companies who will just go out of business and leave consumers paying the entire bill?

Doctors? Why should they invest the time and training it takes to become a doctor if they see no financial gain in their future?

Hospitals? From what I hear most of them are already losing money. Perhaps we should mandate that they have to provide so much free and reduced cost care that they all go out of business.

There is no "right" to healthcare. Healthcare is a commodity that is bought and sold. If it reaches the unhealthy state of being mandated by the government, it won't be worth having.

Wanna make it affordable then get rid of all the lawyers and law suits in medicine! I believe that noone should be able to suit if your doctor screws up and misdiagnosis you with something. For crying out loud, your to see him when there is an emergency. The odds of him screwing up so bad that you die is slim and none but the odds that you will suit him if you have the slightest problem after he has patched your dead body up is VERY HIGH with all the lawyers around. They advertise you to do so for God sake!

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Originally posted by Nobluedog:

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Originally posted by tigrtrek:
Free speech is a right. healthcare is a product or service if you will that must be paid for. If you have to pay for something how can it be a right?

Under law, they are required to at least stabilize patients—even if those patients cannot pay. Healthcare should be a moral obligation.

Every state has a law. No one can be refused treatment in an emergency. An emergency is not a cough that you have had for 3 or 4 days. It is not an itchy rash you got from playing in the woods, and you want to be seen at 3 a.m. Those things are easy.
Unfortunately it is an emergency when someone gets drunk and drives their motorcycle into a brick wall, and shows up in the emergency room with no insurance. Been there seen that. It will usually entail about a dozen nurses and surgical personel, an anesthesiologist, sometimes a neurosurgeon or at least a general surgeon, and probably an othropedic surgeon to put them back together. They may need some blood or other items in critical shortage. Most of them will have one or two packs of cigarettes in their pocket, and just coming from a bar where they spent $20 or $30 getting drunk; after which they get on their $10K Harley, which may have insurance on it, and proceed to drive into a tree. The ambulance that picked them up more than likely will not get paid. The fire department that responded to get them up out of the ditch will likely not get paid. The hospital ER will likely never recover any of their charges. I assure you the doctors who spent all night putting Humpty Dumpty back together will likely never see a dime. Of course Evil Kneivel will in all likelihood survive long enough to go back out, buy another motorcycle and do it again. He will usually go out and either sue the bar that served him, the company that made the bike, or possibly the people who spent all night fixing his sorry butt back up. The lawyer will get paid, of course cause he works on contingency.
After three or four of these the hospital loses more money and decides they no longer can afford to keep that good nurse, so they let them go. Eventually you get to situation whereby those who actually do pay their way cannot be treated effectively.
Sorry for the rant, BUT I see that this is an issue of PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY far more so than insurance companies, doctors, and hospitals getting rich. Most people who spout that type of garbage have no idea how the real world in a hospital works....

Healthcare is a moral obligation -- whether or not a hospital gets paid...get the patient stable and go from there -- no extras required for that...

Health Insurance is a CHOICE and a PRIVILEGE...I am fortunate to have an employer that pays my insurance -- if they didn't I would decline company healthcare and would purchase private insurance on my own...

It is not in the constitution that it is required for every American...if Hospitals and Doctors would charge reasonable fees for their services insurance would not be necessary for most Americans...but when you have a Doctor that bills you $200 for an x-ray but if you had insurance your insurance agrees to pay $55 and you pay a $35 copay ($90)-- something is wrong with that picture...the healthcare industry created their own mess and now they want the government to provide insurance coverage so that people will have to pay...one way or another...

Sorry for the rant, BUT I see that this is an issue of PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY far more so than insurance companies, doctors, and hospitals getting rich. Most people who spout that type of garbage have no idea how the real world in a hospital works.... Roll Eyes


Great post, teyates. Hang in there, we need you.

So who pays for the healthcare provided to the middle class, since the poor have Medicaid, the elderly have Medicare, and the rich (or with good jobs) have medical insurance?
Obviously, those of us who pay for our own insurance pay a little extra to pay for the working poor who have no insurance.
Parker Griffith supports universal healthcare, so people can get medical care earlier, saving the rest of us the extra money it costs when someone waits to get help. Middle class uninsured are just like the rest of us, most hate to get something they can't pay for, so they wait until they can't take the pain any more, then we treat the terminal illness in its final stages.

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Originally posted by LMM:
Sorry for the rant, BUT I see that this is an issue of PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY far more so than insurance companies, doctors, and hospitals getting rich. Most people who spout that type of garbage have no idea how the real world in a hospital works.... Roll Eyes


Great post, teyates. Hang in there, we need you.

Many people will look at it like this: Do I pay for health insurance or do I drink liquor, smoke cigarettes, and buy dope?.....Anybody got a light?

If healthcare is a right, will the government then be able to tell you what to eat and make you exercise to protect the government from having to pay extra for your poor choices? Healthcare problems mostly stem from the financing scheme, ie insurance company regulations and the government's refusal to pay what is costs to deliver a service and expects the private insurance companies to subsidize the Medicare and Medicaid underpayments. Therefore, the cost to the insured patients is higher and higher. Then the system breaks because the cost shifting has reached a tipping point. Was this by government design?

If a single payer government run system becomes a reality there will be a huge increase in so called medical tourism. There is a significant portion of the populace that will not tolerate waiting periods and rationed care. I look for a lot of providers to set up shop in the Caribbean or Mexico.

Healthcare is not a "system". It was not "designed". It simply happened. If it were a "system" the various parts would work together smoothly.

A lot of groups have their interests...doctors, lawyers, bureaucrats. All want their piece of the pie...when there is this much money around, who wouldn't? Hospital costs are high because technology as well as malpractice insurance are expensive. Not all doctors are rolling in money...medical school is expensive and the debt a doctor has after graduation is very heavy. It's easy to blame lawyers because everyone hates them. Bureaucrats, by nature, want to control everything for the public good. And the insurance companies try to moderate everything and still turn a decent profit.

I recall a story from Miami in which a critically ill woman from South America came in on a flight from, I believe, Caracas, and took a taxi to a county hospital in Dade County. She received several hundred thousand dollars of advanced medical treatment, and then walked out on her bill. Apologists claim that, "She had a right to live!"

Not on my dime, she doesn't. Multiply that by however many times that may happen and the cost could be staggering. It's not my choice to pay for a liver transplant for some guy who's abused it with booze for most of his life. Death is a natural consequence of that type of activity.

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Originally posted by luvurnabor:
So who pays for the healthcare provided to the middle class, since the poor have Medicaid, the elderly have Medicare, and the rich (or with good jobs) have medical insurance?
Obviously, those of us who pay for our own insurance pay a little extra to pay for the working poor who have no insurance.
Parker Griffith supports universal healthcare, so people can get medical care earlier, saving the rest of us the extra money it costs when someone waits to get help. Middle class uninsured are just like the rest of us, most hate to get something they can't pay for, so they wait until they can't take the pain any more, then we treat the terminal illness in its final stages.

I'm middle class, not rich by any means. I have health insurance through my work.

Before I got this job, I still had health insurance. It cost about $100 a month. When I had to have health care, it was paid for out of pocket. When I had a hospital stay, insurance covered everything after $1000. It wasn't easy, but no one said it was supposed to be.

There are options out there for everyone. However, not everyone wants options. They want something for free and are willing to sell out to the government to get it.

DixieChik, I agree and you say it well. Last time I was in the hospital I notice a $10.00 charge for one Ibuprofen tablet.

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Originally posted by NashBama:

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Originally posted by luvurnabor:
So who pays for the healthcare provided to the middle class, since the poor have Medicaid, the elderly have Medicare, and the rich (or with good jobs) have medical insurance?
Obviously, those of us who pay for our own insurance pay a little extra to pay for the working poor who have no insurance.
Parker Griffith supports universal healthcare, so people can get medical care earlier, saving the rest of us the extra money it costs when someone waits to get help. Middle class uninsured are just like the rest of us, most hate to get something they can't pay for, so they wait until they can't take the pain any more, then we treat the terminal illness in its final stages.

I'm middle class, not rich by any means. I have health insurance through my work.

Before I got this job, I still had health insurance. It cost about $100 a month. When I had to have health care, it was paid for out of pocket. When I had a hospital stay, insurance covered everything after $1000. It wasn't easy, but no one said it was supposed to be.

There are options out there for everyone. However, not everyone wants options. They want something for free and are willing to sell out to the government to get it.

I can relate, my daughter who works and goes to school has bluecross/blue shield and it is about 100.00 a month. Now the co-pays are alittle more but it is better than no insurance at all. I do not know the answer to the health care or who really is at blame, I do think something needs to be worked out. Health care not welfare!

<A common assumption is that most uninsured Americans simply cannot afford the cost of coverage. However, the evidence points to other factors in many cases.>

Sassy Kim for her next trick will explain how the Nazi's really didn't kill millions of jews in death camps.

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I can relate, my daughter who works and goes to school has bluecross/blue shield and it is about 100.00 a month. Now the co-pays are alittle more but it is better than no insurance at all. I do not know the answer to the health care or who really is at blame, I do think something needs to be worked out. Health care not welfare!

You answered your own question. The solution is for us to find what works best for us, not look to the government to give us something for "free".

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Originally posted by EvilGenius:
<A common assumption is that most uninsured Americans simply cannot afford the cost of coverage. However, the evidence points to other factors in many cases.>

Sassy Kim for her next trick will explain how the Nazi's really didn't kill millions of jews in death camps.

Wrong. I know the holocaust happened.

There are millions of people who can afford insurance, but choose not to. Whether you choose to believe that or not does not cause me any concern at all.

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Originally posted by Sassy Kims:

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Originally posted by EvilGenius:
<A common assumption is that most uninsured Americans simply cannot afford the cost of coverage. However, the evidence points to other factors in many cases.>

Sassy Kim for her next trick will explain how the Nazi's really didn't kill millions of jews in death camps.

Wrong. I know the holocaust happened.

There are millions of people who can afford insurance, but choose not to. Whether you choose to believe that or not does not cause me any concern at all.

Yeah,go to any ER on any given day and see how many people without insurance call someone on their cellphone to complain about the slow service they're receiving for the pulled muscle in their back.Read as(95 percent of the time):I WANT LORTABS!!!

The number of uninsured bandied about 46 million. How about a breakout of that number! About 10 million included in that number are illegal aliens. Even Michael Moore stated that only US citizens should be covered. That number may be as high as 11 million.

Now, as to citizens who can afford insurance. according a Census report, there are 8.3 million uninsured people who make between $50,000 and $74,999 per year and 8.74 million who make more than $75,000 a year. That’s 17 million making more than the median household income of $46,326.

That leaves about 19 million. About 6 million are children who might be covered by SCHIP, but whose parents have not done so. That leaves about 13 million.

Many of these are young adults who chose not to carry insurance and spend their money on other things.

So you're left with less than 13 million. The US doesn't need an expensive less efficient universal coverage for 13 million.

EG, for his next act, might explain how Walter Duranty and the NYT got a Pulitzer prize for ignoring the slaughter of 50 million russians right under their eyes.

This makes about the twelth time I've posted this which proves the left never learns.

The left only learns what they already believe.

No contradictory fact can pass their intellectual filter.

Many of these are young adults who chose not to carry insurance and spend their money on other things....................


Bingo. I know of several who have the attitude, I'll just go to the ER if I get sick. I am going out tonight and buy a PS3.

I paid for health insurance for 30 years before I used it for anything but a couple of checkups.

Just a thought....We live, at least temporarily, in a capitalistic, free-market society. Basic health care is not always readily available due to the scarcity of physicians and/or nurse practitioners. (Why else would you have to wait, sometimes hours, to see a doctor?). I propose that we (USA) take a "supply and demand" approach and fund additional "slots" in existing medical schools or fund new ones? These graduates would have to serve a set length of time practicing medicine in the lower income/scarcity of services areas. They would be guaranteed a salary to serve as an incentive and, after their service, would be relieved of any med school debt. You cannot convince me that if given the above scenario, hundreds of bright, and motivated, people would apply. Within 6 years we would start to see an increase in physicians and the existing ones would not see much, if any, decrease in income. There would be kicking and screaming from the AMA but, the people who could afford the more-experienced, or family-preferred, doctors would still use and pay for them. Just a thought. What say you?

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You cannot convince me that if given the above scenario, hundreds of bright, and motivated, people would apply

Did you think about the above statement before you made it? It's contradictory to the rest of your post.

Actually, it the scarcity of general or family practicioners that is causing problems. Only specialists may pay for their expensive education from their salaries.

If a med student truly wished, he cause apply for government grants for a free education if he agreed to serve on indian reservations or VA hospitals for a few years. Pay wouldn't be great, but they would be debt free.

Or, they could volunteer for the military program. After graduation, they would receive a short course in military officer's training and be commissioned. They would quickly rise to Captain and qualify for specialty pay which is 100 percent of their officer's pay. Plus, they'd be debt free.

Friend of mine joined the Air Force after he was accepted to George Washington Medical School. He served for six years after graduation, and had his med school paid for. Completely.

After his service he went to work as a trauma physician in an ER.

Air Force is just barely a military organization -- he had it easy!

Hey now...I worked CSAR. Not exactly netwarfare, you know.