<p>I have no problem with people getting discounts for phone service. Phones are considered a necessity for safety reasons, employment, etc. Phone booths are long gone so the ability of many to even access a phone is very limited. I’m sure there are abuses, but paying the Universal Service Fee on my phone bill isn’t something that I rail against.</p>
<p>“It is not like cell phones (with low cost prepaid service plans) are that expensive these days.”</p>
<p>They were just as inexpensive in 2008 when the previous administration started the free cell phone program. Before that is was just landlines and that program was initiated in 1984 during the Reagan administration after the break up of AT&T and then expanded and formalized in the Telecommunications Act of 1996. </p>
<p>It’s paid for by the telecommunications companies (not tax revenues) and administered through an independent non profit, not a government agency.</p>
<p>I love my DH, but sorry, I’m not dropping whatever I’m doing to cook something that he wants. He makes his own breakfast and lunch. I cook dinner 5 days a week and he cooks on the weekends.</p>
<p>He cooks a large batch of steel cut oats once a week so that he can have it for breakfast throughout the week. It would never occur to him to ask me to do it for him.</p>
<p>The free market is what we’ve always had. It has brought us the dysfunctional insurance system we have today.</p>
<p>Why wouldn’t we want that? Because private for-profit companies look at their subscribers as profit centers. They determine how likely you are to get sick, and price their product accordingly. If you’re young and healthy and employed – great. But if you’re sick or older or don’t have a job, that’s a bit of a problem. You don’t see that?</p>
<p>That is, it’s a bit of a problem for the individual who can’t get affordable insurance, or possibly can’t get insurance at all. And it’s a bit of a problem for the rest of us, who must pay for the medical care that uninsured people do get, usually at the most expensive facility, the ER. Of course, it’s a pretty sweet deal for the insurance companies, but they are really the only parties who benefit from the current system.</p>
<p>No, we don’t have a free market health care system, and won’t in the future. It is probably one of the most highly regulated (non-free-market) industries we have. A free market would mean we could shop around for prices for doctor visits and procedures, and the ensuing competition among providers for our business would keep prices down. As it is, we cannot even get a price quote for a procedure.</p>
<p>You’re wife is lucky you help out with house work and the kids.</p>
<p>I’m a SAHM. H doesn’t do any housework (not happy with that, but it is what it is). I always did all the kid stuff. I do all the shopping and pay the bills. I will give him credit for doing yard work. Most days he’s at work for about 11 hours. About twice a week, he has evening meetings so he won’t get home til late. He usually spends 1-2 hours at home responding to work e-mails he didn’t get to at work. If you count the time working at home and evening meetings, he works about 13.5 hours a day. So, as you can see, he doesn’t have much free time. Can’t wait for him to retire in a couple of years!</p>
<p>^That article is of limited value. Cosmetic surgery is not covered by most insurance, it is therefore “shopped” by its consumers, and as a result of competition, prices are relatively reasonable. Same for other types of health care like orthodontia. You can get a quote for the start-to-finish treatment by calling around.</p>
<p>I’m not arguing that our entire system will work on the free-market principles. I’m just saying it never was a free market and it won’t be in the future.</p>
<p>Actually, this is only partially true. And the fact that it is partially true creates the situation where most people want/need insurance to handle large unexpected medical costs, but many of the large costs are predictable enough on an individual basis that normal markets for insurance are subject to adverse selection (people wanting to buy insurance just before when they know they need something expensive).</p>
<p>Okay, you win. Poor people are obese because they are lazy, and don’t care about themselves. You obviously have no concept of what being poor really means. And really, when was the last time you saw Trader Joes in the hood?
For the record, I am not poor, but have worked in clinics most of my career. It’s very easy to sit in your mcmansion and judge others. The tone of a lot of these threads has gotten very hostile and judgemental lately. Must be nice to look down on people and judge them from your perfect world.</p>
<p>It is precisely because of direct governmental intrusion into the free market place that we have today’s system. Post WWII wage restrictions (mainly in the auto industry) were put in by governmental decree. As a result, employers started offering health insurance coverage as quasi ‘off the books’ compensation. Now, the ACA is once again causing employer behavior change.</p>
<p>Health care can not operate as a free market can not happen. Dr visits costs are meaningless in the discussion. People are not going to tolerate free market cancer treatment or free market liver transplants.</p>
<p>Here is the Heritage Foundations ranking of the worlds 10 most free economies- in order</p>
<p>Hong Kong
Singapore
Australia
New Zealand
Switzerland</p>
<hr>
<p>Canada
Chile
Maurtius
Denmark
United States</p>
<p>National healthcare is not a detriment to having a free market economy</p>
<p>dietz, please explain how an insurance company can make a profit on a sick person without charging high premiums. And if the person can’t afford the insurance, who should pay for his/her health care? </p>
<p>Bay, your posts speak to health care, which is not the same thing as health insurance. Please explain how an unregulated, profit-driven market will provide affordable insurance coverage to someone with an expensive preexisting condition, especially if that person is of modest means.</p>
<p>Yes, I know they do. People tend to forget that health care and insurance are separate issues; it is possible to get health care without insurance, but right now it is not very feasible because real prices have been inflated by patients who do not pay anything; by those who get discounts via insurance or Medicare, and by regulation and administration bureaucracy. I think it helps in these discussions to keep an eye on who is the consumer and who is the provider. The insurance company is neither of these, but is an optional facilitator of care.</p>
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<p>I don’t know; I didn’t claim that this was possible. I think you should be asking how people with pre-existing conditions can get affordable care, not affordable insurance coverage. If they can get the care then they don’t need the insurance. As it stands, the government (i.e., us) pays for their care to the extent that the afflicted person cannot pay for it. I don’t see that changing, do you?</p>
But, Bay, doesn’t everyone need catastrophic insurance? Surely that would never be “affordable” care for people of modest means, or even people in the upper reaches of middle class?</p>