President Trump: The NEW one and only politics thread

People who have muddled the concept of insurance (when it comes to medical care) seem to have no clue that actual insurance = an entity (in return for payment of a premium) providing a guarantee of compensation in the case of a something happening. Insurance, as a business, only makes sense when you are insuring relatively low-risk events. The person who purchases insurance knows that the chances of a loss happening are low, but if it does happen, it will be costly. You pay a little to protect yourself from something way more expensive. The insurer pools premiums, profits a little. ... and most people will never need to make a claim.

You just acknowledged that nobody lives without needing medical care. Which is why the "insurance" thing has always been bullshit. Because to "insure" a high probability event (needing medical care). ... requires people to pay premiums that equal the actual cost of the thing they are going to likely need. There is no need for insurance -- your costs will be what they are and it is nearly guaranteed you will incur them.

What you are REALLY suggesting are transfer payments / an entitlement, not "insurance." Aside from the fact that it gets back to the usual conversations about entitlements and who pays for them. ... The bullshit surrounding this is exactly what has driven up the price of health care over decades. When you interfere with the care market, as Medicare did first, for example, and we have escalated to increasing degrees since then (including the ACA) by putting "regulations" on the market in the hope that you can create something for nothing (which is a BS promise), what you actually do is create massive inefficiencies that drive total costs up. It hasn't just been in the health care market. It has been other things. It has been in higher education, for example, You promise everyone a low-rate loan that gets subsidized. And you destroy the market with false demand that wouldn't have been there if people had to bare the costs themselves. Colleges can drive prices up, knowing that the government has created a price floor. Same thing with health care in this country -- and it has created a mess.

In the case of your "single system," you still have to pay for whatever health care people consume. Who pays for it? And on top of that. ... now you don't have a competitive environment (which is what really drives down costs), so you make it more expensive. In addition, people don't temper their consumption -- since in that world, Joe and Jane don't directly bear the cost. So why pay attention to the cost? It's moral hazard in a nutshell. And it is why when politicians tinker with these things, they fuck them up and drive up costs. I'd even argue that there is a good chance we would see less diabetes, less heart disease, etc. (things whose incidence have gone way up, but are the result of people not taking care of themselves) if more people really bore the costs of the medications, procedures, etc. that keep them alive.

Regardless, insurance itself (rather than this fantasy that you can take care of everyone and not bear the cost) would cover relatively rare occurrences. It wouldn't promise everyone a check up every year, their birth control pills, pregnancy screenings, etc.