Socialized Health Care in the USA

[kandrathe]

You are assuming, wrongly I think, that the people who do not have health insurance don't have it by choice. It's rather difficult for someone with a minimum wage job (say $600 a month after deductions) to afford $600 to $1500 a month premiums. Your proposals seem intent on fixing the problems with those already insured -- they do nothing for those without insurance.

Actually, I don't have health insurance at the moment. I want it, but I'm choosing to make my house payments. I know what you are saying. The price of insurance needs to come down, and that will only happen when I can get a plan that is trimmed to cover only those things (like an accident or cancer, or something huge that I cannot afford to pay for) I need. We don't drink, we don't go to a shrink, we don't sleep around, and we won't get pregnant, and etc. If I needed to spend a couple hundred a month on some treatment, then I could afford to pay that out of my pocket, rather than make a claim on insurance.

Also, HCSA may be a good idea for routine medical needs (I don't think so, but for the sake of discussion . . .) but how would you address major medical expenses? Is it reasonable to expect someone to have between one and two *million* in a HCSA to cover the overall costs of leukemia? Especially if that person is a twenty something year old medical student who has never really had a job and (most likely) is already deeply in debt to finance his education.

Yes, you are right. HCSA wouldn't replace the need for some insurance that covered the more rare and expensive stuff. But, if you wanted to use your HCSA for pills, or shrinks, or health club membership, or birth control, then I don't have an issue with that either. It's your money, so people should be more free in using it on general health and wellness.