Re:GE Woes Deepen as SEC Investigation Throws Wrench in Turn...
by chimeracoder on Wednesday January 24, 2018 @02:31PM
(#16225574)
You're right that health insurance isn't insurance at all. But to clarify:
> What we have is an aging payment plan. We're all gonna get old, and it's gonna suck, and be expensive, might as well start paying now: oh guess what, you are, it's called Medicare payroll tax
That would be the case if the following were true:
* If Medicare's operations were purely funded by tax money, and
* If the taxes people paid were proportional to their expected lifetime costs-of-care
However, neither of these are true. Medicare's reimbursement rates are indirectly subsidized by private insurers (who then pass those costs on to privately-insured patients in the form of higher monthly premiums and copays). And of course, the taxes are based on income, not risk profiles.
> What we have is an aging payment plan. We're all gonna get old, and it's gonna suck, and be expensive, might as well start paying now: oh guess what, you are, it's called Medicare payroll tax
That would be the case if the following were true:
* If Medicare's operations were purely funded by tax money, and
* If the taxes people paid were proportional to their expected lifetime costs-of-care
However, neither of these are true. Medicare's reimbursement rates are indirectly subsidized by private insurers (who then pass those costs on to privately-insured patients in the form of higher monthly premiums and copays). And of course, the taxes are based on income, not risk profiles.