I have a Republican friend that just had surgery and no Insurance and yet has no complaints

She is forty six years old and says she will have to pay from between fourteen and twenty thousand dollars for her operation. She had her gall bladder removed.. She says that if she had paid five hundred a month for twenty five years (since she was 21) She would be out $150,000. to date, this is the first time she has ever been seriously ill. She feels she has saved herself $130,000. so far. Needless to say she is opposed to a National Health Care Plan. She apparently is a gambler that gambles with her health and so far has been somewhat successful. She is self employed (an embroiderer). I was at a loss for an argument.

Never argue with an idiot- they will drag you down to their level, and beat you with experience.

they made a cost/benefit analysis, in concordance with their risk aversion, and it happened to pay off.

<they made a cost/benefit analysis, in concordance with their risk aversion, and it happened to pay off.>

Umm, no. It wasn't a cost/benefit analysis, it was, as the poster states, simply a greedy gamble. If she had been, let's say, in a car accident through no fault of her own, who would have paid? Not her, but the tax payers.

Also, she is just starting to get to the age where the medical bills start going up geometrically. Her gamble is facing longer and longer odds of paying off for every year she ages.

not analysis. you call it a "greedy gamble"

i stand by my analysis.

like i said, it is NOT a risk i would take.

YOu cannot control for cancer or car accidents, or any of the unavoidable tragedies that life throws our way. What she is saying is that she wants the benefits being in a civilized country but doesn't want to pay for it. She is a greedy tool but likely feels like she has gamed the system and is a much better person than someone who wants a public option, likely because she feels that their are lots of other people who don't deserve care (like colored folks, imigrants, the lazy, etc). It's the old puritan ethics in action.

She took a risk and it happened to pay off this time. She is relatively young. If there is not a public option by the time she hits her 50's (and the wheels start falling off her car) then she will find that she can't get coverage at any cost. And at that time I will still be saying that she deserves health care (rather than saying fuck her like she would be doing)

Gall bladder removal is a simple and cheap opeeration. If she needs anything bigger from a car accident or cancer or... then that $130K that she figures she has saved will be used up in months.

Idiots have LOTS of experience being idiots. It's about the only thing they do reliably, and well.

I think the irony is that once you have paid your premium, you don't have any money to actually pay the bill. The largest health insurance provider in our state only pays 80%. That still leaves a healthy 20% bill which in your friends case would still be 3000-4000 dollars.

Irony is, most of your medical bills will come in the last 2 months of your life. What can they do to make you pay that bill anyway?

"I" saved this by not doing that....

The costs of her not having insurance were paid by everyone else who has insurance. Maybe you should call her a Ronald Reagan Welfare Queen...

Typical repg logic.

I've never bought any car insurance beyond the required liability for over 50 years and never had a loss. If I wreck my own car I will still be big bucks 'ahead', so to speak. I don't see how that affects anyone else.
:shrug:

sorry...

Does she not deserve the same as the rest? If she gets sick and has to go on Medicaid or ask for some public handout then the arguments put forth here might have some merit. Since she pays her own way people seem upset over it...

meaning higher rates for all...the more people in the "pool" lowers cost. So everyone else will pay higher premium costs.

;-)

She obviously pays medicare/medicaid and paid her own bill.

I've paid for insurance for years, never used it really. Paid into medicare/medicaid for over 30 years now. I had the same operation she did without insurance and paid for it out of my own pocket as well.

What is the cost of her not paying money to an insurance company and paying it straight to her doctor and the hospital instead?

Higher rates for people who do use their insurance a lot?

The U.S. already spends more on health care per capita than any other nation in the developed world. Given that the U.S. has a relatively high population, economics of scale dictates that less money should be going into the health care system and you should be getting more out of it...

The system is a mess, and the HMOs, lawyers, and politicians don't want to fix it.

She must not have a problem with paying this particular "death tax."

Exactly does she need to leave anything to her kids? If they are grown and out in the world on their own they should be able to stand on their own two feet yes? A parent isn't obligated to do anything for their children past the age of 18.

like any economic decision, it's about weighing cost/benefit as well as aversion to risk.

this is why many young people choose not to buy health insurance, even if they can easily afford it.

1) youth, especially male youth usually have lower levels of risk aversion than average
2) the probability of necessary expensive medical intervention is much lower

fwiw, the insurance companies NECESSARILY take in more money, than subscribers receive in health care costs. just like ANY insurance company. that's how they make a profit.

so, in the aggregate, "investing" in insurance is a negative sum game.

however, since there is so much individual variation, it's too big a gamble for most people. because there is still a significant, if small chance, that you could have an illness (at any age) that wipes you out financially. this is an exact parallel with, for example car insurance.

or fire insurance on a house. the chance of my house cathcing on fire and sustaining any serious damageare TINY. less than .01% iirc. yet, the COST of such a fire would be devastating. so, even though it is near certain, that my fire insurance payments will be a net loss to me, it's worth it.

So she can pay the $20K in cash. That means she could have carried a major medical or catastrophic plan all these years. Being able to pay a $20K bill and being able to pay your own way are not the same thing. She could have a $100K hospitalization tomorrow, and who would pay that? We would.

I'm confused here...

Single payer doesn't mean we stop paying premiums. It means that the premiums are recalculated as taxes to the employer, employee, and individual (like SS is now) and paid into the Medicare system instead of into United Healthcare.

Do you think single payer really does have a snowball's chance?...I honestly don't although I favor it. I'm already enrolled in Medicare so I must admit to a little bias. To be perfectly candid, I don't know what to believe is actually in the various proposals, much less what will eventually come of whatever reform we end up with.

Even the insurance companies know this. They only fight single payer because they want to stay in and keep collecting the premiums as long as possible.

What is health insurance anyway? It's a building full of people who answer phones and plug shit into a computer which spits out checks or rejections. It's a company that takes your money and "invests it", aka buys something that is actually worth something, while giving you a promise in return.

It's not like these insurance companies are car makers, who would lose a gigantic expenditure in tangible equipment. Nope, as they go out of the health insurance business, they will simply fire a few thousand workers and close up some office buildings, that are probably rented anyway.

Meanwhile, United Healthcare will have become JP Morgan United Chase, because after insurance, the second biggest scam is banking. These people will do ANYTHING as long as it doesn't involve actually making a product or something dirty like that.

like i said, if i was single (and my employer already didn't pay for my insurance) and especially if i was younger, i would consider not having basic insurance. but imo, not having catastrophic insurance is too big a risk.

paying 20k would SUCK, but it would be doable. i have far more than that in cash reserves. i'm prudent like that.

but paying 200k would REALLY hurt.

and 500k would wipe me out.

and those are not acceptable options, even if extremely unlikely.

of course, as far as i know, there is no way to mandate somebody has insurance, although it's being proposed.

"of course, as far as i know, there is no way to mandate somebody has insurance, although it's being proposed.
"

You mandate it by converting premiums to allocated taxes providing the Single Payer insurance.

that would have the same effect as mandating it. iow, everybody (who pays taxes. and remember a significant portion of people pay little to none) would contribute involuntarily.

good point.

will work their way through to someone that invested in a philosophy of greed and selfishness.

A 21 year old female would be paying much much less than $500/month 25 years ago. I'd be surprised if it was over $50/month.

Also, I have a much younger friend who had to have her gall bladder removed and the bill from the hospital alone was over $30,000. Then there was the surgeon, attending doctors, and the guy that gave the anesthesia. She got the hospital to write of its bill as a hardship case.

The doctor billed about $4000 for my knee surgery. The insurance company paid about $1300 and that settled the matter. If I was uninsured I would have had to pay the entire $4000.

And we have no clue as to her buying power, how much money she has left over.
Or, per statements in other above posts, how much she is leaving her kids in the end, or even if she has kids, or is speaking to them if she has them.
And if I wrote I had friend just like her, but this friend was a Democrat, who preferred to NOT feed
greedy insurance companies who are now well known for NOT paying medical claims if they can get out of it, how would people feel about that?
Maybe this woman has enough money in an emergency fund to cover other emergencies.
That is not an unknown thing.
If I don't have a life insurance policy, does that make YOUR life insurance policy more expensive?

for it (future tense). Any outstanding debt affects your credit score. I don't care if she's a Republican, Democrat, Independent, or what. Taking a risk that your health needs will cost less than insurance, is just that, a big risk. What will she do, if there are other complications from the surgery or what would she have done if the problem had been cancer? She's 46 years old. I'm 61 and never used my medical insurance until this year when I developed cancer. Total costs so far $126,000.

On edit: If you have no dependents, then you don't need life insurance at all. However, there's no comparison between the two types of insurance.

typical asshat.

and the GOP fought social security and medicare back when that was a new idea.

We have such a culture of greed and selfishness unlike that of most other
developed nations.

She has two six head machines, two three head machines and a single head machine. All are completely computer controlled and the only thing her fingers ever do is change bobbins and fold clothes.

:shrug:

doesn't she realize that hardly any regular americans have 14 to 20 thousand dollars just lying around?!

surgery?

Has she perhaps been cheating on her taxes all these years? It doesn't sound like she's exhausting her savings with this bill.

BTW, without insurance I bet her bill will be closer to $50k. People with no insurance get billed a LOT more than insurance companies do for the same services.

I don't know if it's a PR thing or what. But when my insurance refused to pay for a favorite doctor, I called up to ask how much it would be if I paid it myself. It was $3 more than the old copay ($25) as long as I paid it on the spot.

they really stick it to the people who dare to come without insurance. Ask me how I know.

I got a staph infection that cost United Healthcare over $150K.

That's about $12000 I've paid to carry Health Insurance Benefits.
I've probably see a family doctor about 5 times a year at $20 a pop: $10,000
I have seen my Gynecologist once a year for 20 years for $30 a visit: $600
I probably see my Chiropractor 6 times a year for the last 10 years at $30 a pop: $1,800
I probably been to the Emergency room at least once every 2 years for the past 20 years at $100 a visit: $1000
I was admit once overnight to my hospital to almost have my appendix removed: $250 for the stay: $250
I did some therapy for about 2 years, seeing my Therapist twice a month at $30 a visit: $1440
I've had about 10 Xrays in my lifetime outside of Emergency Room visit that were $20 copay: $200
I've had 2 mammograms - FREE

I've been lucky, I haven't had any serious lifelong illness. I didn't include my nutrition, I have paid for that out of pocket thru a decent program they've used. I also haven't included my prescriptions, dental or vision.

But healthwise over 20 years I've put out about $27290 out of pocket expenses for my health care.

I'm lucky, I have a really good insurance program thru work. If I had the issues she had I would probably be out about $1000-2000 tops for those surguries ($250 co-pay plus there is always stuff not covered by insurance, so I'll over estimate to be fair.)

She's a dumbass to think she has saved any money. And it's not fair that we do not have coverage for everyone.

That $10k I've spent to see a family doctor about 5 times a year for 20 years. If I didn't have insurance that would have been over $100 a visit. And that means perhaps I might skip out on the doctor if I didn't have enough money to pay for treatment. And even though some of those visits, whatever it was might pass thru overtime, what if it didn't? Then I could end up in a hospital with even far greater bills.

Your friend is a dumbass - nuff said.

BTW, that "$500 a month" she has saved by not having health insurance - has she put that money into a savings account so it was available when a real crisis occured? Else she hasn't saved anything: she was just too cheap to take good care of herself. And perhaps if she had health insurance she could have followed up with the doctor as soon as her foot was causing problems and done preventive medicine that may have avoided costly surgery.

And did she actually sock away $500 per month, every month, since she was 21? If she had, then she would have saved even more than $150,000 with accrued interest. Considerably more if she had invested the money at a modest 5% annual rate of return. My goodness, she could be independently wealthy right now and never have to sew another stitch!

Now, let's see. She's 46. She just had a major surgery, and hasn't carried any insurance for a quarter century, so she's pretty much uninsurable until she's eligible for Medicare. She's got 19 years of riding bareback with her health. If she watches her diet, exercises regularly and vigorously, and doesn't get bitten by a Lyme disease-ridden tick, or get Hepatitis C, or contract MRSA, or stick herself with an unsanitary embroidery needle, or any of a thousand other scenarios that could compromise her health, then she'll be just fine.

But that's what insurance is supposed to do for you: Provide a hedge against a bad choice, bad planning or bad luck. I hope she doesn't get a post-op infection, and good luck to her. Because that's about all that's standing between her and a catastrophe that could wipe out 25 years of building her life.

Is that normal? I pay about $12/mo for mine.Which I never use, so I don't really know what I have exactly. I just know that the HR lady wouldn't leave me alone until I sent the forms in. hah!

yikes

I really don't know how screwed I am if I get sick with death or dead though. I really should stop being stupid though and see a doctor once in awhile.

I paid at that time well over $700. per month through Etna. The one and only time I needed it I ended up paying as much as my Insurance Company did after Deductable and co-pay.

I remember years ago my parents had to get COBRA and they were talking about the high price... It's funny how it works, when you're in a situation in which lower costs are really needed, you end up having to pay more.

I've had the opportunity to do done COBRA three times. Once, in 2001, it was pretty much the same as individual would have been at the time and was a tad better. I took it. In 2006 I quit a job and the COBRA would have been $900 for me, just me, no preexisting conditions. In 2008 I quit a job and the COBRA would have been $500 vs. $350 for the individual I eventually got, fairly comparable. This is all with the same insurance company.

COBRA was good when it first came out when they weren't trying to make money off it. $900 a month? For someone with 0 health problems? Hell, the $350 in 2008 included high blood pressure and a history of Lyme disease.

... is that your employer is paying the big bucks for you. If you had to buy the same insurance "all by yourself", you would find out what it actually costs.

For the self-employed, the costs are even higher than what a large employer pays to cover one of their workers.

health care premiums were about $100 a month, NOT $500!!!

So for several years, she would have paid about $1200 a year.

Gradually increasing to somewhere around what she CLAIMS she would be paying today.

Of course, her health insurer could have cut her off, and she would still have to pay for the operation, so she DOES have a point, private insurance companies MIGHT REALLY screw her!

That's an argument for health insurance reform.

She can continue to gamble, continue to be healthy for the rest of her life until 65, when the government will care for her, or she could get another illness next year and suffer for a while and die from it, penniless. The concept of health insurance she is missing is that NOT EVERYONE is lucky, and NOT EVERYONE gets sick. She can continue to play Russian roulette in this free country now, but she must remember what game she is playing, it's not a card game, it's a game where one's life and fortune is on the line.

When she was 21 she probably could have gotten health insurance for $10 per month. And she most likely would only pay $250 per month now for an HSA. But yes, she probably saved a little money.

If you don't give a shit what kind of society you live in, her approach is indeed correct.

Now she's got 19 years to go before she can start mooching off Medicare. I'd be curious to see how much money she "saves" until then.

Well, there are a hell of a lot of Democratic mooches I know personally.
:eyes:

was in the context of the republican friend.

:eyes:

what if she were suddenly diagnosed with kidney failure, any form of cancer or even injured while walking down the street by an uninsured driver. There are so many things that could threaten her health. She could slip on a banana and break a bone, etc.

I am glad she thinks she is ahead of the game and I hope she does not learn the hard way what a stupid gamble she is taking with her life as there approx 40,000 deaths each year because people have no health insurance.

Simply because she won a SINGLE hand after twenty years by no means excuses her ignorant, greedy outlook on things. The fact is that earlier in her life when she had only saved a few bucks by not buying healthcare she was equally as likely as any woman in her demographic to become injured or ill. Were that to have occurred, it would have been the public that picked up her tab if she would have received treatment. As a younger woman she simply bet with our money and won HERSELF a momentary benefit.

I also do not put much faith in the argument that this woman, an embroiderer, did a cost/risk analysis of her healthcare dollars over the course of 26 years. I seriously doubt that she had the skills to accurately or confidently deal with vagaries and swings of healthcare costs, alternative investment calculations and projections etc. In short, not only was this woman extremely selfish and wrong-headed in her outlook as written the OP, it is doubtful that she even had the most basic of analysis skills to make an educated decision.

Lastly, the game isn't over by a long shot!

Unless embroidery pays a whole lot more than I suspect it does, she'd be in bankruptcy court in no time.

bully for her! Unless she's cutting off her nose to spite her face.

I hope at least she tried to negotiate the outrageous charges that hospitals rack up for dispensing a Tylenol. My friend was able to get $10,000 knocked off.

one expensive gall bladder!

She lives in Juneau Alaska and had to be sent to Seattle for the first stage which required putting in a "stint" whatever that is and then flown home for a week before the operation which was done in Juneau and then she has to go back to Seattle for the removal of the "Stint" Medical care is far more expensive in alaska than in other parts of AmericaA

I mean, to 'save' 130K you need to actually have that money. I'm surprised an embroiderer could afford five hundred a month, actually. Big money in that line of work I guess.
For her argument to hold, she needs to be able to say and mean that if she needs a treatment she can not pay for, she will not want that treatment. Is she saying she has a lifetime limit that is her savings?
She really has 130K cash from sewing work?

would be that when you have a system like we do, where the majority of medical bills are paid by some kind of insurance, even those who chose to be uninsured are at a competitive disadvantage because insurance by its nature drives up medical costs.

Imagine a system where NO ONE has insurance - the cost of medical services would adjust to what the market could bear, i.e., what people could actually afford to pay. A simple gall bladder surgey would not cost $20K under such a system.

Instead, you have 'deep pockets' insurance companies paying all the bills, and the cost of medical services has spiraled out of control.

Now a pure 'free market' approach described above is not really practical because it does not account for those who cannot afford to pay even a reduced amount, and the best alternative would be a SINGLE PAYER system, which lowers costs in two ways - first, by spreading the risk over a larger pool than a private insurance plan, and secondly by removing the profit motive from private insurance.

There really is no 'good' argument in favor of the current system.

than I've put in over the past 16 years.

And, just because SHE got lucky, that means that the rest of the country should go without the protection of affordable health insurance?

I am not surprised she is a Republican. She certainly sounds very selfish.

She better keep her fingers crossed her luck holds out. She could be required to pay back EVERY dime of her 130,000 'savings', and be bankrupted to boot.

I don't know why you were at a loss for an argument. Expecting everyone to hope they get lucky and don't experience a medical misfortune for themselves or anyone in their immediate family is ludicrous.

Keeping your fingers crossed and wishing is an argument?

No wonder she is right wing.

$500/month, so her 'savings' is not that large.

And now she has a pre-existing condition, so good luck getting health insurance at age 46!!

How many of these $14-20K procedures can she stand? Even if she doesn't trip and break a leg in the years coming she may find a lump in her breast, get diabetes, or have a heart attack.

This loony logic would be like me saying that if I didn't have insurance on my house, I could have saved $30K over the years and when we had the recent lightening strike that is going to cost about $18K to repair we could have easily fixed it out of what we had saved. But what about next time? What about a fire that burns the house completely down? That's what insurance is for, the unknown.

Why don't you ask her why doesn't she go to Vegas to try and win enough money for her retirement. Maybe she'll get lucky there too and not need Social Security or Medicare.

Colonoscopies, mammograms, menopause related stuff.....

Now is when the expensive shit starts.

She is dumber than a box of rocks.

uninsured checkups and minor work REALLY add up...unless she's got some kind of sweet deal where it's a relative or family friend and she gets treated at a major discount...or unless she's really rich (are you sure she's just an embroiderer? didn't come into some lucrative business venture or a fat inheritance??)

either way, check in with your friend in 5 years...someone this casually careless with their health probably has a couple dozen brewing soon-to-be-chronic issues that will clean her out...and tell her just because she's been winning at roulette so far doesn't mean the rest of us can...

Hey, it could be the ONLY time!

:sarcasm:

Once you reach a certain age and your health declines it's pretty much a downward slope. This will not be the last time your friend ends up with medical bills.

Personally I'd prefer to gamble by having a high deductible plan ($2000 or $5000/yr out of pocket limit) rather than pay high amounts for a low deductible plan.

But what happens if she becomes sick long term? Then again, if that happens she'd lose her job anyway. And most people who get insurance get it via a job.

opposed to "national" health care.

Under universal health care, the person who has worked 25 years or more and contributed to their own "investment" in health care, can draw on the many years of their own contributions to pay for later year health issues. The people who pay years of premiums to insurance companies get bupkis for all their years of paying into the system. The day they lose their jobs, is the day they've lost all of the money they've paid into their investment, which then goes to "undeserving" others. Or it's been used already to line the pockets of CEOs who have nothing to do with them.

Once you insert the selfishness aspect, many right wingers see the wisdom of universal health care. Whenever I argue that point, rabid right wingers do a big double take.

a healthy 21 y.o. in my area could get a $5000 deductible plan for about $75 / month.

I don't argue with the save the money and invest it for future calamity -- as long as you have the income stream and a plan backing it up.