I don't complain about the money that my wife pays for our insurance every month.
All i have to say is this: Most of us never will need insurance. But need it just ONCE, and you will be glad you had it. Example? My heart surgery. The bills are up around 130 grand. Plus the lifetime of meds I have to take now, which adds up to a big chunk of change every month. If i add up what my wife pays for insurance every month, which isn't cheap, it would take a heck of a long time for me to pay off just the 130 grand.
So yes, it's a pain to see it taken out of your check every week, but need it only once, and it can litterally save your life.
I don't trust "big brother" to take care of my health needs.

---

So let me get this straight, MassPackersFan. Because it's a "fantasy" to demand personal accountability from my fellow Americans, I should therefore subsidize their fuckups? That seems an extremely compelling reason to OPPOSE the kind of healthcare reform that's been proposed, not to advocate it. Why would I want to pay to help people ruin their own lives? Maybe less access to easy healthcare is exactly what they need to clean up their own stables.

My friend's dad has a saying: "Subsidize a behavior and you'll get more of it." I think that applies here.

---

I still think today's "great healthcare reform" debate is all centered on the wrong things. Sigh.

For those of you interested, check out this book. The author is probably our greatest living economic historian (and 1993 Nobel Laureate in economics). If two people come up with economic estimates, and one of them is Bob Fogel, IMO, assume Bob Fogel has the better ones.

Sorry, I can't figure out how to drag/drop the cover image from Amazon, so you'll have to follow the link. The book's name is The Escape from Hunger and Premature Death, 1700-2100: Europe, America, and the Third World.

http://www.amazon.com/Escape-Hunger-Premature-Death-1700-2100/dp/0521004888 

---

"Should"? No, you shouldn't have to. But you're paying for a ton of ER visits that cost far far more than preventive medicine. You're paying for massive operations and transplants received by very sick people who let their illnesses go unchecked or untreated. Right now we're subsidizing even more costly behavior - the abuse and misuse of the health care system.

---

It will only drop down if the additional people they are able to sign on offsets the lower profit per person. There is no reason for them to go lower.

---

My whole point with the investing angle was to question how a public option will keep from being a money pit. First it will still be facing the same medical costs as a private company, it will still need to have people run it like a private. It will need to have an office building just like a private. Where is that money coming from? You guessed it, out of our pockets.

But instead if they go after the cost angle, more will be able to be insured by private companies because rates will drop. When more are insured, the preventive care effect will start to lower cost, which again will lower rates, so more can get coverage and keep the snow ball rolling.

I am all for working to get everybody insured. Just not through a public option that will in no way be able to even break even on its own, which is one of Obama's promises. He did say that the public option will have to be self sufficient.

---

Do we have numbers on investment returns by health insurance companies, or is none of that public record?

---