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klg
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Europe Learns from the US
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Jan 31 12:36 UTC 2006 |
Employers in the Netherlands are preparing for the new national health
care system that will legally require all individuals to secure a
minimum level of private insurance coverage beginning on January 1,
2006.
The health care reforms, under the Health Insurance Act of 2005, are
designed to achieve a number of objectives, including greater choice of
providers, better quality care and lower insurance cost through
increased market competition in a self-regulated market.
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| 96 responses total. |
md
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response 1 of 96:
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Jan 31 13:18 UTC 2006 |
Risk selection by the insurance companies is prohibited there -- i.e.,
nobody can be turned down for any reason, including pre-existing medical
conditions. They learned that from us, how?
"The further adoption of market forces in health care is not synonymous
with a USA style healthcare system. It is disingenuous to suggest so."
(www.civitas.org.uk)
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twenex
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response 2 of 96:
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Jan 31 13:32 UTC 2006 |
My ass.
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fudge
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response 3 of 96:
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Jan 31 14:22 UTC 2006 |
I think you mean "my arse!"
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gull
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response 4 of 96:
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Feb 1 08:59 UTC 2006 |
Well, the problem with private individual health insurance in the U.S.
is one of cherry picking and adverse selection. The way the game plays
out means that if you really need it, no one will sell it to you -- and
if the insurance companies didn't cherry-pick, it'd be ridiculously
expensive, because only the people who really needed it would sign up.
It sounds like the Netherlands is trying to get around this by
requiring the companies to take all comers, and also requiring everyone
to buy in. It makes some kind of sense -- the reason group insurance
works so well is because you tend to have enough healthy people in the
group to offset the sick ones, and making it mandatory should tend to
ensure this. (Single-payer is the extreme case of this, with everyone
in the country in one big group. On the other end, small businesses
have problems getting decent insurance rates because their group size
is too small.)
It'll be interesting to see how well it works. My gut feeling is that
when you reach this level of regulation, what you have doesn't really
resemble what we think of as a free market anymore -- it's more like a
socialized system that's been outsourced.
The main concern I'd have is that this might result in the situation we
have with cell plans, or the Medicare prescription drug benefit -- one
where everyone's offering a similar product, so they compete by
offering a huge array of confusing plans such that no one can really
compare them to figure out which is best. I think Scott Adams called
this a "confuseopoly."
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twenex
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response 5 of 96:
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Feb 1 09:35 UTC 2006 |
Well, the problem with private individual health insurance in the U.S.
is one of cherry picking and adverse selection.
That's the only way capitalist health "care" COULD work, which is why I agree
with you when you say that:
My gut feeling is that
when you reach this level of regulation, what you have doesn't really
resemble what we think of as a free market anymore -- it's more like a
socialized system that's been outsourced.
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klg
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response 6 of 96:
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Feb 1 11:55 UTC 2006 |
You are missing the point.
This is not about health insurance.
It is about at long last realizing the utter folly of thinking that it
is the state's responsibility to provide (even if it could) for
individual needs.
Socialism is a dead end.
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twenex
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response 7 of 96:
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Feb 1 11:59 UTC 2006 |
Whatever.
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keesan
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response 8 of 96:
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Feb 1 13:32 UTC 2006 |
So are individuals who cannot take care of themselves supposed to just go off
and die (unassisted, of course)? How about schoolchildren whose parents
cannot afford private tuition? Retired people who lose their savings in the
stock market?
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marcvh
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response 9 of 96:
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Feb 1 13:58 UTC 2006 |
Considering that the Dutch government is providing a need-based cost
structure, where low income households get their cost subsidized by the
state, this hardly seems like a stinging rebuke of the concept that the
state provide for the needs of individuals.
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richard
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response 10 of 96:
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Feb 1 15:35 UTC 2006 |
re #6 klg if an individual cannot provide for his own needs, if he is old or
sick or whatever, if it is not then the state's responsibility to care for
them, whose responsibility is it? Klg acts as if it is some crime to be tired
or poor or sick. Where's the compassion? What is the purpose of even having
a "state" if it is not to help its people take care of themselves? You act
as if our government should only have been organized for the sole purpose of
forming an army and nothing else
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nharmon
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response 11 of 96:
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Feb 1 15:40 UTC 2006 |
I consider myself conservative but not as hardcore as klg. I believe if
a person CAN provide for his/her own needs but chooses not to, it is not
the responsibility of the government to do so for him/her. On the other
hand, it is only humane to provide welfare for people who for whatever
reason beyond their control (medical, psychological, etc) are not able
to provide for themselves.
If a guy has an amputated leg, and only needs a prosthetic to go back to
work, give him a damn prosthetic Uncle Sam. Dont put him in a nursing
home for the rest of his life saying "arent you glad we are here to take
care of you?"
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richard
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response 12 of 96:
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Feb 1 15:44 UTC 2006 |
is klg against the state paying billions of dollars in tax money for the
lifetime of psychiatric care some of these veterans coming back from Iraq will
need? Some of these guys will never be emotionally stable again due to their
experiences. Is it "socialism" to take care of these guys?
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nharmon
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response 13 of 96:
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Feb 1 15:51 UTC 2006 |
No, it is not "socialism". In fact, I think it should go further than
that. If you are permanently disabled from an injury at work, you are
entitled to applicable medical costs AND 2/3rds(?) of your salary for
life. I'm not sure what soldiers who are permenantly disabled get, but
it should not be anything less than that.
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richard
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response 14 of 96:
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Feb 1 16:31 UTC 2006 |
Is the government paying for health care different from the government paying
for education? Is klg then against public schools, paid for by taxpayers that
kids go to for free? Is he against student loans for college? the government
pays for that too with taxes. If klg thinks people with no money have no
right to healthcare, he must also think they have no right to an education
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klg
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response 15 of 96:
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Feb 1 17:06 UTC 2006 |
y're getting hyterical . . They're getting hysterical . . They're gettin
I love watching it happen!
getting hyterical . . They're getting hysterical . . They're getting hy
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nharmon
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response 16 of 96:
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Feb 1 17:13 UTC 2006 |
> Is the government paying for health care different from the government
> paying for education?
Yes, but it shouldn't be. Let the government provide health care and
education for all children. Then once they become adults, they can pay
for it themselves.
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tod
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response 17 of 96:
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Feb 1 17:15 UTC 2006 |
Know what would make me happy? If those of us gainfully employed could
actually add our parents to our health insurance coverage. I'd be curious
what sort of impacts that would have on the state of emergency in healthcare
if folks knew that if they get their kids educated and through college then
they themselves stand a chance to benefit in their later years through
coverage under their willing children. Think about it...
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