What if buying coffee...

[uebermann]

was like buying insurance under Obamacare?

http://conservativevideos.com/2014/01/b ... obamacare/

Do you guys find the comparison of coffee to health coverage to be accurate? Really just curious to see if people agree that this is a valid comparison or not. This video is making its way around Facebook to my conservative friends and they feel its 100% accurate.

I didn't put this in the Lounge because I think this will probably get political.

[The Dude]

Coffee shops typically already provide customers with milk sugar, to go cups, etc at no extra cost. People who make no use of these offerings still have to pay the same amount as anyone else. A cup costs like $1.50. This is beyond stupid.

[Leviathan]

Yea I grabbed an extra 3 sugars at Starbucks this morning. It was actually pretty sweet (ha) because my drink was stronger than expected so I needed an extra sugar packet. Thanks Obama!

[Medius]

Obviously, if you apply the same model to anything, insurance or coffee, the result is going to be the same (you have to buy coffee, you have to buy things you don't need, etc..)

The bit about solving a problem that was created by trying to solve another problem is exactly right.

Where it diverges though, is that insurance isn't a one-time purchase like coffee. You don't buy insurance and receive a product. You pay in gradually to be paid out in large sums when events arise. When you don't put milk in your coffee, it is because you don't want it and absolutely won't use it. When you turn down a particular coverage though, that doesn't in anyway guarantee you won't actually need it. It also loses the nuance of pooled coverage. That is, to go back to the coffee analogy, say you don't want it with nothing. You want it with sugar. Rather than charging you for every sugar packet, they charge a generic rate that factors in the probability of how many sugars, creamers, whipped cream, or whatever else you might put in your coffee as well as the chance that you won't put anything at all in your coffee. So if the cost of sugar goes very high, you'll actually pay less as the cost is divided between all customers (this is actually the reality of buying coffee generally).

I could go on about how it would really have to be a "coffee plan" and how signing up right before you buy coffee for the entire office would cause issues, but it would take quite a long-winded response.

I'll just say that the ACA is a terrible concept, but this coffee analogy isn't why.

[The Dude]

Insurance isn't like tangible commodity...

As Bauce points out, the price of coffee already builds in people using milk or travel safe cups and straws into it, so you are already paying for it. That alone makes the comparison absolutely stupid.

Furthermore, people not buying coffee does not drive the price of coffee up (it actually does the opposite, it drives it down!). People using healthcare without insurance pushes prices up, not down. People are not consuming coffee and making others foot the bill right now ala ER care and such. Also, people are not being denied access to coffee because they have lupus and the coffee establishment doesn't want to provide it to them.

I can't even argue the video is too simplistic. It's just stupid.

[gla22]

As big as a f*ck up Obamacare is turning out to be by the logic of that video an injured uninsured person would be left to die in the streets instead of receiving care. If we are to have any conception of the U.S. as a civilized nation or community we cannot have that.

[Medius]

[gla22]

[Medius]

[gla22]