The Great Healthcare Debate: Facebook Style!!

Recently, a FB friend posted a video of Ted Kennedy's passionate plea for universal health care.

I and many others weighed in with a whopping 77 comments.

One comment-poster in particular, whom I'll call John because that is his name, seemed at first to have some interesting devil's advocate points. He had done a lot of reading and offered multiple links.

And then I started following the links and found that they didn't say quite what he said they did.

And then I found he began to use this tactic on me.

What follows are the final dozen comments in this thread. (His comments are italicized, mine are not. Original grammar -- typos and all -- are intact for your amusement.)

Enjoy!!

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Insurance companies are being dumbly demonized to pass this bill, and anyone who looks a the facts has to conclude that Pelosi & company has been misleading the public. That's why they need to go on a fishing expedition to find something 'wrong' in the spending of insurance companies... because the vast majority of people are just fine with their insurance company. That's why they keep paying the premiums.

People keep paying premiums because they have to -- but choosing the lesser of two evils still leaves you steeped in evil: Ultimately insurance companies are asking for your money or your life, and they know it. And that's sick. ...

And as to the "contract" that insurance companies claim is violated as an excuse to cancel expensive policies -- do you really think it's fair to deny a cancer patient care because she was once treated for acne?? Or to deny a person whose weight was written down incorrectly by the INSURANCE AGENT who SOLD him the policy?? See http://www.pri.org/health/ira-glass-health-insurance1517.html

Carol; whose selling fear?
You wrote that insurance companies are asking for your money or your life?

Thus the dichotomy; our president is telling us that conservatives are selling fear while saying things like:
"What is truly scary, what is truly risky, is to do nothing..."

Yet, no insurance company can make me buy insurance. At least, not yet...

I hope you'll pause and consider this thought: You seem to be arguing that having to pay insurance companies is evil. Correct?
Then why would you be in favor of a law that is making insurance mandatory, and where if you don't have 'adequate' insurance, you pay increased taxes?
How is that not *more* evil, given what you've written?

"no insurance company can make me buy insurance. At least, not yet..."

Um.... do you own a car?

yes, Carol. I own a car.
But its not the insurance company that makes me buy insurance. Its the government doing it.

Now I presumed we were talking about health insurance.
You were arguing that having to pay health insurance companies is evil.
Right now, you have a choice as to whether or not you HAVE to buy it.
Given your stance that paying for insurance is evil...
Why are you in favor of a bill that would REQUIRE you to buy insurance, or be taxed if your insurance does not meet the government's minimum standards?

Tell me again where I said paying for insurance is evil?

"People keep paying premiums because they have to -- but choosing the lesser of two evils still leaves you steeped in evil: Ultimately insurance companies are asking for your money or your life, and they know it. And that's sick."

Granted, I did use the words "premiums" and "evil" in the same sentence -- but that comment, either in itself or within the greater context of everything I've written in this thread, cannot be logically interpreted to mean that I have been "arguing that having to pay health insurance companies is evil."

As is apparent to anyone with a grasp of the English language who is not sealed within an echo chamber of his own ideology, the "two evils" to which I was referring are:

(1) Going uninsured, risking the possibility of a catastrophic illness that could leave me destitute or dead; OR...

(2) Paying premiums honestly and in good faith to a morally questionable industry that may, at a crucial moment, deny coverage because I was once treated for acne, leaving me destitute or dead.

The evil is in the behavior of the companies, not in the exchange of money.

To take my words and jumble them to erect a strawman opponent -- at which you can then take seemgly logical shots -- is a dishonest, manipulative or weakminded tactic (manipulative if you know you're doing it, weakminded if you don't -- and dishonest, either way).

And this is not the first time you've done so!

To paraphrase Barney Frank: Debating you is like having a conversation with a dining room table ... only a dining room table is on the level.

"Ultimately insurance companies are asking for your money or your life, and they know it. And that's sick."

Carol; no one could read that phrase, nor the one that sets it up, without fairly coming to the conclusion that you were equating having to pay for insurance as being evil. For you to call my repeating of that phrase as a strawman argument isn't right. Stop blaming my ideology for your wording.
You equate being uninsured with being evil.
I don't.
You equate trusting in insurance companies as evil, because you believe that they are morally questionable.
I don't.
Insurance companies don't stay in business by refusing to pay out. If they did on any bit of a regular basis, guys like me wouldn't be buying in..
Moreover, the current administration wouldn't be trying to get people to buy into their program by suggesting that we could keep our insurance... because a lot of people actually like their insurance.

That's not to say that insurance companies are without reproach... but the knee jerk approach to create evil where there isn't any is, in my opinion, evil.
Insurance companies are making 3.4 percent profit. That's not going to keep me up at night.

John, you said, "no one could read that phrase, nor the one that sets it up, without fairly coming to the conclusion that you were equating having to pay for insurance as being evil."

No one?? Really? NO ONE??"

I decided give your claim a reality check and created an informal survey using my status update. I wrote the following:

"PLEASE read the following sentence and let me know which choice BEST FITS the meaning of the sentence: 'Ultimately insurance companies are asking for your money or your life, and they know it. And that's sick.'"

In creating the fairest possible choices, I did not add anything outrageous or unusual (other than your interpretation, which you do not see as outrageous) to see if ANYONE would agree with your interpretation within the context of other reasonable interpretations.

Incidentally, I have many conservative friends and family members.

The choices, and my reasoning behind each of them, are:

A. Insurance companies charge unfairly high premiums; (not what I meant, but something many consider to be true; this choice is a red herring).

B. Having to pay for insurance is evil; (your looney interpretation);

C. People pay high premiums even though they may be denied coveraged on a technicality because this is better than not having insurance; (This is what I meant when I wrote it, but which might not be clear out of context.)

D. The health insurance industry is corrupt, unethical and scares people into buying insurance. (This is not what I meant, but is a fair interpretation of that single sentence, out of context).

Over a dozen responses appeared over the following hour. Most people chose "C" or "D." NOT ONE PERSON CHOSE "B".

NOT ONE.

It would appear that my wording is not such a problem after all. If you doubt this, repost the survey on your own status in its entirety and see what your own friends think.

Your wording, on the other hand, has more than a few issues....

You wrote: "You equate trusting in insurance companies as evil, because you believe that they are morally questionable." And you stated this belief is a "knee jerk approach to create evil where there isn't any..."

It is not the trusting that is evil; it is the behavior of the companies that is evil (which you may have meant, but this is hard to tell from your poor wording).

You cite the companies' 3.4% profit (this is down from the 4% you cited earlier, but who am I to quibble?).

Well, OK, that's true -- but take insurance giant Humana's respectively meager profits of 2.2% in 2008. Their revenue was $29 billion -- that's BILLION -- with a "B"!!

2.2% of a whole lot of money is still a WHOLE LOT OF MONEY!!

But the problem isn't with them making money. It is that an average of 18,000 people DIE EACH YEAR due to lack of insurance (this is the uninsured, and people who are denied, etc.).

Indeed, the problem isn't the money, per se. Insurance companies could make 99% profit for all I care -- as long as people aren't dead or destitute (or both) as a result.

But for-profit companies are beholden to their stockholders more than they are to the lives of their clients who depend on them. And they employ a series of despicable tactics to make their 3.4% (but still multi-mega-million-dollar) profits.

This is a conflict of interest and results in, yes, tremendous evil.

You say: "Insurance companies don't stay in business by refusing to pay out. If they did on any bit of a regular basis, guys like me wouldn't be buying in."

Sure, for routine matters, insurance companies can be great (as long as you're not seeing the insane premium your boss is paying for your coverage). And for most people, we bump along pretty happy for years. Maybe forever.

But those of us with a conscience or moral compass can envision a time when catastrophic illness or injury MIGHT occur ... or we imagine the state of others who are denied coverage for cancer -- like the woman I cited in the PRI article above -- because they were once treated for acne.

In her case, her insurer did finally conclude that -- surpirse -- acne is not related to breast cancer.

But months of paperwork and unnecessary stress went by before her surgery was approved; her tumor doubled in size and her chance for survival greatly diminished.

For a list of other such underhanded tactics, go to: http://www.epi.org/analysis_and_opinion/entry/health_insurance_providers_find_ways_to_prosper_as_more_people_lose_coverag/
Do you really want an industry standard that allows your insurer to fine-tooth your application for a typo -- or, I daresay, a misused semicolon -- and rejects coverage when your life is at stake?

Well, that is the current for-profit industry standard.

Go Free Market.

And for those free-market true-believers who insist that profit is the only and/or best incentive for excellence, THINK AGAIN: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrkrvAUbU9Y

You have repeatedly said that I believe having to "pay for insurance is evil." I have not said or implied this.

You seem obsessed with this idea that those who favor health care reform don't want to "pay." This isn't our position at all, and if you think it is, you haven't been paying attention.

No one minds paying premiums that are reasonable -- as long as the coverage is delivered when needed. End of story.

You said, "You equate being uninsured with being evil."

Really? I equate BEING uninsured with BEING evil? Really? "BEING??!!"

If you really believe that I said or implied anything like this, then I hope your insurance includes mental health, because your projections are getting the better of you. You need help.

As such, I think it is best to follow Mr. Frank's lead and table this discussion.