[Skybird]

Originally Posted by SUBMAN1

So you are saying - you are forced to pay $3000 to $12000 a year (depending on age and health), or more before you can possibly get a job where you are?

Health insurance is very much obligatory here. If oyu are socially/financially weak (because for example you work a full job and interestingly still are not allowed to live by the wages for your full time job), you can be allowed to benefit from subsidies.

Do you even realize how much this costs an individual over here?

Only if the individual can afford to even have an insurance. How many can't right now...? Hint: very, very many, despite having several jobs and working 12 hours per day. Strange.

This is why many companies are looking to dump it - it is near unaffordable to them, which makes it truely out of reach for a normal person alone who has 'no job'. That is the most stupid idea I have ever heard!

So you tell me that employees cannot make a living - which includes to take care of health problems of themsleves and there families - although having a full time job? What does this tell about the structures and morals of the economy if a man cannot make a living and secure his future when being at high age - although having worked a regular full time job? Full time work should guarantee a living, and a safe life'S evening. That is the minimum by any humanistic standards, I guess.

Ever heared of the phenomenen of the so-called "working poor"? Unfortunetyl, it is in epidemic increase in Europe, too, but it has been an existing problem in the US long before.

PS. The forcing of it also invites the door to open for corruption. Bad bad idea.

So better have no health insurance system - instead of having a system and needing to accept the risk? The mentality of corruption and lobbying that distorts the market competition is not a problem of health insurances, but of the general spirit by which we run our economies. From this general economy trend it is influencing health insurances as well, amongst many others. Should we annihilate all economy, then? - I just said myself in my first answer that you should not repeat the mistakes we have made in europe: to allow bureaucracy and lobbies distorting the market by establishing monopoles. This is what makes our system more and more unaffordable for the national host, and pushes the costs upwards for the interests of the few who harvest the cream, and this is what you should better avoid. Lobbies and monopoles are always a betrayal of communal interest - for which the tax payer in the end has to come up and pay the extra costs. If there would be a revolution, monopolists and lobbyists would be amongst the first I would execute right in place.

PPS. If you already have a condition - just try getting someone to insure you!

Absolutely zero problem here - you have the almost free choice. Different with life insurances, but since health insurance is obligatory, the legal environment is such that you can freely choose the insurance organization you want. I must add that we have two types of such health insurance companies: public and private ones. With the latter, usually costing a bit more and more often raising their prices, it sometimes can be difficult, eventually, but most take you with handicaps but maybe with an increase in price. The public insurances take everyone. no matter the age and possible handicaps. I'm in an public insurance and must say concerning costs and service I cannot complain, and the price is adequate to my income. Currently having around 800 bucks per month (living in my own property, so no rent for my flat), I pay around 130 Euros for health insurance. In some years I will have around 3300 Euros, and will pay around 420 euros for health insurance. I consider this ratio to be fair and absolutely affordable. Also, there are upper limits anyway, beyond a certain income you do not pay more than the maximum allowed, I think some 700 Euros, I am not sure.

PPPS. I think you just ahve a disconnect from the American Health system - it is the best in the world, but that comes at a steep price.

I think it is a health system of formidable competence and capability - and is unaffordable for many, which is a shame for one of the richest countries on the globe. I see America as a country of extreme contrasts. You are well off there if you have enough money. If you don't, then it is the most brutal place in the western hemisphere.