Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller for November 09, 2009

Give them time, I’m sure one of them will try.

Of course it’s a pre-existing condition! As soon as we are born we begin moving towards our own death! Fortunately, Life Insurance is not the same as health insurance, so the pre-existing condition clause does not apply.

Does not apply after two years!

How would he go about cashing the check?

All insurance is a scam. Life insurance doubly so. (with apologies to Douglas Adams - Thor rest his soul)

Wanna bet? They’ll say whatever led to his death was a pre-existing condition (such as being born).

Was he hit by a bus?

As I understand Insurance is only to pay off your house or certain things that you would be paying while working, not intended to be a windfall for your heirs. Hence, all the reason why it goes up after retirment and is not worthe keeping, right? Your house should be paid off and you should have accumulated enough assets if you played your cards right.

With private insurance it’s a gambling scheme. They bet you won’t, you bet you will. With the government option, they bet you will and you don’t even get to play. Just pay.

Funny thing about life insurance is that you’re betting a multi-(b/m)illion dollar company that YOU are going to die, and by issuing you a policy, they’re betting you WON’T.

I had to pay for my own health insurance for six months, once. $600 each month, for one person! That’s over $7,000. a year. For two people, it would be over $1000 per month, or $12,000 a year. A couple of kids? Double it again. Who can afford that, on top of everything else…?

WIldcard – not exactly – you’re betting a multi(b/m)illion dollar company that YOU will die this year, and they are betting that in the aggregate, statistics say that the majority of people making that bet won’t.

It really *IS* like gambling: even though occasionally a few people ‘win’ big, in the end, the house always wins….

Life insurance are just betting that you’ll pay them more than they’ll pay you when you die. So, if you die early, you win!

Good health is only dying at a slower rate…

Dracip, try $1154/mo with a $10,000 deductible for health insurance. For ONE person. I wouldn’t mind if I never saw a doctor bill but that deductible is insane.

This is not gonna be a day above ground for him is it?

Demons really do exist and they all work for the health insurance industry.

Private health insurance is a way to make a few rich people richer while you get sicker. A government health scheme, as found in most civilised countries, is a way to make the system fairer for all, not just for the rich. It is a way to take the gamble out of health care, where it should never have been in the first place.

The profit motive in health needs to be replaced by a caring-for-people’s-health motive.

Hey kumera Feel free to volunteer your time to the local clinic if you wish but keep your g_daned hands out of my pocket to pay for your health care.

Funny - in yesterday’s “Dilbert”, Dilbert is telling another person “Apparently you have a social disorder that compels you to insert irrelevant stories and trite observations…”

Seems a rather appropriate observation (for “Tsowa” , anyway)

1) Oxygen, n. A chemical element, that is corrosive, addictive, and fatal when inhaled. One exposure and you are hooked for life.

2) Insurance, n. A system of legalized gambling, wherein (life) we bet with the company that we will die before we pay in more than the company will pay out. In the case of health insurance, that we will be sick and claim more than we pay in. However, that game is subject to finagling, and recent experience bears this out.

HMOs were supposed to give an incentive for preventive medicine, thus keeping costs down. Denial proved cheaper.

OK, FLChiefFan, don’t pay for anybody else’s doctor visits. But don’t DARE complain when they pass on some dread disease to you because they couldn’t get preventive care.

“Medicare for all” is working in the rest of the world; how long is it going to take the US to figure that out?

Reminds me of a (originally a lawyer) joke. Q: What’s the difference between an insurance company and a hooker? A: A hooker quits screwing (I cleaned that term up) you when you’re dead.

pbarnrob, you unwittingly make the point of those who oppose this new government run healthcare system. Medicare/ Medicaid are already in place here in the US and apparently they don’t work because people believe they need something else.

The current thing in play is designed by several committees, with lots of help from Big Insurance and Big Pharma. In fact, if you look at the Senate bill, it was written by them.

Just expanding Medicare and Medicaid would work, and it would get us where we need to go. Small adjustments to what we know already works.

BTW, Medicare *is* a Guv’mint program.

pb, that’s my point. I too agree that expanding Medicare and Medicaid would work, and cost a whole lot less than starting a whole new bureaucracy which at least to me is the biggest objection most people have to the new initiative.