Response to Knotthead’s health care solution comment
Frank Knotts, a charter member of the FSP brain trust, has worked out the solution to the health care crisis. Mr. Knotts simply states that poor people should save their money better in order to afford health care and/or health insurance premiums. (LINK) He gives an example of how to economize: getting rid of his daughter’s cell phone.
This is brilliant. On a family cell phone plan, getting rid of one phone would save approximately $10/month. With this huge economization, bumps and bruises requiring medical treatment, prescription medicines, and life-threatening illnesses could be treated and paid for by these currently spendthrift poor people.
Thanks, Frank. Pure genius. As you point out, there is no health care crisis. Its those damn poor people and their insistence on remaining poor that’s the problem. Quick; call Hillary and tell her you’ve figured it out.
Well, I hate to be that guy (I’m lying, I love it), but frank’s post was pretty well-reasoned. He was giving the cell phone thing as one of several examples of things he could cut out as unnecessary before he took advantage of the government program. To me, this is not only brilliant, but financially and socially responsible.
If we stop abortions then we will have more children and more children mean
oh wait, nevermind
yes, take away the cell phones! $10 can buy like 40 juice boxes at Walmart
Sorry, Joe. Characterizing the health care crisis as a symptom of poor people failing to car-pool to their beach houses on weekends is bs. Frank’s reasoning that somehow the thousand dollar cost of a single trip to the emergency room could be paid for if $11/hour people would cut out the frills is just a bit ridiculous. The cost savings of Frank’s strategems (which in principal I agree with) simply do not come close to paying for health care or insurance premiums. The logic is flawed due to the huge disparity between the two expenses.
In technical economic terms, the way to get poor people to contribute more of their own expenses is to just have a bigger co-pay, not to have a moral crusade against poor people with cell phones and COLOR TVs.
Dis, that’s not the point that he’s making. He’s not saying that people who cut those things out can afford their own healthcare, but that people who haven’t made those cuts don’t deserve to get qualified for SCHIP before those that have.
The point that I’m getting out of his post is that he would try everything he could before going for the government aid.
Who would you rather receive help from SCHIP: the person who supports their family on $11/hour and drives 1 1980 honda or the guy who makes $16/hour with no kids and a brand-new Escalade?
That’s the real point, trying to get the aid to the people that actually need it, not to give to the people who can’t affors healthcare because of a $600/month car payment.
Joe, giving assistance to those who need it will always raise the question, “Who needs it the most?”
The problem is that you can’t spend the effort on making the distinctions that Frank believes would make a more “fair” system.
Furthermore, if we were able to jump in and make immediate, valid decisions on who was not deserving based on frivilous expenditures, should that decision, not matter how correct, affect the ability of kids to receive these benefits? For example, if the free school lunch program was denied to a kid because his dad financed a car he really can’t afford, would that make the kid any less hungry? In health insurance terms, would this valid denial make a sick kid any healthier? Frank’s discussion of ‘fairness’ is simply out of context.
Delacare 2008, orivate universal insurance for Delaware
Wellness Productivity Security
Everyone is in,
No One Is Out,
Eeveryone pays their fair share.