Do people 'deserve' universal health care?

[steelish]

And even $1200/month on medical insurance is beyond many's ability to pay. That's basically a choice of paying the rent(or mortgage) or paying for health care for a lot of Americans.

$1200/month????

Whomever is paying that amount is a terrible shopper. As I've stated before, I pay barely over $300/month for myself, my husband and my son. That breaks down to a mere $100/month apiece.

[DuncanONeil]

The $1200/month was a surmised payment after losing employer funded insurance!

$1200/month????

Whomever is paying that amount is a terrible shopper. As I've stated before, I pay barely over $300/month for myself, my husband and my son. That breaks down to a mere $100/month apiece.

[Lion]

$1200/month????

Whomever is paying that amount is a terrible shopper. As I've stated before, I pay barely over $300/month for myself, my husband and my son. That breaks down to a mere $100/month apiece.

I always get different answers when I ask how much people are paying for health insurance. Can you tell me what type of coverage it has? (100% paid, deductable, limit, etc). Are you buying through some work health insurance program?

Curious to find out how much everyone else is paying.

[SadisticNature]

$1200/month????

Whomever is paying that amount is a terrible shopper. As I've stated before, I pay barely over $300/month for myself, my husband and my son. That breaks down to a mere $100/month apiece.

I'm saying someone has a condition that costs $1200/month to treat loses their job and their employer covered insurance. Because this condition is considered preexisting to their new insurance it is factored into costs and they can reject coverage or demand a rate based on this information. So while you, your husband and son might get a much better rate, this has little to do with your shopping skills, it has to do with the fact that insurance is an individualized product that factors preexisting conditions.

It must be nice to live in a world where in situations like this you blame the victim. You're basically saying they should be able to find someone to pay $1200/month in care for just $100/month if they just tried hard enough.

[steelish]

I'm saying someone has a condition that costs $1200/month to treat loses their job and their employer covered insurance. Because this condition is considered preexisting to their new insurance it is factored into costs and they can reject coverage or demand a rate based on this information. So while you, your husband and son might get a much better rate, this has little to do with your shopping skills, it has to do with the fact that insurance is an individualized product that factors preexisting conditions.

It must be nice to live in a world where in situations like this you blame the victim. You're basically saying they should be able to find someone to pay $1200/month in care for just $100/month if they just tried hard enough.

You never mentioned a "pre-existing condition"

Oh, and in America, by law, it is illegal to deny health care to uninsured people.

[SadisticNature]

You never mentioned a "pre-existing condition"

Oh, and in America, by law, it is illegal to deny health care to uninsured people.

Actually I did. The exact quote was:

This means many individuals lose their insurance if their company downsizes, and then when they try and get new insurance if they have a pre-existing condition they are denied coverage or quoted a massive rate. This is the case even though the condition did not predate their work insurance.

I've bolded the part where I said pre-existing condition in the original post, although it was not bold initially.

Also you might want to be precise on what the statement "deny health care" means. It is quite legal in America to let someone die of a terminal illness that would otherwise be treatable. What isn't legal is for a hospital to have a heart attack patient show up at their doorstep and refuse to treat them because of financial issues. You also can't have severed limbs reattached without first providing insurance information that checks out.

So I certainly disagree that in America it is illegal to refuse health care. A hospital can turn away someone with a severed limb as long as there is no concern about them bleeding to death. If there is they can treat the bleeding in the cheapest way possible even if it were to prevent reattachment of the limb and send them on their way.

That doesn't meet most people's definition of health care. And if it meets yours we probably need to have a discussion on what health care actually is.