What is the percentage of Americans who are trying to dump their health coverage to become uninsured

[ProSense]

People are fighting the bill because it only covers 96 percent of the population while pushing the mandate strawman and the jail claim. How many people are deciding to remain uninsured by choice? In other words, what percentage of Americans are going to opt out of coverage altogether? Everyone who has health insurance wants to keep it, but also wants the cost brought down. Those who don't have health insurance want it at an affordable rate. There is no group fighting reform because they don't want health care coverage.






edited typo.

[MadMaddie]

1. These are the questions that should be asked

and the Dems don't ask them. It would leave the Repugs with their mouths open...

[Tippy]

4. If anyone is doing this they must be repubicans.....

Dems wouldn't be that STUPID...

[dkf]

2. They don't dump their insurance, they just never get it.

Don't tell me you understood when you were young why you should get insurance because I didn't have a clue. I got it because my Mom told me to.

[ProSense]

5. They never get it, and hope to stay healthy, never use the emergency rooms and

really don't worry about the financial risks associated with catastrophic care. What's the percentage?

[emulatorloo]

3. Thanks for the Roston article.

Here is a politifact analysis on the same "issue:"

http://politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2009/sep/29/patients-first/conservative-group-says-youll-be-imprisoned-not-ha

[Hello_Kitty]

6. So what's the point of the mandate then?

Why do you need to mandate something that everyone wants?

I mean, unless there's something about it that will make people not want it. Like, perhaps, making it hideously expensive and not providing the service you promised to people when they need it, for example.

[sandnsea]

7. Ask Hillary

It was her stupid idea.

[laughingliberal]

8. Exactly! I think the mythical young, healthy person with plenty of money to buy health insurance

who chooses not to is just another reincarnation of Reagan's Cadillac welfare queen.

[Hello_Kitty]

11. That's exactly what it is and I've been saying that for months.

Not to mention the contraction in the following proposition:

1. Young healthy people need to be in the pool because they use very little health care.

2. Young healthy people need to be in the pool because they go to the emergency room all the time and use a lot of health care, and then stick the hardworking white people with the bills.

Which is it?

[treestar]

20. IMO you are talking about something you haven't learned about yet

and don't understand. Just like you don't understand the economy generally and how it works.

This mandate thing is benign, it just sounds bad and you let yourself go off on it before understanding it.

You'd be stressed much less by just learning first before going off in a panic.

[Hello_Kitty]

26. Oh yes, please tell me about the economy O Globalization Worshipper.

Regale me and others with how well NAFTA is working.


And then educate me on how stripping women of insurance coverage for abortions is a benign thing.


Pedantic ass.

[treestar]

30. Now you are just name calling

Which of course is a result of your lack of knowledge.

You really need to read up on things and learn how they work - you'd have a lot less to fear and would have less need to fear all those threatening foreigners.

[ProSense]

15. Because there maybe people who want to game the system

employer and employees alike.

Single payer is mandated coverage. Why is that?

[Hello_Kitty]

16. Ah yes

Those mythical Emergency Room Health Care Queens again. Wantonly and with gleeful abandon withholding their buckets of disposable income from the system whilst hard working Americans like Pro Sense are forced to subsidize their numerous trips to hospital for their ski accidents and coke binges.

Newsflash: They don't exist. I'm sorry to tell you but mandating everyone to purchase insurance will not magically reduce health care costs to nearly nothing. It may actually increase them because insured people use more care than the uninsured do. Edit for broken link: http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/full/hlthaff.w3.66v1/DC1

I'm fine with single payer being mandated coverage. It would be a relatively progressive tax that does not unduly burden the middle class and adults without children. I really find it tiresome when people like you pull this bait and switch where you make arguments that are essentially for a single payer system and then try to pretend that this bullshit corporate giveaway is the same thing.

[ProSense]

17. Who said anything about emergency room?

Also, if they don't exist, again answer the question: who is trying to opt out of coverage?

[Hello_Kitty]

18. The burden of proof is on you to prove that people will "game the system"

In numbers substantial enough to require a mandate, otherwise "the whole thing won't work!1!" You are the one who made the assertion.

[ProSense]

19. No the burden of proof is on you to explain the mandate strawman described in the OP

If no one is trying to opt out, why are mandates a sticking point, especially when single payer is mandated coverage.

People are using mandates to erroneously claim that people will be jailed. Yet no one can say who these people are who will want to opt out of coverage so much so that they are willing to pay a fine.

[Hello_Kitty]

22. Once again. Mandatory private insurance != single payer.

It just doesn't. You're using it as a red herring.

[ProSense]

23. No, a mandate is a mandate n/t

[Hello_Kitty]

27. And private insurance isn't single payer. eom

[AllentownJake]

9. !

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXbk37p9tM4

:party:

[rug]

10. What percentage of Americans cannot afford the mandate, subsidy included?

[Hello_Kitty]

12. Who knows? Depends on what comes out in the end.

Here's a calculator that you can use to compare the plans:

http://healthreform.kff.org/SubsidyCalculator.aspx

[ProSense]

14. What percentage of Americans can afford coverage now?

Aren't the subsidies based on earnings? If a person has no income, aren't they eligible for the full subsidy?

How are low wage workers paying for health care now? Fact is that people are paying the same amount no matter what they earn.

[happy2bhere]

13. Do you know if these numbers are accurate?

Crunched the #s, & it looks like by Jan/2010 I'll have health insurance for $80 or less/month.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6913410

I wasn't sure how I felt about the bill before, but if these number are accurate, it sure looks like it will help many low income folks get healthcare for free or close to free. How can anyone complain about that?

[Bjorn Against]

21. This bill does NOT cover 96% of Americans, it covers hardly anyone.

Forcing people to buy their own coverage is NOT the same as covering them. The claim that this bill covers 96% of Americans is a straight up lie, if this bill covered us then we would have no reason to buy coverage from the private insurance industry.

[backwoodsbob]

24. where does it say it covers96% of us

give a link please

[Bjorn Against]

25. I have seen many people repeat this lie today...

There are many people repeating this 96% figure today, some of them are willfully deceiving us and others have been deceived themselves and are simply repeating the lie without realizing that they were lied to.

All you need to do to know the claim is false however is ask the people who are making this claim if you can give up your private insurance now. If this bill truly covered us then we would not need to buy private insurance because we would already be covered. Providing coverage is not the same thing as forcing people to buy coverage now matter how much spin people try to put on it.

[ProSense]

28. Facts are not lies

CBO: "Under the bill, the share of legal nonelderly residents with insurance coverage would rise from about 83 percent currently to about 96 percent."

[Bjorn Against]

29. But this bill will NOT provide them coverage, it will only force them to buy coverage

And the CBO is making an awfully big assumption in assuming 96% of the people will be able to find a way to pay for health insurance.

[laughingliberal]

31. A great point!

Forcing me to buy overpriced private insurance is not the same as providing me with coverage. Likely, it will be some premium equal to our house note for a policy with high deductibles and a high cap on out of pocket expenses. I have seen nothing in the bill to bring the cost of premiums down. My husband and I paid $1200 per month for my COBRA until it came down to dropping the insurance or giving up our home.

[ProSense]

32. People pay for coverage it isn't free. n/t

[laughingliberal]

33. Save your condescension

I have always paid for my coverage in one way or another. Either by enduring the years of low/no raises due to my employers' rising costs or the out of pocket coverage for my COBRA. Free, I haven't asked for. Affordable would be good. I don't know about you but our finances don't allow for a $1200 per month premium. But Mary Landrieu has that same talking point-that people think the public option means free care. She's wrong and so are you.

[many a good man]

34. The 4% left uncovered are undocumented illegal immigrant workers

I didn't make that up but I heard it from someone who probably did. Why is there no outrage on this point?

:evilgrin: