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Forums Gatorsports Forums Politics A woman who's been raped? Good luck getting insurance.
Forums Gatorsports Forums Politics A woman who's been raped? Good luck getting insurance.|
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Heisman Gator |
So what?
So what? This has to be one of the silliest posts ever. And that is saying a lot on this board. Do you think someone with lung cancer cares about your sympathy? Just nonsense. They want health care. They dont want your sympathy. Where does your judgement end? Do people that eat meat engage in "risky" behavior less worthy of medical treatment? How about fast drivers? How about people who dont wear sunscreen? or sunglasses? Perhaps people who play sports are less worthy because of injuries?  And spur, how can you even compare health insurance to car or home insurance? Besides, why do you think car or home insurance is done well? Those are a crock too. |
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Head Ball Coach |
You seem to want to pull the argument in a different direction. My points are: 1. The circumstances described are certainly not implausible. Whether it happened once or a thousand times, I think this exclusion (excluding rape victims because they took HIV drugs) is wrong, at a moral level. You can debate whether corporations can be expected to behave in a moral way, but I think as a society for us to let this happen is flat out wrong. 2. The bigger point is that this is indicative of the current state - given the option to legally do so, insurance companies will exclude anybody that presents any sort of material risk. While you arguing that risk aversion is not bad, in the case of providing health care, from a societal standpoint, excluding risk is bad. Sure, we can have extremely cheap medical insurance, just allow them to exclude everybody who is "sick". Obviously that kind of defeats the purpose. The profit motive, including risk aversion, and the health and welfare of the population in my mind have some fundamental conflicts.
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Heisman Gator |
If you think minimizing risk is bad, then you shouldn't have a problem letting your insurance rates go higher so smokers, IV drug users and base-jumpers can pay the same rates you do. My point was, that it happened once can't be used to say that we as a society are allowing it to happen. It's by definition a statistically rare event and to make policy decisions based on rare events like that is extremely problematic. If it happened dozens of times, then it raises some warning signs. If it's stated policy, then it needs to be addressed. You guys are taking one or two extremely poorly documented anecdotes and running with them. Reading that article, I find the whole argument very thin. It's all completely based on hearsay and completely undocumented. Really, my initial post was simply a call for some documentation and statistics to back up the claims that this happens "often." So far, that hasn't been supplied. --------------------------------------------------- “A tenacious hold on trivial fact is the secret of my genius” - Agathon the Seer |
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Heisman Gator |
People who play sports should recognize they are incurring additional risks, and should be willing to bear additional costs. People who smoke should likewise be willing to bear additional costs. Rape victims should not. Nor should someone who grew up in the house of a heavy smoker, unless they themselves choose to smoke. And people who exercise regularly and work to cut their risk factors should get a break on their rates. --------------------------------------------------- “A tenacious hold on trivial fact is the secret of my genius” - Agathon the Seer |
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Redshirt Gator |
Totally agree. |
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Heisman Gator |
Sorry, but I dont think you are being reasonable. And your arguments are certainly not applicable to real world scenarios. How do you propose to monitor someone who "works out regularly?" Or perhaps someone who drives recklessly? Driving in a car is more dangerous than taking public transportation. How about someone who drinks alcohol? And by whose definition is something deemed "risky?" Yours? Mine? People at PETA? I eat meat. love meat. It puts me, on paper, at a higher risk of a heart attack. Your arguments seems strictly academic and are not in any way applicable to the world we live in. Government does a lot of things for the betterment of society as a whole. Healthcare needs to be one of those things. And if insurance companies cant do the right thing, then i'm certainly for government intervention. Regardless of how small some people think the problem may be. |
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Head Ball Coach |
You can test for such risk factors, via questionaires, medical history, driving history, etc. Life insurance companies do it all the time. However, the result can be somewhat arbitrary and unfair. For instance, life insurance asks about family health history of parents. Having a family member with skin cancer at age 59 could disqualify you from a super preferred status. Not a big deal with life insurance, because is not a fundamental need (people should have it, but its not like needing access to health care) You can test for cholesterol. That is mostly controllable, but there is a hereditary component. So it is very difficult to try to penalize people for controllable factors, because they are often only partially uncontrollable. Also, you are right, at a more fundamental level, so do we want to exclude people from the heatlh care pool because of controllable factors? Health care is already unaffordable for many, attaching greater premiums makes it even more unaffordable.
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Heisman Gator |
So you're ok with your insurance rates being the same as someone who's been driving as long as you and has had a dozen or so speeding or reckless driving citations. That's fine, I guess, but I'm not.
There's a whole array of behaviors that leave evidence in the real world. It's a fair bet that someone with a couple of DUI problems is more of a risk to have a claim filed. You can take any argument and stretch it to an absurdity, which is what you're attempting to do with the above examples. It's you who are making "academic" claims by invoking PETA.
No, government is one tool whereby people can try to accomplish together what they cannot do separately. If "we the people" choose wisely, our government will reflect that. Surely you agree that just because government does something, that doesn't make it "better." Governments have also been used to inflict harm on almost unimaginable levels.
So returning to my original point. "How big is this problem, and what degree of intervention is necessary to solve it?" No one has provided any support to the claim that this is widespread or that it can't be handled through a few small changes to the existing mechanisms. --------------------------------------------------- “A tenacious hold on trivial fact is the secret of my genius” - Agathon the Seer |
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Heisman Gator |
It's something we're going to have to work with, and there's no easy algorithm to go by, because it also butts up against a couple of seemingly conflicting notions of justice. On the one hand, we think people should be able to live as they choose. On the other hand masses of people choosing to exercise that right may mean an unhealthier society and cost us all more. Who has the right to tell Rick he must consume less meat? Why should my costs go up because others choose to indulge themselves in unhealthy or risky behaviors? What would we say to that rape victim if we found out she habitually went to bars and got drunk to the point of passing out - winding up in bed with people she didn't know? --------------------------------------------------- “A tenacious hold on trivial fact is the secret of my genius” - Agathon the Seer |
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Heisman Gator |
Honestly, I dont even know how to respond to some of this nonsense. You cant really be serious. You must be playing devil's advocate. In response to your previous response to me. You are only thinking of things that YOU think are risky. But that is not the entire body of risk. You think its absurd that meat eaters are at a higher risk for heart attacks and cancers than vegetarians? We should tax meat then, according to your theory. And what I say is that every person on this planet engages in risky behavior- even you. Should you be denied health care because of that risk? Or even pay more for it- when you may or may not be able to afford it? Poor people generally have poorer health should we tax them more because grocery stores dont want to open in the ghetto? As I said, your arguments are purely academic- and ones that, on paper, I would agree with. However, they are not applicable to the real world. At all. |
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Freshman Gator |
Eating healthy is expensive. Has nothing to do with opening grocery stores in the ghetto.WTF!
"No one in this world can you trust. Not men, not women, not beasts. (he points to the sword he just completed) But this... this you can trust." Father of Conan the Barbarian |
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Heisman Gator |
Yes, I am ok with it. I mean, I speed- i just have only been caught once in my life. I know plenty who speed. So really, you only want the people who get caught to pay more. Are you telling me you dont speed sometimes? I think we need a wholesale change in our thinking about insurance. Right now its all about managing risk in order to contribute to the bottom line of the insurance industry. Instead of making sure all people are covered when bad things happen. |
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Heisman Gator |
Absolutely eating healthy is expensive. But, honestly, you dont think that people in poorer neighborhoods have difficulty attracting stores, including grocery stores? This contributes to poor health. Dont believe me, do some online research |
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All-American Gator |
Rick, Did you go on one of those cruises that altered you mind? You are now on the far left spectrum of the mythical center. You are in GJ and Lboy level of leftwingness. |
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Heisman Gator |
Another argument taken to its absurd extreme. Generally, no, I don't speed. But if I do and am caught, I recognize one of the costs is potentially higher premiums. It's called being accountable for one's actions.
Managing risk will still be a huge factor, whether the government is somewhat - or wholly - involved. Or do you think taking out the profit motive will mean risk management isn't necessary? Of course it will be, or we'll still have runaway premium inflation. We'll just be paying higher taxes instead of paying the evil insurance companies. And yes, I'm ok with looking at taxing meat more to reflect the true costs, environmental and health, in producing it. --------------------------------------------------- “A tenacious hold on trivial fact is the secret of my genius” - Agathon the Seer |
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Heisman Gator |
We had a discussion on this awhile back at a forum sponsored by our church. There's really a vicious cycle that's perpetuated in some neighborhoods in the urban core that does indeed make it extremely difficult for the poor to access nutritious foods in the same way those in more affluent areas can. --------------------------------------------------- “A tenacious hold on trivial fact is the secret of my genius” - Agathon the Seer |
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Heisman Gator |
You seem incapable of distinguishing between risk that is willingly assumed, and risk that isn't. Your arguments lapse into absurdity when you conflate the two. Smoking and speeding are clearly completely an individual choice. Genetic predispositions are not. Living in a ghetto is somewhere in the middle. Your arguments imply that all risk is the same, when clearly it's not. Choosing to smoke or jump out of airplanes for sport isn't the same as living in a ghetto. Not everyone has the means to instantly pull themselves out of poverty, or even lower their cholesterol by 30 points. Everyone can choose not to speed, or jump out of a plane, or engage in IV drug use. --------------------------------------------------- “A tenacious hold on trivial fact is the secret of my genius” - Agathon the Seer |
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Heisman Gator |
Hardly an absurd extreme at all. And i'm all for accountability- but what you are asking is unreasonable and not workable. You are looking at "risk" from only your point of view. Who are you- or insurance companies, for that matter- to determine which behavior is risky and which is not. Forget speeding, driving itself is a risk as compared to other forms of transport. Are you going to charge higher healthcare premiums to car drivers as opposed to someone who takes the bus?
Well, like I said before: EVERYONE does things that someone else might deem unhealthy. Even you. So, this trite notion about "managing risks" is simply a way for some to believe that their shyt doesnt stink. And that they *and those people like them* shouldnt be impacted because of other people's "risks." |
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Heisman Gator |
The best thing I ever did for myself was to stop thinking in partisan terms. There are far too many people in this country who view themselves as Republicans/Democrats first and Americans second. I agree with cats argument on paper. But its just not a reasonable thing to do in real life. ALL OF US take health risks in life. Simply driving a car is a health risk. I dont have kids yet I pay my fair share of taxes for public education. And I dont mind it. We are living in a Society! The sooner we realize that last sentence the sooner we will come to an agreement about health care. Rant over. |
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Head Ball Coach |
I am somewhat dumbfounded by your last hypothetical. Not a typical cats line of argument - it basically questioning whether in certain circumstances rape victims deserve what they get. With health care, you kind of have to go one way or the other. Either you view health care as a collective/societal and moral obligation - kind of like we view education, and kind of like most of the rest of the world views it, or you view health care as an individual every man for himself responsibility. If you view it as a societal moral obligation - then trying to assign penalties and premiums to specific risks and specific behaviors gets very tricky, and arguably impossible to do. You can kick some people out of the pool based upon risk factors, but in doing so you will kick a few out that don't deserve it, assuming you think some deserve it, which is an arguable point in itself. While I don't disagree with the theoretical concept of assigning penalties to certain behaviors, from a practical standpoint I fall closer to Rick's position. You can't do it without having undesirable side effects. Also, from a practical standpoint, I don't believe that assigning some sort of monetary premium to health insurance will have that much of a behavioral difference to people anyway. In terms of trying to control costs by modifying people's behavior, I think you are going to get much more bang for your buck by changing the focus of doctors to preventative care as well ase encouraging a healthier lifestyle, and compensating doctors based upon positive outcomes. Other societies are generally healthier than ours, and most of them have some sort of single payer or highly regulated private health care, and their costs are less too.
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Heisman Gator |
No, it's acknowledging that behaviors have consequences. Past a certain age, we expect people to understand that. I would certainly tell my daughter, if she were engaging in risky behavior, that she was raising the probabilities of a bad outcome. If that bad outcome did happen, I wouldn't in any way make her feel she had "deserved" it. As a matter of fact, I would insist she understood she did not deserve it, because someone else also made a choice to attack her. Usually folks who've gone through something like that blame themselves to much. There is a difference, however, in "being in the wrong place at the wrong time," and consistently putting yourself in the wrong place and expecting nothing bad to happen. Part of being a mature adult is saying "no" to certain things, is it not? Warning someone we see putting themselves at risk doesn't give us the warrant to say "you deserved it," afterward. But if someone asks society to help pay for the consequences of their bad decisions, then society has a right to expect certain things as well.
The above is what I think is completely out of whack with the liberal view of these sorts of issues. If health care is a collective/societal and moral obligation, then that obligation has to go both ways. If society is MORALLY OBLIGED to take care of me, and I accept that obligation, then I have a reciprocal MORAL RESPONSIBILITY as a citizen to conduct myself in ways that do not put an excess burden on society. I can't help it if I'm genetically predisposed to a certain illness, but I can choose to live a healthier lifestyle. The problem is people want all the benefits of the reciprocal obligation to be cared for, without being willing to listen to criticism of their behavior. We are like over-indulged children who demand Daddy give us the keys to the car, then roll our eyes when he tells us we can't drink and drive. --------------------------------------------------- “A tenacious hold on trivial fact is the secret of my genius” - Agathon the Seer |
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Head Ball Coach |
As to the rape thing, I honest to God can't figure out why you are trying to use this example to make this point. It is absolutely absurd. So your point is that if you engage in more sex, you increase your probability of getting raped, and while that is bad, the rest of us should not have to pay the extra price of health insurance, because in the end the rape was partially your fault. Also, to the extent that if you take HIV drugs due to the rape, that was probably partially your fault anyway, and this may only happen occasionally, the fact that there may be some or even a few completely innocent morally pure women who get raped is just an unfortunate consequence. It really seems like you want to bring a old school fundamentalist christian morality into this, and it is really quite repulsive. Actually, this is more along the lines of some extreme views of Islam - stone or kill the rape victims, because they brought it on themselves. As to your second statement, I mostly agree, and i have said as much. We want to have it both ways. We want health care, we want it free, we want to consume as much as we want, and pick who we want, and have somebody else pay for it. You have articulated what I have been saying - but perhaps more eloquently. If you are going to have collective societal burdens, you have to have societal responsibilities too, and our current consumerism mentality somewhat goes against that.
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Heisman Gator |
Cats- I dont think you get what I'm saying.
I'm saying that YOU take risks with your own health as well. I dont know you or know what those risks are, but if you are honest with yourself you'd recognize it. We ALL engage in some sort of behavior that could be viewed by others as detrimental to our health. In your perfect world, we'd all be taxed (higher premiums) accordingly. Well, that is simply not feasible. Who decides which "risky" behaviors are worse than others? Do we have a responsibility to curb "risky" behavior? Perhaps. But the time to impart that responsibility is not with health care but with the raising of children. |
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Heisman Gator |
Interesting you consistently choose to frame the issue this way. Where did I say the woman in my hypothetical should be denied care or insurance, or should be punished? Where did I say "she deserved it?" Nowhere. What I do say is that a reasonably intelligent adult should be able to figure out that the probabilities of a bad outcome go up the more often she chooses to engage in certain behaviors. What I say is if you were to watch a movie of someone who consistently went to bars and got drunk to the point of passing out with men whom she didn't know, you'd be telling yourself "This won't end well." There was a good movie, based on a true story, starring Jodie Foster many years back about a girl who behaved exactly as I've described and was brutally raped and beaten. The defense attorney tried to make it sound like she had invited the assault. And of course that is completely wrong-headed. No matter what, that girl did not in any way "deserve" what happened to her. Her attackers were solely culpable. But it's also true that she engaged in a pattern of behavior that increased her risk. I remember a heart surgeon a few years back who spoke of an all-too-common kind of patient he encountered who would show up at his office at age 55 overweight, overindulged in alcohol and cigarettes and with a long-time sedentary lifestyle. When they were told they had cancer, or had suffered a heart attack the question was frequently "Why me?" We think cancer and heart disease are impersonal. But if we saw a 25-year old woman embarking on the lifestyle in my hypothetical, we'd warn her of the consequences the same way we'd warn a 25-year old man that a lifelong addiction to alcohol, McDonald's and Lucky Strikes would have bad consequences as well. No one deserves a heart attack, but if we're deciding between giving a transplant to someone who's chosen a lifestyle which, statistically speaking, led to that, and someone who may have been born with a bad heart, all other things being equal, I think we'd err on the side of the person who hadn't chosen that lifestyle.
My second statement, with which you agree, is consistent with the views you find so objectionable. We have a responsibility to live the best way we know how. And if we don't know how, we need to seek wise counsel to show us how. There's a great deal of freedom assigned to us and many choices we can make that fill that prescription, but there are some behaviors we engage in that clearly put us on the wrong side of things. And certainly there's a very wide gray area in between. I don't always make the best choices, even now, but I hope I accept the responsibility for the choices I make. --------------------------------------------------- “A tenacious hold on trivial fact is the secret of my genius” - Agathon the Seer |
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Heisman Gator |
Of course I take risks. Everyone does. Almost always those risks are taken in pursuit of some kind of reward. If I choose to take risks, I should be willing to accept additional costs if it can be determined my choices present additional burdens. There are some things, like smoking, that it's quite easy to assign as risky and to tax accordingly, both when people buy cigarettes, and in their insurance premiums. There are other things it may not be feasible to evaluate. And there are things that people have no control over, for which they shouldn't be penalized, that I agree we should all be willing be help bear. --------------------------------------------------- “A tenacious hold on trivial fact is the secret of my genius” - Agathon the Seer |
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Heisman Gator |
Well I guess we'll just have to disagree.
You've chosen some things that are sort of judgemental (like rape victims putting themselves in that position). Or even smoking or alcohol. I think most vices or "risks" are much more difficult to put a price tag. Married people are healthier than single people. People who take public transport are less likely to be injured than people who drive. I dont think health care is something that we want to start making those kind of judgements. |
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Head Ball Coach |
You seem to be arguing in circles on the rape thing. This thread started with the arguably objectional behavior of a rape victim being refused insurance because she was taking HIV drugs, as a result of the rape. First, you argue that no one has given you a relative frequency of such events, the defacto assumption being it is rare and unusual, and as such that makes it somewhat excusable. Then you keep arguing this risk argument about women putting themselves in bad situations, potentially resulting in rape. You even give a movie to provide a visual. So basically you are immediately jumped to the conclusion that the victim has been raped, and it is very likely, or at least plausible that her behavior contributed to the situation, and as such she has some responsibility in this instance. To me that is a pretty wild and arguably offensive assumption to make. You certainly could argue if women stayed home all the time, and when they went into public they covered themselves up in head to toe robes that they may be less attractive and lessen their chance at being raped. Certainly, by your definition, dating is a risky behavior, and incrementally increases a womans chance at bring raped. Technically, that may be true, if we never left the house we may be safer in some respects, but dating is a normal part of human behavior. I assume you bring this up in this thread for some particular point. Seems odd to bring it up for no particular reason. OK, yes, if you date, you may be more apt to get raped. But what does that have to do with the price of tea in China? So are you saying that charging rape victims a higher premium is defensible because they may be co conspirators in their negative outcome? If you do, then I vehemently disagree. If you don't, then I don't know why you keep arguing the point that dating and other activities may get you raped and the victim has to bear some responsibility for that. In all due respect, this is friggin Church Lady morality, and I am shocked we are getting this from you.
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True Gator |
[
I remember a heart surgeon a few years back who spoke of an all-too-common kind of patient he encountered who would show up at his office at age 55 overweight, overindulged in alcohol and cigarettes and with a long-time sedentary lifestyle. When they were told they had cancer, or had suffered a heart attack the question was frequently "Why me?" We think cancer and heart disease are impersonal. But if we saw a 25-year old woman embarking on the lifestyle in my hypothetical, we'd warn her of the consequences the same way we'd warn a 25-year old man that a lifelong addiction to alcohol, McDonald's and Lucky Strikes would have bad consequences as well. No one deserves a heart attack, but if we're deciding between giving a transplant to someone who's chosen a lifestyle which, statistically speaking, led to that, and someone who may have been born with a bad heart, all other things being equal, I think we'd err on the side of the person who hadn't chosen that lifestyle. [ Getting into who deserves what is dangerous territory, but in the case of organ transplants decisions are made based on a patient's medical history. I think most people would see a major difference between the rape victim and the heart attack "victim." We are well informed about the risks of smoking, etc. The dangers are evident. I doubt it is ever "evident" that someone is going to rape you or that someone could infect you with HIV. It is not a risk, like smoking, that one takes knowingly. That's one reason why it's a crime to infect someone else with HIV. The law tries to protect us against things we cannot completely protect ourselves from. |
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Heisman Gator |
Is drinking yourself unconscious in a bar with men you don't know considered dating in this country these days?I always just considered it stupid behavior.Sort of like walking through a high crime area at night flashing a wad of bills.
If the woman got raped it's true she didn't ask for it but like the guy walking through the ghetto in the dark it was probably not the smartest of moves.In either case you better hope the strangers you meet are nice guys. |
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Heisman Gator |
Thanks for cutting through my rhetoric for me! Used to be we learned from stupid behavior. --------------------------------------------------- “A tenacious hold on trivial fact is the secret of my genius” - Agathon the Seer |
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Gatorsports.com Forums Gatorsports Forums Politics A woman who's been raped? Good luck getting insurance.
Forums Gatorsports Forums Politics A woman who's been raped? Good luck getting insurance.