Who is this guy on Randi who wants to charge the uninsured?

[mondo joe]

He's saying if you could get every uninsured person to fork over $10 a month or even $1 per year you'd have a pool of money to pay for the care for the uninsured.

[Scairp]

1. Hey!!!

Why didn't someone else think of that? I highly doubt that would work. You need a program to guarantee health coverage for both routine exams and catastrophic events. I think it would make more sense to regulate the health care industry. They get away with making health care so very expensive.

On edit: OH MY GOD!!! My 999th post! This is indeed a milestone for me as it has taken a long time for me to get here.

[wryter2000]

4. IMHO

Health care should be non-profit. No one should make a profit off health care. That would remove the greed from the system.

[wryter2000]

2. He was just a caller

No one in particular. Randi didn't think much of his idea.

[BlueEyedSon]

6. Randi has problems with new concepts.

No, really. If you want lots of airtime on her show, just regurgitate her rhetoric.

[K-W]

10. No, in this case its just a bad idea.

It wouldnt produce enough money to provide healthcare to the uninsured.

[BlueEyedSon]

11. Did you hear the segment?

Not only is it a good idea, it is inevitable.

[K-W]

13. Is the original post wrong?

The idea is that by spreading the cost out over all the uninsured, they could afford to cover the cost of medical care.

So even if this could produce enough money to solve the problem, which I highly doubt it could. Your telling me people average less than 10$ a year in medical expenses? Think about families with chilren.

But even if it could pay for it, all you are doing is putting the burden of paying for healthcare for sick poor people on healthy poor people. Excuse me if that seems a bit rediculous. We need universal health care, and plans that promise to solve the problem without the rest of society chipping in are bunk.

[BlueEyedSon]

12. HELLO? All her callers are callers.

What is your point?

[K-W]

14. He was destinguishing between guests and callers.

Why are you being so defensive?

[BlueEyedSon]

16. You know, some callers she absolutely FAWNS over

(usually if they just cover well-worn territory) and with others she plays dumb ("I don't understand what you're saying") or hangs up on.

Canada and most of the EU have heath care for all. It is inevitable that the USA will follow. The details are not terribly important.

[liberalnurse]

3. Repugs wouldn't go for that.....

They make more money by billing the uninsured at the highest rate....then turning them over to the credit reporting agencies....ultimately ruining their credit and ....the pay-off begins

If they want to buy a car or home.....preditory lending repugs pillage them; charging outrageous interest rates and use small print loopholes......

[BlueEyedSon]

5. Hey, slow-posting and not-too-attentive Joe

I think he was making the point that if you DID pool the risk of all the uninsured, the cost would be extremely small in comparison to other federal expenditures (for example, he suggested 4 to 5 billion.... compare that to $200 billion for Iraq).

BTW: next time some repub/rightwing bozo complains about unemployment and/or health insurance, ask him if car insurance isn't socialism. Maybe he wants to skip paying and incur the risk of a million dollar lawsuit...?

[punpirate]

8. Unfortunately...

... his numbers don't add up (let's ignore for the moment that the poor are poor because they don't have money). $10 a month for 41 million people does provide a pool of $5 billion, but that's a drop in the bucket for what's required.

Right now, the entire health care system in the US contributes approximately 15% of GDP. That's $1.65 trillion, or about $5900 for every citizen per year, or about $6900 for the 240 million insured, assuming the uninsured get no health care (not likely).

To provide care to the uninsured at the same level as the insured means an expenditure of about $250 billion. $5 billion won't make a dent.

The real answer is not for the government to subsidize the obscene profits of the drug industry, etc., but to provide a universal payer system that enables the government to negotiate best prices for drugs, services, etc. That ability alone would go a long way to paying for full care of the uninsured.

Cheers.

[BlueEyedSon]

9. The "entire healthcare system" includes a lot of really expensive

things, some of which are: 1) elective; 2) extremely infrequent (not to mention that 25% 0f the dollar amount you cite is spent on administration, not on care).

Remove Demi Moore's $100k plastic surgeries and my mom's $10k per session chemotherapy (times 10,000 each) and the real cost of BASIC healthcare is totally different.

A figure that may be harder for you to find is the total insured $ value, rather than the "industry sector" (I don't know it offhand either).

How exactly do those old Europe countries do it if it's impossible?

[punpirate]

18. Well, a similar level of care...

... including catastrophic, is available in other countries (and I doubt you'd want to do without the $10K treatments for your mother if she were one of the uninsured), and a lot of it comes down to single-payer systems being able to negotiate best prices, as I mentioned. Certainly, another part of it is administrative costs, as you mention.

Other countries do manage such single-payer systems with good results. However, I'm not saying that it's impossible--quite the opposite--it's very possible, but not with the system in place in this country right now. The system in this country has to change, and the US budgetary priorities have to change, in order to for the health care system to be fully inclusive.

Cheers.

[the Kelly Gang]

7. errr..I think it's called taxes and they already pay..perhaps if some

was diverted from Haliburton everyone could have health cover

[BlueHandDuo]

15. Let's see...charging people money to pool the risk...

...that's what insurance IS!

The guy is advocating nothing other than compulsory insurance!

I paid $11,000 out of my own pocket for periodontal surgery when I was uninsured. Nobody suffered the loss but me. He'd have had me paying an additional monthly fee for the privilege of taking responsibiity for my own bills?

I hate all stereotypes, including the one that says all uninsured people are deadbeats.

[BlueEyedSon]

17. Everywhere I have ever lived CAR insurance was compulsory.

What if health insurance was compulsory, with an exclusion for the poor/unemployed that was paid for by the state?

Imagine what you would have saved (at least in THAT calendar year) if you had coverage? Yes, you may have not come out ahead other years, but thats why pooled risk works!