You have a totally misunderstanding of the health insurance in Europe and elsewhere outside the USA, I suppose.
Entry is not denied without a proof of insurance - the insurance card is no entry document - but you would have to prove that you can pay for the doctor's and hospital's bill.
People (in Germany) earning more than 60,750 €/year (gross income) can get insured at one of the numerous private health insurers ... or take the risk of not being insured. (There's no sourced data, the number of those vary between 80,000 and 200,000 - out of 82 million insured persons.)
People don't have to work to be insured, they just have to get money from someone, be it rent or pension or state benefits.
I don't know what other health insurers do, but mine gives me a bonus if I personally do something for my health at my own costs, and/or use the free medical check-ups.
Yes, it means that basically no one is just free to say no to health care.
As a non-native English speaker I'd thought, the term "mandatory health insurance" had exactly this meaning. But since we got used to it since nearly 140 years, I might have a limited view on this matter.
People don't have to work to be insured, they just have to get money from someone, be it rent or pension or state benefits.
And spouses and children are also insured at no additional cost, as long as they don't earn any money, or earn too little. Children are covered up to a certain age, which will depend on whether they are still in education or vocational training. Children who aren't able to care for themselves due to a disability can always be insured through their parents, no matter how old they are.
Our health insurances system is based on the principle of solidarity, so people who earn more money pay more than those who earn less, and healthy and ill people pay the same amount. This way, if people get ill, the costs of their medical care and loss of earnings are shared by everyone with that insurance.
So anyone can move there as a 'freelance artist,' 'journalist,' 'blogger,' or whatever and get free health insurance? That sounds like a recipe for anti-immigration sentiment.
It all sounds so friendly, but there must be strict requirements for how adults of working age spend their time. Somehow all the money being spent on health care has to be paid into the insurance fund. Otherwise, how would all those beneficiaries be able to get healthcare for free?
Likewise, it wouldn't be possible for people to choose to work less or retire early if everyone has to pay in for the benefit of everyone else who doesn't pay.
It's basically like a big corporation where you are forced to work for everyone else's benefit unless you are able to get an exemption in the form of disability or whatever.
I didn't say anything that those group of persons get their health insurance free. Sorry, if it sounded like that: they have to pay for it like everyone else.
I don't understand why a health insurer can regulate how the insured have to spend their time.
It's not the health insurer's business who long someone works be it per week or by age, Or where you are employed or if you work as a freelancer.
I shouldn't wonder that you claim something without knowing even the basis how the subject works. But I do.
So basically health insurance is a universal tax. You have to make enough money to pay your insurance, and if you run out of money because you're not making enough money, you have to go to work doing whatever you can to pay your insurance?
I don't understand why a health insurer can regulate how the insured have to spend their time.
Maybe not directly, but if everyone is required to pay taxes to the insurer, then people would have to make enough money to satisfy that tax burden.
With a non-mandatory expense, you have the option of severing your relationship with the company and not paying them anymore. It sounds like you are saying no one has that option to stop paying their insurance company, so there is no motive for the insurance company to lower their rates, is there?
Maybe not directly, but it is an effect of the market. Basically, the insurer is a form of tax-spend government whose spending drives up prices and which isn't disciplined by the prospect of clients severing their relationship to reduce their household expenses.
and I wonder why you don't see how these kinds of economic controls factor into a larger market of supply and demand.
No. It's no tax since insurance companies can't collect taxes here. It doesn't matter how much money someone makes
I don't either. And actually, no one else does, not the insured nor the insurers.
As said above it's not a tax and it has nothing to do how much money you make
You can change your health insurance any year and join one of the more than two hundred others, if you want to.
Since you don't seem know basically howour health insurance works, I sincerely doubt that you can draw conclusions without knowing the facts.
Every health insurance has a kind of elected parliament.
Well, of course, there has been a larger market when we still could choose between more than 3,000 insurance companies (actually, the number to choose from was a lot lower, since many were offering their services only locally or regionally) But think, more than 200 health insurance companies still gives you some alternatives. (I can choose my insurer from 213 statutory health insurance companies. - If I would earn more, additionally from 38 private health insurers.)
You're using a narrow definition of what constitutes a 'tax' to deny the broader meaning of taxation as mandatory expenditure.
I'm not using a narrow definition of 'tax' but how it is defined and used here.
I'm giving details and information about the health insurances and the health care system here in Germany. Thus, whatever it is called elsewhere doesn't change the situation here because it's regulated according to our system.
Similar with problems and/or discussions you have or might have in the USA.
livinglava wrote:If I get the same quality and amount of milk for less money from someone else, why not?Quote:You can change your health insurance any year and join one of the more than two hundred others, if you want to.
What if I was a bully who told you that you don't have to give me your milk money but you do have to give it to someone and the choice is yours?
livinglava wrote:In our system, health insurance companies (besides the private health insurances) always pay the lowest possible (European) prize. (In relation to the original drug, comparable imported preparations are often more economical and also cheaper.)Also, when you see something like insurance paying a lot for drugs or other costs that cost less elsewhere in the world, it leads you to question why you should be funding such unnecessary expenditures. If you saw that your insurance company was paying $10 a tablet for aspirin, would you be happy paying your premium every month? Maybe you would if you owned stock in the aspirin company, but if not you would not.
Driving a motor-vehicle is another example where other modes of transportation are lacking. Of course, you can argue that people are technically free to walk or ride a bicycle for many hours, but in some situations the distances and lack of public transit and/or non-motorized infrastructure amount to a practical driving mandate. That makes transportation expenses into a form of spending mandate, i.e. a tax.
Think in terms of a feudal system where the serfs have to render a certain amount of their harvest to the lord. The serfs are not free to hunt and gather, for example, or to farm only for their own food; because they are required to provide food to the tax collector.
As the partial shutdown of the federal government drags on into its 33rd day over Donald Trump’s demand that Congress allocate $5.7 billion for a barrier along the U.S. border with Mexico, the president unveiled a new rhyming slogan Wednesday to try to convince more Americans of the logic of his proposal.
Trump, of course, has long blamed undocumented immigrants for higher crime rates in the United States. “They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists,” Trump said of Mexican immigrants as he kicked off his presidential campaign in 2015.
On Tuesday, before his slogan had taken final form, the president pushed its central claim.
But statistical data does not seem to back the president’s assertions, notwithstanding a handful of notorious crimes by immigrants that he mentions repeatedly in his speeches.
A 2018 study by the Cato Institute, for example, found that native-born U.S. residents are much more likely to be convicted of a crime than immigrants in the country illegally.
A separate study published last March in the journal Criminology found that states with more undocumented immigrants have lower crime rates than those with fewer.
And crime has been falling steadily even without a wall. While the share of the foreign-born U.S. population rose from 7.9 percent to 13.1 percent between 1990 and 2013, FBI figures show the violent crime rate declined by 48 percent and property crime fell by 41 percent.
Of course, Trump’s claim of lower crime rates holds if one counts illegal immigration itself as a crime, but even that has fallen significantly. Figures provided by the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol show that the total number of arrests for illegal border crossings fell in 2017 to the lowest level since 1971. The Department of Homeland Security also estimates that undetected illegal border crossings have dropped dramatically in recent years.
What has risen over the past year is the number of people seeking asylum in the U.S., including many families with children, usually fleeing gang violence and crime in their homelands. And for the most part they are not trying to sneak into the country undetected; if they make it across the border they generally seek out Border Patrol agents to surrender to and apply for asylum. Last year’s dreaded “caravan” from Central America mostly headed for official ports of entry and wound up in camps in Mexico, waiting for their asylum claims to be processed.
Trump’s related claim, that a wall will stop illegal drug trafficking, is contradicted by evidence that most drugs are actually smuggled across the border hidden in vehicles at manned border crossings, or by air, sea or tunnels.
While Trump’s new slogan may not be backed by statistical evidence, it seems unlikely that the president will stop using it anytime soon. In fact you might expect to hear it at his next rally.
If I get the same quality and amount of milk for less money from someone else, why not?
In our system, health insurance companies (besides the private health insurances) always pay the lowest possible (European) prize. (In relation to the original drug, comparable imported preparations are often more economical and also cheaper.)
livinglava wrote:Correct: we pay car etc owners have to pay our "Motor Vehicle tax"Driving a motor-vehicle is another example where other modes of transportation are lacking. Of course, you can argue that people are technically free to walk or ride a bicycle for many hours, but in some situations the distances and lack of public transit and/or non-motorized infrastructure amount to a practical driving mandate. That makes transportation expenses into a form of spending mandate, i.e. a tax.
livinglava wrote:We didn't have such a system here. Our feudalism was a politico-economic system of relationships between liege lords and enfeoffed vassals.Think in terms of a feudal system where the serfs have to render a certain amount of their harvest to the lord. The serfs are not free to hunt and gather, for example, or to farm only for their own food; because they are required to provide food to the tax collector.
Actually, that's the most important reason that Germany became a united coutry only in 1871 and that a German nationality wasn't there before 1913: feudalism strengthened the many ecclesiastical and secular territories, so that the power of the various kingdoms, principalities etc did not reduce until the early 20th century.
Other relics from combination of the Roman clientship and the Germanic social hierarchy can be found in our main religion Christianity as well as in our law. And our road system.
Walter Hinteler wrote:If I get the same quality and amount of milk for less money from someone else, why not?
You don't get the same quality from any insurance.
Requiring people to pool their money together to make it easier for others to milk revenue from it results in a demand-friendly market that is ripe for greed to abuse.
What I am saying is that if you build a city in a certain way, driving becomes practically inevitable and that works like a mandate for buying and maintaining a car, fuel, parts, etc
What are your experiences with our insurances to come to this conclusion?
*In Germany, social law is an area of public law that requires the government to provide support and benefits to the population, thereby fostering social welfare, justice, and equality. These laws are defined in the "Social Code" (Sozialgesetzbuch (SGB)) and elsewhere. (SGB V: Gesetzliche Krankenversicherung ["Statutory Health Insurance"] SGB V [in German].)
