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Add paragraph about socialism.

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Ethan Dalool 2020-07-11 16:36:47 -07:00
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voussoir.net/writing/complicated_topics/complicated_topics.md
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@ -45,6 +45,8 @@ Unlike the reckless skateboarders, people with expensive pre-existing conditions
Oh, and that's not to mention the practical arms race that occurs between hospitals and insurers, where the price of everything inflates so comically high that non-insured people don't stand a chance, certainly not those with expensive conditions. Once insurance becomes commonplace, hospitals can raise their prices through the ceiling because who cares haha the insurance will pay for it. And the individuals, because they're paying indirectly through their insurance premiums, and only encounter the hospital under bad circumstances, have little leverage. Oh, and that's not to mention the practical arms race that occurs between hospitals and insurers, where the price of everything inflates so comically high that non-insured people don't stand a chance, certainly not those with expensive conditions. Once insurance becomes commonplace, hospitals can raise their prices through the ceiling because who cares haha the insurance will pay for it. And the individuals, because they're paying indirectly through their insurance premiums, and only encounter the hospital under bad circumstances, have little leverage.
I know that there are people who oppose government-run healthcare because it brings the word "socialism" to mind. They'll certainly feel embarrassed when they realize that the entire concept of any insurance at all is based on the socialized distribution of risk and funds. Sure, government health insurance is socialistic and private health insurance is not-socialistic, if you need to draw a strict political distinguishing line. But practically, it's difficult to say the current free market of health insurance really does what free markets are thought to do. 49% of Americans get their health insurance [from their employer](https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/total-population/?selectedDistributions=employer), so they're stuck with their employer's choice of insurance provider and plan unless they want to go it alone. The other 51% are, I suppose, self-funding their insurance, or covered under government Medicare, or simply don't have any. It's only some portion of that 51% that's exercising their ability to shop around for insurances (which, again, have few legitimate ways of distinguishing themselves), but it's 100% of us that get caught in the pricing arms race and in-network hospital requirements; and it's the people with pre-existing conditions who deal with the anxiety of only maybe being covered.
REMEMBER: there's nothing more permanent than a temporary solution. It would be great we if could go back in time, to the moment the first private health insurance collective was formed, and say Hey no, start a movement for government-run tax-funded healthcare instead, or else we're going to wind up with a bunch of vaguely unique health insurance companies acting as proxies for the government's wishes under tight regulation except taking a privatized slice off the top of your bill every month [footnote_link]. But now every aspect of this system is so tightly intertwined, especially with regards to that pricing arms race, that it's easier for the government to regulate private insurers into acting like government bodies than to actually fix healthcare as a government body. REMEMBER: there's nothing more permanent than a temporary solution. It would be great we if could go back in time, to the moment the first private health insurance collective was formed, and say Hey no, start a movement for government-run tax-funded healthcare instead, or else we're going to wind up with a bunch of vaguely unique health insurance companies acting as proxies for the government's wishes under tight regulation except taking a privatized slice off the top of your bill every month [footnote_link]. But now every aspect of this system is so tightly intertwined, especially with regards to that pricing arms race, that it's easier for the government to regulate private insurers into acting like government bodies than to actually fix healthcare as a government body.
BUT, that's not what's on the ballots. You know what's on the ballots? "Should insurers be required to accept pre-existing conditions [\_] Yes [\_] No". Oh my god. If I say yes I'm allowing the government to get away with yet again lazily slapping more restrictions on private insurers instead of saddling up and creating a tax-based healthcare which is obviously what this is supposed to be, contributing to the decay I've described above, and encroaching on the rights of private people in private groups to do with their private money what they wish. And if I say no, people will die. BUT, that's not what's on the ballots. You know what's on the ballots? "Should insurers be required to accept pre-existing conditions [\_] Yes [\_] No". Oh my god. If I say yes I'm allowing the government to get away with yet again lazily slapping more restrictions on private insurers instead of saddling up and creating a tax-based healthcare which is obviously what this is supposed to be, contributing to the decay I've described above, and encroaching on the rights of private people in private groups to do with their private money what they wish. And if I say no, people will die.