I pay my own insurance every month and am not looking for the government, you, or others to pay for me. I also carry a disability policy that costs $600 a year that pays me $4,000 a month in the event of a disability that will cover the costs of conrinued insurance, etc.
Some of us plan ahead and are not looking for the nanny state to take care of us.
And under Universal Healthcare, ... you would continue to pay your own insurance, as would everyone else,
...you'd simply be paying a whole lot less, because you'd finally get to stop paying for those who are currently uninsured like you're doing now. In addition, you'd actually
receive the coverage you've been paying for, if and when you eventually need it.
I'm not trying to be argumentative, I'm simply trying to express the differences that you will see.
I believe I'm qualified to make this statement having experienced both types of health coverage.
As a resident of Ontario, and automatic recipient of Universal Health coverage, I understand how the single payer optiion works in practice. As a performer in the Actors union, we also had additional health care coverage similar to what you currently have in the USA. It was a graduated system of coverage based upon employment. The problem with that is one year you received a certain level of coverage based on your income, and these levels of coverage rose & fell from year to year, based upon your income, or employment activity. You basically had to use it or lose it, which in turn drives up costs for insurance companies for procedures that otherwise would not get done.
What do you do if you have no cavities? if you do get a cavity... will you be covered when it occurs... maybe... maybe not? it would seem to me that it is when your income goes down, and you have a problem, that
THAT would be the time when you'd both want & need the coverage to be there, ...but under the current system, as it exists now... you perhaps wouldn't have it, at a time when you needed it most. So people use it, or lose it. One year, I actually had my teeth bleached, at a cost of $600, simply because I didn't know if I would receive the same level of dental coverage the next year. I had no cavities, but I had the coverage, so it was use it or lose it. Get as much as I could under the various levels of coverage in each healthcare category for that year. Under Ontario's universal healthcare, I don't feel the need to get as much as I can fit in in a year. i know it's there if and when I need it, so the only costs the system incurs, is when I actually need to get something done.
It was like one month a few years back. One of my colleagues in MLM freaked out because she discovered 2 days before the end of the month, they hadn't spent the $3,000 monthly expense account granted to both her & her husband, because of their positions. She came running into the office in a panic "David, we have to spend $6,000 in the next 2 days" If they didn't spend it, they would have lost it for that month, ...so of course... they found a way to spend $6 grand in the next 2 days, so they could get the $3K expense account each. Needless to say, we had a lot of MLM distributors at that rank that simply leased Mercedes, Jags & BMW's in order to fulfill their $3K per month expense account. I know one guy who leased a Harbourfront condo next door to me, in order to get his expense account. Because of a use it or lose it scenario, that company was paying each MLM distributor who had achieved that rank $36,000 /yr... in the case of husband/wife teams where both spouses ahad achieved the rank, it was $72,000 /yr, in expense accounts, over & above regular downline commissions. Whereas, if they'd simply agreed to cover or reimburse reasonable business expenses... they probably would have seen a lot less expenditures.
I think it's better to have it and not need it, ...than to need it and not have it.
