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Re:The one HR benefit every startup should add by aangjie on Monday August 26, 2013 @03:51PM (#6279450)
Disclaimer: Am Indian, and have no detailed knowledge of US policies. From a summary of the replies to this one: I personally, would be willing to sign a forfeiture to the effect, if i am medically in a bad state and can't afford treatment, would be allowed to die. So it seems, there might be room for allowing people who don't want insurance, and neither penalty to sign a forfeiture.

Personally, my choice is dictated by an attempt to understand my body and live a fuller life and some of those attempts suggest to me that insurance is overrated in light of Bayesian reasoning. -- not to suggest i actually sat down and calculated, just a guess.

Re:The one HR benefit every startup should add by wpietri on Monday August 26, 2013 @07:35PM (#6280593)
It wouldn't be practical.

For example, consider what happens if, as is very likely, you change your mind. The doctor says, "It's cancer, but it's treatable." You say, "Oh, I didn't think this through, please save me."

Very few doctors could say, "Tough, here's some aspirin, GTFO." If they could, they wouldn't have chosen to become doctors.

Or consider the case where you're unconscious and dying. Do they save you, or not? They can't really know what it will ultimately cost, and the certainly can't know how much money you could raise.

Re:The one HR benefit every startup should add by e12e on Tuesday August 27, 2013 @02:29AM (#6281818)
I don't think "opt-out" is a good (or sound) idea -- but even if it was -- it'd be pretty hard to enforce: take an auto-accident. You shouldn't be delaying emergency help, just on the off-chance than one of the many victims might be an "opt-out". It would complicate triage for no really good reason.

Then there are things like contagious diseases; you would have to spend money enforcing some kind of quarantine in order to cater to the "opt-outs".

For all other cases, like most types of cancer -- you can opt out -- only you'll have to commit suicide (I don't advocate this either).

Re:The one HR benefit every startup should add by tomjen3 on Monday August 26, 2013 @05:09PM (#6279927)
The issue with insurance is simple. It is better to have a small, but guaranteed loss that you can survive than a huge, but unlikely loss that you cannot, even if the total cost of the smaller losses are more than the relative cost of the large loss.

That said the insurance system in the US is too broken and needs to be scraped.

Re:The one HR benefit every startup should add by mikeash on Monday August 26, 2013 @04:07PM (#6279549)
I think allowing such things would be a decent idea, but it seems like it would be completely impossible, politically.