Is Insurance just a big scam?

[GGT]

Is Insurance posing itself as a jobs program?

It's a huge industry. It has webs in all sorts of businesses and transactions. The insurance industry lobbyists have been able to convince legislators that health care means having health insurance, and that began in "free market" ideology like Romney's MA that adopted the Heritage Foundation's idea that health insurance IS health care, which led to Obamacare.

It's nearly impossible to own/drive a car without auto insurance. You can't get a mortgage without homeowner's insurance. And flood insurance has become a total fiasco. For all the complaints about governmental regulations, most things can be traced to the Insurance Industry and/or their lawyers and lobbyists.

Even Social Security is basically an Insurance program that doesn't follow actuarial rules, so it's no wonder people get confused about what insurance means when it's strictly described as a tax program.

And let's not forget that MBS was basically buying CDOs as Insurance products. It's easy to think the Financial crisis was averted by bail outs to Big Banks.....but somewhat harder to convince people that their Insurance companies are part of the Big Banks.

[Lewkowski]

No it isn't and the massive differences between things like auto insurance and health insurance means the scope of this thread is way too big.

[LittleFuzzy]

Is Insurance posing itself as a jobs program?

It's a huge industry. It has webs in all sorts of businesses and transactions. The insurance industry lobbyists have been able to convince legislators that health care means having health insurance

That wasn't the insurance companies, that was the idiots who insisted that universal coverage was more important than bringing costs down when the Obama administration made its big push for reform. People including posters like you (and Chaloobi), who ignored me when I insisted that if this went forward than there wouldn't be continued reform and the new system which enshrined the high costs would become even more resistant to change.

[EyeKhan]

... posters like you (and Chaloobi), who ignored me ...

Source please. Not that ignoring you would necessarily be wrong...

I recall believing that the heart of the ACA, the conservative market-based for-profit scheme tailor-made by Republicans, for Republicans, (and so ironically rejected by Republicans in an orgy of hypocrisy) was a bad idea. While it's clear markets do great things in a lot of ways, I don't believe they can 'fix' the twin problems of health care access and cost inflation without unacceptably screwing a lot of people. I've always supported single-payer and I believe it's a damn shame the public option didn't make it into the ACA. All that said, I do believe the ACA was about the only thing that could get passed, given the power/ money of the health insurance and provider industries, and that things are better with it than they were without it. The fiercely idiotic Republican opposition to the ACA, and the headlong damn-the-consequences rush to repeal it, are far and away more about sticking it to Obama than doing anything good for this country. Leadership at it's worst, get used to it.

Also, I don't think insurance is a scam. It's the socialistic pooling of resources by the community to help the individual who falls on unfortunate circumstance that they would not be able to deal with on their own. Adding some layers of profit-takers to skim off the pooled resources is dubious and leach-like, imho. But I'm sure you ding dongs here can justify it heartily.

[Dreadnaught]

We went wrong when we started conflating insurance with coverage. A typical example is how people rant and rave that birth control should be covered by insurance. An insurance company may find that a good idea, but mandating it basically socializes the costs of an elective medical procedure into everyone's insurance plans.

[EyeKhan]

We went wrong when we started conflating insurance with coverage. A typical example is how people rant and rave that birth control should be covered by insurance. An insurance company may find that a good idea, but mandating it basically socializes the costs of an elective medical procedure into everyone's insurance plans.

Everything about insurance is socialism, except when you set a for-profit leach on top of it. Its funny how people rant and rave against socialism, then have insurance pay for setting their broken leg.

[Lewkowski]

Everything about insurance is socialism, except when you set a for-profit leach on top of it. Its funny how people rant and rave against socialism, then have insurance pay for setting their broken leg.

That isn't socialism. Company selling to an individual is not socialism. Mandating everyone be in the risk pool on the other hand...

[EyeKhan]

That isn't socialism. Company selling to an individual is not socialism. Mandating everyone be in the risk pool on the other hand...

The concept of many people each contributing a little bit of money to make a big pool that those few in great need can draw from for help is socialist. Even when there's a company at the center that organizes the pool, and makes a profit for it's efforts, the concept is still socialist.

[Hazir]

The concept of many people each contributing a little bit of money to make a big pool that those few in great need can draw from for help is socialist. Even when there's a company at the center that organizes the pool, and makes a profit for it's efforts, the concept is still socialist.

Indeed, Lewk is under the mistaken belief that socialism is a system of government and government only. It's a much wider concept about how the economy should function and obviously the re-distributive character of insurance is deeply socialist.

[EyeKhan]

Indeed, Lewk is under the mistaken belief that socialism is a system of government and government only. It's a much wider concept about how the economy should function and obviously the re-distributive character of insurance is deeply socialist.

He even works in the insurance sector, doesn't he? That's ironic as hell.

[Veldan Rath]

No, as it is a voluntary process. Government forcing it is.

[LittleFuzzy]

Rath, lots of voluntary socialism out there. Look at communes.

[Aimless]

Indeed, Lewk is under the mistaken belief that socialism is a system of government and government only. It's a much wider concept about how the economy should function and obviously the re-distributive character of insurance is deeply socialist.

If anything socialism borrowed those ideas from policies that existed prior to and independently of socialism

[Veldan Rath]

I was aiming at the point that socialism is fine if voluntary. Government forcing you into makes it BIG S.

I should have been more clear.

[Hazir]

That s a bit of an odd notion; only because government does it a practise becomes bad?

[Veldan Rath]

In that I can leave a voluntary socialilzed program.

How is this hard to follow?

[Lewkowski]

Y'all seem to be forgetting that different people pay a different amount based on their risk. I'd be more willing to buy the socialism argument if everyone was paying an equal share.

[Aimless]

Are you under the impression that everyone pays the same amount or proportion, in a socialist system?

[Lewkowski]

Are you under the impression that everyone pays the same amount or proportion, in a socialist system?

No but risk based pricing of something like insurance is not governmental in nature. However if you removed risk based pricing and made it a government mandate to have the insurance than you do have socialism.

[EyeKhan]

No but risk based pricing of something like insurance is not governmental in nature. However if you removed risk based pricing and made it a government mandate to have the insurance than you do have socialism.

A. What's governmental in nature can be whatever law-makers say, so risk-based pricing could be part of whatever insurance program that is run by whatever government.

B. It's socialism with or without risk-based pricing and with or without a government mandate. You can't change that to feel better about supporting socialism. Insurance = socialism. You support socialism.

[Lewkowski]

A. What's governmental in nature can be whatever law-makers say, so risk-based pricing could be part of whatever insurance program that is run by whatever government.

B. It's socialism with or without risk-based pricing and with or without a government mandate. You can't change that to feel better about supporting socialism. Insurance = socialism. You support socialism.

"a political and economic theory of social organization that advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole"

You're just being asinine.

[GGT]

That wasn't the insurance companies, that was the idiots who insisted that universal coverage was more important than bringing costs down when the Obama administration made its big push for reform. People including posters like you (and Chaloobi), who ignored me when I insisted that if this went forward than there wouldn't be continued reform and the new system which enshrined the high costs would become even more resistant to change.

Hang on. I've been posting for years that health insurance is NOT health care. When Citizen Cain was still around, we had great arguments/debates about the relationship between employment and benefits. Especially in the auto industry, but also the public education sector, where the "legacy costs" for health insurance became expensive and eventually unaffordable.

The concept of insurance (using actuarial pools to lower the cost of risk and loss) is a good thing for many things, but it has its limitations. The for-profit insurance model is predicated on taking premiums and denying claims, or limiting/restricting care....which is antithetical to the concept that medical care should be available to everyone, regardless of their ability to pay.

IMO, the Insurance Industry has monopolized our Health Care Industry. What used to be blamed on Unions can now be attributed to legislators beholden to powerful lobbyists and campaign donors. And where is the medical community in all of this? Doctors and Hospitals have complained about "insurance companies telling them how to practice medicine". They don't like much government intervention (regulation) either, but continue to rely on government subsidies for their profits. So much for patient-centered care, huh.