However, the current "republican tea party" movement makes me want to stab myself in the eye. They're running around blaming Obama for the mess we're in... WHAT THE...? We're blaming big government but not big business? Why has the blame shifted from the banks, GM, Ford, Chrysler? Why are we not holding Bush accountable? How much LESS debt would we be in if we hadn't entered in a full scale war (this is not an argument for or against the war, simply a financial point I'm making)? THAT was not Obama. Obama did not control the market research GM, Ford, and Chrysler failed to do, which has caused a significant collapse in the auto industry. He did not control the auto industry that failed to put together the most OBVIOUS piece of economics together... when the price of oil goes up, people are going to try to buy less gas. I.E. more fuel efficient cars, buying fewer cars, and driving less. They should have seen that YEARS ago, and planned. The price of oil has been going up quickly and steadily for what, 9 years? It wouldn't have prevented anything for sure but it could have made life a little easier and less bankruptcy filled for some.
In addition I really dislike the american car maker's methods of manufacturing. Make as many cars as possible and sell them to the dealers and hope like hell they sell them. One of the main reason's Honda and Toyota have been so successful throughout this is not because they happened to make the smaller, more fuel efficient cars (it sure helped though, and was not a fluke. They've done better with research and development in the more recent years, in my opinion). It was because they made cars on demand. When dealers requested cars, they sent them. No excess inventory sitting around and wasting space and money.
Now.
The health care industry has been failing to provide adequate healthcare for years. According to the people who watch Fox News, the current health bill is going to "tax people who can't afford healthcare"
...
Really?
I need to do more research to verify this, but as someone who studied the healthcare industry (and worked for it) for almost a year, I am no expert. What I can say though, is the basic economics of healthcare and why it's currently failing.
Essentially it's gambling. As a healthcare insurer, you get together a large group of people, they all pay you a small amount of money and you hope you get to keep it all. But likely a few people are going to get sick, or injured, so you have to cover that with the money they paid you. But as expenses and costs increase, so does the premium the people pay to you. The higher the price, the more likely young, healthy people (who don't think they need it) are going to stop paying. As well as the poorer people. So because young healthy people are more likely to participate in risky activities, if they don't have insurance and get in a car accident or fall while mountain biking or horseback riding or what have you, they still have the right to care. And because poor people are less likely to take care of themselves (vitamins, regular checkups, etc.) they're more likely to go to the hospital when they're VERY sick (or dying), and someone has to pay for that.
Because neither the young nor the poor are likely to be able to afford the big bills, the hospitals have to increase THEIR costs to make up for what they lose in caring for those without insurance. So in turn the insurance companies increase their premiums to cover increasing costs, and more healthy people fall out of the pool.
What that means, too, is insurance companies are insuring fewer healthy people to help cover their costs of paying for the less healthy, they have to increase their premiums, or reduce the coverage.
I'll go back to why I said it's gambling. Casino's can only make money if the chances of winning aren't very good. Insurance companies can only make money if the chances of paying out on claims is also low. The fewer healthy people paying premiums, the higher the chances of a claim, and so they have to increase the premiums to cover the chances of payout.
Getting denied a claim, or having a $600 bill on stuff you assumed the insurance company was going to cover, because you followed protocol and sent in all the paperwork you were supposed to, week over week, getting "approved" to continue with treatment, only to get that $600 bill in the mail a few weeks later detailing all the costs the insurance company decided they weren't going to pay for, sucks.
So essentially the losers at the casino are the healthy people paying insurance. The more people who win/get sick, the less money there is to go around to pay out winners or cover other sick people.
So sick people get denied claims and the costs go up for everyone.
If you are a casino owner and you want more payouts, you have to get more people into the casino.
If you are an insurer and you want to cover more claims, you need more healthy people to pay into the pool to cover the claims.
Think about it this way;
With what I said above it seems like the healthy people are paying for the sick people to get better. Which is true, and right now the ones with insurance, they're paying a LOT of money. Those that have insurance though have a cushion against illnesses and injuries that come up, and if something bad happens, it's worth the money. BUT if more people were covered under insurance the premiums would go down for everyone.
I'm not going to argue for or against Obama's plan, but it's required to have car insurance for the same reasons as it should be required to have health insurance. It's for every individuals best interest AND for the greater good's interest. Whether or not Obama's health bill will achieve that I do not know, but just about anything is better than what we have now.
