Mandatory Health Insurance Is Urged (LA Times)

[Der Blaue Engel]

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-health15dec15,0,3412394.story?coll=la-home-local

December 15, 2004
Mandatory Health Insurance Is Urged
By Jordan Rau, Times Staff Writer

SACRAMENTO — The concept of requiring all Californians to carry their own health insurance is gaining momentum in the Capitol, as some lawmakers and healthcare advocates see it as a politically viable way to deal with the state's 5.3 million uninsured.

With the November defeat of Proposition 72 halting efforts to require employers to provide healthcare coverage, the concept looks likely to be part of next year's legislative debate. But it faces huge hurdles over how to make it financially feasible for the poor and enforce it.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has spoken supportively of the notion in recent months, and that has spurred the California Medical Assn., as well as some lawmakers, to draft their own plans.

"We have too many people that are uninsured in this state," Schwarzenegger said in October at the Panetta Institute in Monterey. "We have to really address this once and for all, and figure out a way of how we do it, like with car insurance, where we make it law that people carry insurance and that they are really insured, because it's unfair to so many people when you have people using the hospitals for emergency, and then creating a huge cost."

But healthcare experts say enacting what they call an "individual mandate" would be challenging. Requiring all Californians to carry their own insurance would have to involve some sort of subsidies for those too poor to pay the premiums — a difficult task for a state deep in debt.

<snip>

[bluestateguy]

1. I would have voted for Prop 72, but it was not the best solution

I favor a single payer, Canadian style system, funded through a half and half employer/employee payroll tax. Such a plan would actually be cheaper for businesses.

[idiosyncratic]

2. I carried my own health insurance for years until the premiums

went up beyond my means to pay for them. Someone in their 20's, or 30's might be able to afford their own insurance, but hit one of those demographic milestones like the age of 40, or 50, or 60 and forget about it.

I voted for Proposition 72. Mall-Wort and other huge companies like that should pay for their employees health insurance.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

14. Really!

Once you're over 50, all you can get is high-deductible insurance with high monthly premiums. No matter what, I have to pay $3000 out of pocket in premiums and deductibles before the insurance does me any good at all. And even then, it pays only 80% of expenses...that they choose to cover.

[Hand]

3. Well, that solves it.

"You got no health insurance? Well, GET SOME, girly man!"

Moran...
:puke:

[lastliberalintexas]

38. Well, we all know that the uninsured

are that way by choice. They can just move some money around in their portfolios to pay for coverage. :eyes:

[Sugarbleus]

49. LOL---->poor/lower income people's "portfolio" good one. n/t

[Mountainman]

4. Just legislate a solution and the problem goes away.

Next we should have a law that says everyone should be forced to have a home.

Now where is someone who can barely eat and pay rent going to get money for health insurance? I guess if you lock them all up they can get treatment in prison.

"Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?" E. Scrooge

[Der Blaue Engel]

9. My thoughts exactly

"And if they would rather die, they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population."

[Sugarbleus]

51. "Forced" to have a home?

My motto is that everyone has a RIGHT to shelter(if they choose it). Now, if they can come up with ways to help poor folks actually BUY (or long-term rent) an affordable home/dwelling in the city of their choice, I would be first in line. :9

[Spacemom]

5. Oh Great

It sounds like just another way to criminalize being poor. :eyes:

[Walt Starr]

6. So will people who violate the law and don't get health insurance

be sent to Health insurance prison?

[movonne]

19. What I see is if you do not have insurance you don't get treatment.

That means no emergency room help. So see what they have in mind.

[Walt Starr]

20. Ahhhhhh, so in other words if you violate the health insurance law

you get the "slow death" penalty.

[movonne]

23. Yes that sounds right.

[KansDem]

34. Yeah, "Death by Legal Rejection..." (eom)

[Sugarbleus]

52. Yikes...say it ain't so..... =o/

n/t

[depakid]

33. EMTALA requires that ER's take patients

until they are stabilized- although it doesn't reqiure hospitals to provide all necessary or recommended inpatient services. Of course, once providers undertake treatment, they have a common law duty- and breaching that duty by not providing an adequate standard of care subjects them to malpractice liability.

[SemperEadem]

45. why, that's not a pro-life stance!!!!! He's a rethug--they can't have it

both ways!!!

aren't we all supposed to be entitled to life?

We can't have right-to-die, they want to take away the choice to end pregnancy, but if you are too broke to afford insurance and you get sick, you can be turned away to die like a rat in the sewer? What kind of 1930's German-Austrian mentality is this? Oh yeah--he's Austrian by birth.

[Sugarbleus]

53. Don't confuss them with the facts!!

They get all shook up and frothy when you lay it out so clearly like that.

[depakid]

32. They already get sent to jail on warrants if

if a provider or debt collection agency gets a judgment and the person(s) fail to appear when they get noticed on a judgment debtor's exam.

I should also note that requiring insurance is one form of universal health care- it does make sense on a conceptual level, because if the proper safeguards are put into place, it increases the risk pool and lowers everyone's rates by taking in premiums from healthy people who are less risk averse and keeps insurers from cherry picking.

Of course, government sponsored singlepayer is probably the best way to do that efficiently- as it keeps administrative costs to to a minimum, cuts parasites out of the system, distributes premium payments more equitably according to ability to pay and takes the responsibility for healthcare costs of the backs of employers- leveling the playing field and increasing their comparative advantage against companies like Wallmart who essential steal from the system and against overseas companies (like those in Canada) whose workers aren't covered out of their potential profits.

[Tempest]

7. Mandatory insurance?

Can you imagine the size of the bureaucracy to make sure of compliance?

And how would they enforce it?

Stormtroopers?

[patdem]

8. The last line of one of my poems is "We'll prove being poor is a

punishable felony"...Well, they are setting up laws that make being poor a crime!! I saw this 12 years ago when ole Newt baby was putting out a 'Contract on America'...just takes time I guess!!

[MissB]

10. Require insurance? Yeah, that will work.

Perhaps we should first require that insurance companies not deny people coverage. :shrug:

[flaminbats]

50. Democrats are the majority in California's House and Senate

they have the votes to require that insurance companies don't deny coverage or impose higher premiums because of pre-existing conditions. They will also decide how much money is spent on the subsidies.

[sweetheart]

11. California has gone bonkers

There was evidence before, but this is really ridiculous.

I spent a long time living in my home state (CA) without health
insurance not being able to afford it... and no state law could have
changed that. I also drove crappy cars, so i only had to insure
the "other guys" car, and not my own, to save money for rent.

I'm all for universal healthcare, but this is really stupid.

[movonne]

22. They have gone bonkers since Arnie has become Governor..Just

another repub and repub ideas.

[freedom_to_read]

12. reminds me of the old Pope joke

The pope is in Calcutta, and as his pope mobile wends its way through the teeming, twisting streets, he is apalled to see legions of beggars and homeless.

Finally he can't take it anymore. Seeing a bone-thin 10 year old boy begging on the corner, he tells the driver to stop the popemobile. Then, over the protests of his bodyguards, he steps down out of the vehicle and walks on his own two feet to the urchin.

Looking at him with kind yet stern eyes, he touches the boy on the shoulder and tells him, "You must eat more!"

[Southpaw Bookworm]

30. roflmao

:evilgrin:

[Sugarbleus]

54. Bwahahahahaahahahahah!!

Hoo, boy!

[Lydia Leftcoast]

13. "Solving" the health care crisis by requiring people to buy insurance

makes no more sense than "solving" the problem of homelessness by requiring everybody to buy a house. :eyes:

[donkeyotay]

15. Why didn't anyone think of this before? Arnold's sharp.

Sure, having impending bankruptcy hanging over your head isn't a big enough incentive to make people want to buy insurance. Make it mandatory to buy something you can't afford. Makes perfect sense.

[Just Me]

16. Corporate-controlled socialism?

:shrug:

So, will people be fined if they have no health insurance,...or what?

[Bono71]

17. At first glance, this idea seems ludicrous...how can you mandate

a poor person to purchase health insurance?

However, if there are provisions added that would subsidize a vast moahority of the cost, then maybe...

[DBoon]

18. And how will they enforce this?

Will they throw you in jail if you don't carry a health insurance card?

Will they deny any medical care to you?

I get it - the problem isn't too little affordable health care - it is too many sick people.

If you throw all the sick people in jail, you will solve your health care crises

[happyslug]

26. While they set up a re-training camp

The sign over the Entrance will say "Work will make you Free" so you have a feeling that after you go through this camp your worries about health care will no longer matter. When you first enter the camp you will be directed to the Camp shower to prepare you for your re-training, retraining where your concerns about health care will no longer matter.

This will be the final solution to the problem of the un-insured.

[Mandate My Ass]

28. They've criminalized addiction and mental illness

diabetes, cancer and high blood pressure are next.

There's no social problem that a stretch in the hoosegaw can't cure.

[anakie]

21. and the problem with a government (tax payer) funded

universal health care system is? Oh I know. Not enough money to go towards the defence industry and Haliburton et al.

[Just Me]

24. Ding, ding, ding!!!! Good answer.

:bounce:

[Misskittycat]

25. Many people are medically uninsurable

so they can't get insurance at any price, even high deductible insurance. I fall into that category.

BTW, it takes very little to fail the underwriting guidelines of health insurers.

So you're back to the idea of a high risk pool for covering the medically uninsurable. We had that in California for a while, but there was a long waiting list and it cost a lot of money. Now, with the budget cuts, it's not a realistic option at all. I've been on the waiting list for over 3 years now; I'm not even sure if the program still exists.

[KayLaw]

27. Very silly idea

There are more reasons why it's silly than I can shake a stick at, but y'all have named several. You can't compare car insurance to health insurance either. Driving a car is optional. If you can't get insurance, you can at least take a bus. A simpler solution would be to eliminate the middle guy, the insurance companies, but that will never happen.

[pschoeb]

29. Paying for the right to be sick

That's one sick idea.

[sandnsea]

31. This is just priceless

Now they're going to blame sick people for having the audacity of wanting to live. Rich people refuse to give up this for profit health system, so now they're going to self-righteously point their greedy fingers at the poor and blame them for being too irresponsible to get insurance. I guess the wingers were right, I do hate this fucking country.

[Ready2Snap]

35. The machine speaks

" . . like with car insurance, where we make it law that people carry insurance and that they are really insured, because it's unfair to so many people when you have people using the hospitals for emergency, and then creating a huge cost."
Only a jack ass who festered in the world of suspended reality, playing a machine, could equate people and cars!

[Mandate My Ass]

36. It speaks volumes

Hi, Ready2Snap. Welcome aboard. :hi:

Only a jack ass who festered in the world of suspended reality, playing a machine, could equate people and cars!

Nah, I'm sure they value their cars much more than that. ;)

[depakid]

37. Only a person who understands that the concepts of risk pooling

involved are essentially similar is capable of making a clever argument that has the potential to advance the universal healthcare agenda.

[idiosyncratic]

39. I ran into an aquaintance today who pays $1472/mo. for insurance

Both she and her husband -- he just turned 50, she is in her late 40's -- have had some health problems lately and their premiums are $1472 per month. On top of that, they still have to pay 20% of the actual costs.

I said, "Some people's best jobs haven't paid $1472 per month."

She agreed, and was thankful they could afford the insurance, but gee, at those rates, . . . who can?

YIKES!!

How could they "mandate" all Californians pay their own insurance if that is how high the rates are?

[iamjoy]

40. I Think It Is A Good Idea

Health Insurance should be mandatory - but don't compare it to auto insurance, compare it to education. Everyone has to go to school from age 5 to age 16. Transportation is even provided. How do they make sure parents send their kids to school?

And who pays for it? The government, through our tax dollars. Theoretically, it doesn't cost the parents a thing for our public schools. Oh, I know there are "marginal" costs - paper, pens, notebooks, etc.

But of course, let Republicans run a mandatory health insurance program, and it will be punitive to the poor. I can see them garnishing the paycheck of some one making minimum wage the $500 a month for health insurance premiums. So they won't have a home, but at least they can go to the doctor when they get the pneumonia from sleeping on the street.

[bemildred]

41. Another desperately stupid attempt to avoid a public health care system.

Like every other advanced nation in the World has.

[thecrow]

42. My fundie rw brother told me recently that the US has

"the best healthcare system in the world" but lamented that his company was providing healthcare to the partners of gay employees "who run up huge medical bills because of their AIDS".
Then he went on to complain that he and his wife have healthcare premiums subtracted from their paychecks each month...

I sent him a report that put the US at #12 ranking against other nations in the world for healthcare. #12 !!!!!

This is amazing to me that the average * supporter thinks this way.
He would probably agree with Arnie because he is a Rethuglican.

[eridani]

43. Right, Ahnold, you asshole--

--and since they are uninsured, take a look at Senator Sheila Kuehl's single payer bill. That would take care of the problem right nicely.

[SemperEadem]

44. are the insurance companies going to be giving coverage

away for free? How does one who does not have a job pay for insurance?

this is not the tack which a xtian nation can take and remain satisfied with its un-xtian esteem. Didn't Jesus say something along the lines of "whatsoever you do to the least of you, you do that to me"?

[zann725]

46. What a jerk! So will people who can NOT afford Healthcare...

be forced to bleed to death in the street? Or will they be arrested for seeking medical care in an Emergency Room if they have no healthcare? I heard they are thinking about removing a large percentage of people from Medical...to make up some of the Budget deficit. These are the poorest people, most NOT by their own fault. They could be you or I, if we lose our jobs, and can't find a new one...in this plummeting economy.

Schwartznegger is really taking some pretty radical positions for someone so newly appointed. But then, he plans to soon change the Constitution to run for President. What else is new?

[Swamp Rat]

47. Isn't that remarkable! The Gropen Führer is the first to announce the

New Amerikan Eugenics program.

Sieg heil!!!

[flaminbats]

48. doesn't California have an insurance commissioner?

Why are we opposed to this? With everyone covered the premiums will go down, if not the Insurance Commissioner has the authority to cap them. If the Insurance Commissioner doesn't do this, vote for another candidate!

Unless this proposal allows insurance companies to impose higher premiums on the sick, a subsidized individual mandate would be an effective first step. Get real, supporting this doesn't make anyone a Republican!

[Sugarbleus]

55. Arnold is a weirdo but

Why couldn't we have a single payer healthcare plan?...NOT MANDATORY BTW.

Forcing it makes the plan weird but offering something where each person pays according to their ability/income(sliding scale adjustable when income goes up or down only) seems like a good start. In my view a plan should also cover medicines; and co pays, if any, should be very very low.

The heathcare program should NOT discriminate in terms of diagnosis or pre existing conditions. It should ALSO cover Optometry, DENTAL, and Mental Health. It would not have to cover "vanity" surgeries et al (unless they are for reconstruction from accidents, mastectomies etc.)

All "Insurance Companies", in their present incarnation, are such a rip off; extortionists all. THEY are the ones who need to bring down their fees; doctors and pharmaceuticals are right behind them on that.

If a state/national single payer plan was introduced, it HAS TO BE CHEAP especially if EVERYONE is contributing. None of this $1400 per month shit. Let the billionaires pay for theirs (out of their own pockets) if they like BUT everyone pays something into the system. The only persons who pay 0 are those who have 0 or very very low/sporadic income.

Ultimately, everything needs to be completely regulated, or to some degree; But then, that is only likely to happen, in "Rethug world", when Osama bin Laden becomes a Born Again Xtian televangelist.

'Twill be interesting to see where, when, or if the gropenator's ideas "go".