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What's a scam that's so normalized that we don't even realize it's a scam anymore? (lemmy.world)
submitted 4 months ago by to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml
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[โ€“] 0 points 4 months ago (4 children)

I mean, I agree with the first part fully, but I think what you mean is that we shouldn't have for-profit corporate run insurance.

Any socialised health care is a form of insurance---a way for us to pool the risk of large bad events, so that everyone (or a lot of people) pays a little so that a few people aren't totally destroyed by the catastrophe. The alternative to having insurance is that we let people die when rare but really bad things happen. We absolutely should have insurance, but we should all share the cost equally, or the rich should pay more, rather than a few people massively profiting from running the enterprise.

But, however we run it, we'll need to treat dental differently from medical because of what I said in my first comment

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  • [โ€“] 2 points 4 months ago (3 children)

    No forget insurance altogether. Socialized health care is absolutely not a form of insurance. That's not what any of those words mean.

    You might be thinking of single payer healthcare but that's not what I'm arguing for. It feels like you've got a very high school level understanding of words and are trying to discuss concepts without understanding the distinction and mashing things together. Just because things might have a few overlapping points doesn't make them the same thing. That's not how language works.

    A government run system, of which only two exist that I know of, the NHS and IHS (Indian healthcare system for native Americans), are not insurance. They aren't a pooling of risk, they're a taxpayer paid service. It's a complete flip from what insurance is. Just because they have to pool taxpayer money to fund it does not make it insurance.

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  • [โ€“] 0 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    What?

    Government funded and administered health care systems being a form of risk pooling and insurance are not controversial ideas. These are standard definitions.

    I'm not sure where you're getting these ideas. Why would taxpayer paid services not be a form of risk pooling? There are hundreds of countries around the world with government run health systems, or government funded and privately run systems, or private-public partnerships in various forms. Pooling taxpayer money to fund health care for those individuals unlucky enough to need it absolutely does make it insurance.

    I recommend reading the Wikipedia pages on "universal health care" and "health insurance" if you'd like to start learning about these topics.

    I'm an academic statistician who discusses risk and related concepts with experts every day...

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  • [โ€“] 1 point 4 months ago (1 child)

    And I do data analysis for a hospital chain (spent time today figuring out what percent of people in our hospital system are underinsured in different risk categories such as tobacco cigarette smokers and such). Your point about being a statistician means nothing.

    So you can calculate p-values big whoop. You're absolutely not using terms the way the average person does in my day to day in industry and conflating them. I've been all over those Wikipedia pages plenty.

    Try again.

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