Sunday, December 09, 2007
(Somewhat) Shorter Me (on the Stupidity of the Man Date)
Let's see -- the reason we need to have a mandate to achieve universal health coverage is to avoid the trap of adverse selection: healthy young-'uns like me don't buy health insurance so sick people have to pay more so because insurers can't spread the risk around as much.
So the solution is to force healthy young-'uns to buy insurance to spread the risk. I.e. to force healthy young-'uns who don't have much money to pay even more for health care to subsidize the sick and elderly? And people don't get how that's politically and, well, just plain stupid?
We need some redistribution of wealth (representing the goods and services that the young and healthy have the energy to make and the old and sick don't) to the old and infirm -- we don't want to go back to the pre-social security days of old=poor (indeed, as I've been harping on, our current string of bubbles has been largely fueled by boomers, afraid of being poor in retirement, pumping the markets way too full of capital and placing too large of a demand on our system of monitizing things to provide investment opportunities). But saying we'll solve the health care problem by making healthy young-'uns, who often don't have health care because they can't afford it as is, have to pay for more expensive care to balance out the risks of insuring the old and sick?
Well, "you'll get subsidized" you say -- so then what's the point: why subsidize me to subsidize someone else's health care? Why not just subsidize them?
At the very least it's politically stupid. Any marketing person'll tell you the youth market is a key demographic because they are forming their brand affiliations that'll last. So the Democrats want to risk alienating the key 18-35 year old vote market segment by forcing them to pay for other people's health care when they can barely afford their own? Way to prove negative stereotypes about Dems. right folks!
What idiots!
So the solution is to force healthy young-'uns to buy insurance to spread the risk. I.e. to force healthy young-'uns who don't have much money to pay even more for health care to subsidize the sick and elderly? And people don't get how that's politically and, well, just plain stupid?
We need some redistribution of wealth (representing the goods and services that the young and healthy have the energy to make and the old and sick don't) to the old and infirm -- we don't want to go back to the pre-social security days of old=poor (indeed, as I've been harping on, our current string of bubbles has been largely fueled by boomers, afraid of being poor in retirement, pumping the markets way too full of capital and placing too large of a demand on our system of monitizing things to provide investment opportunities). But saying we'll solve the health care problem by making healthy young-'uns, who often don't have health care because they can't afford it as is, have to pay for more expensive care to balance out the risks of insuring the old and sick?
Well, "you'll get subsidized" you say -- so then what's the point: why subsidize me to subsidize someone else's health care? Why not just subsidize them?
At the very least it's politically stupid. Any marketing person'll tell you the youth market is a key demographic because they are forming their brand affiliations that'll last. So the Democrats want to risk alienating the key 18-35 year old vote market segment by forcing them to pay for other people's health care when they can barely afford their own? Way to prove negative stereotypes about Dems. right folks!
What idiots!
# posted by alberich @ 1:19 PM 
