Shit Ain’t Free

Stop if you heard this one before.  Stupid woman is shocked to learn there is no free ride – even from the government.

Ending insurance discrimination against the sick was a central goal of the nation’s health care overhaul, but leading patient groups say that promise is being undermined by new barriers from insurers.

First off, you cannot insure the sick. Insurance is a gamble. The customer buys a policy believing they will use more health services than they will pay in health insurance premiums. The other side of the insurance bet is the insurance company. They are betting they will charge you more than you cost them over the life of the policy. The insurance company is almost always right about that bet. Otherwise, they lose money and go out of business.

When you force them to insure people with known illnesses, they bake those known costs into the premium. If they cannot, then they find other ways to mitigate the costs, like not selling you a policy or jacking up the rates on the healthy. Like all gambling propositions, the losers pay the winners, while the house takes a piece.

The insurance industry responds that critics are confusing legitimate cost-control with bias. Some state regulators, however, say there’s reason to be concerned about policies that shift costs to patients and narrow their choices of hospitals and doctors.

With open enrollment for 2015 three months away, the Obama administration is being pressed to enforce the Affordable Care Act’s anti-discrimination provisions. Some regulations have been issued; others are pending after more than four years.

More than 300 patient advocacy groups recently wrote Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell to complain about some insurer tactics that “are highly discriminatory against patients with chronic health conditions and may … violate the (law’s) nondiscrimination provisions.”

Among the groups were the AIDS Institute, the American Lung Association, Easter Seals, the Epilepsy Foundation, the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, the National Kidney Foundation and United Cerebral Palsy. All supported the law.

Coverage of expensive drugs tops their concerns.

Sure it is. People like free stuff. Men who spend their weekends in bathroom stalls with strange men, contracting an incurable disease, would love it if the rest of us had to pay for their treatments. People who engage in risky behavior are more expensive to insure than people who play it safe. In a sane world, the risky pay more while the prudent pay less, but that’s not America. At the end of the piece we have this gem.

“People who have high cost health conditions are still having a problem accessing care,” said law professor Timothy Jost of Washington and Lee University in Virginia. “We are in the early stages of trying to figure out what the problems are, and to what extent they are based on insurance company discrimination, or inherent in the structure of the program.”

No, they have plenty of access to care. They are having trouble getting someone else to pay for it.  When you believe you can defy the laws of nature, deny the realities of the physical world and force everyone to pretend your fantasies are reality, you are a probably insane. Many of these people are insane or just stupid, but many are liars, who make money getting us to pretend that fantasy is real.

Many of these people truly believe their is an unlimited, inexhaustible supply of health care in the world. The only reason everyone is not dipping their cup into the well of health care is the mean old health insurance companies are guarding it. Like the hero who slays the dragon, these people imagine themselves slaying the reality of health care so everyone gets free medicine.

9 thoughts on “Shit Ain’t Free

  1. As GOBSMACKER correctly notes, higher level plans will likely cover these unusual conditions and related medications. The article also points out that Charis Hill is receiving her medication through a patient assistance program sponsored by the evil drug manufacturer. So much for being screwed over by the man.

    Charis Hill is most likely a product of the California public education system, right up through college. She thinks she is smart because she can read a HuffPo article all the way through, and can give the correct answer for numerous Trivial Pursuit questions. Yet she can’t seem to figure out that a cheap catastrophic health plan will not cover her rare debilitating illness. She also does not understand that it is her responsibility to manage her own illness. As this link to Drugs.com shows http://www.drugs.com/price-guide/enbrel, there are numerous options to help low income individuals afford drugs like Enbrel. But that requires effort, and less time available to demand that the local city council build more bike paths.

    Charis Hill, who probably works in a bookstore, because waitressing or cocktailing is too hard on her back, bought the cheapest insurance policy she could find/afford, and didn’t bother to read it. She just assumed the cheap policy would cover her rare spinal condition. I’m sure it was a saintly pharmacist, after 20 minutes of shrieking hysteria, who found the program that got Charis Hill the help she needed.

  2. “”” Even Bill Clinton, a transitional figure, who presided over the destruction of that working class core, understood that the nation needed a productive economy to loot. Barack Obama only understands the looting.””

    this

  3. You have to go way to the bottom of the linked article to discover that many of the alleged difficulties are addressed if only people would select the higher cost silver and gold level insurance plans instead of the cheap, bare bones plans they chose so they could avoid paying for their own health care.

  4. Charis Hill is a charter member of the parasite class that now rules the country. From birth to death she will take more from society than she contributes. She is a net drain on the national wealth. All societies have their parasites, but they are usually marginalized and controlled. They are now the reigning political force in America. Barack Obama was the first U.S. President elected by the parasite class. He won’t be the last.

    Previous Presidents, from FDR to LBJ, contributed to the growth of the parasite class, but were not necessarily beholden to it. The old Democrat coalition was not primarily parasitical. The working class voters that formed its core worked real jobs, and contributed to the system. Even Bill Clinton, a transitional figure, who presided over the destruction of that working class core, understood that the nation needed a productive economy to loot. Barack Obama only understands the looting.

    Almost everyone is a looter now. Giant corporations are primarily rent seekers. The monstrous media/entertainment complex contributes nothing. Companies like Facebook, Twitter, and Google are unprofitable Ponzi schemes. The education racket bleeds the state and Federal coffers dry, and produce “biking advocates” like Charis Hill.

    The rot has already set in; there is no reversing it. When you’ve got Tea Party “heroes” on the Republican side, like Ted Cruz and Rand Paul, coming down on the side of rioters and looters, and begging illegal immigrants to love them, you know its over. When you are reduced to begging for the looters’ scraps, you should just pack it in.

  5. “Coverage of expensive drugs tops their concerns.”
    Apparently the issues that make (actual) medical care/drugs, as well as the “redistribution” that SOME folks call “insurance”, so expensive in the first place, is not.
    Hey, I know, let’s make it mandatory.
    And document EVERY “loosely” related aspect.
    THAT’LL “fix” it!

  6. The stupid hippie chick’s name is Charis Hill. With a name like that you know why she is a stupid hippie chick. I laughed out loud when I read, that she believes that riding her bike helps alleviate her chronic and debilitating condition. Sure enough, further down, Charis Hill is described as a “biking advocate.” No wonder she can’t afford her medication.

  7. What the lunatics dont understand is that health care can only be rationed on either supply or demand. In canada the land of ‘free’ socialised health care it is rationed on the supply side – hence waiting lists, lack of specialists etc. Until ACA health care in the US was rationed on the demand side – sliding scale of prices for a variety of services and insurance. The lunatics simply do not get it. It’s not free and never was.

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