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Aetna CEO Threatened Obamacare Pullout If Feds Opposed Humana Merger

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142 points helloworld | 3 comments | 17 Aug 16 17:52 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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rrggrr ◴[17 Aug 16 18:11 UTC] No.12306859[source]▶
You can either have a system where everyone is covered at great relative expense to the healthy, or one where everyone is covered at great expenses to taxpayers. Either way, quality of care, breadth of services and speed of access are going to suffer. Demographic reality is inescapable.
replies(1): >>12308321 #
1. zaroth ◴[17 Aug 16 20:45 UTC] No.12308321[source]▶
Only 5-10% pay the majority of taxes, but almost everyone is, eventually, not healthy.

Another way to put it is that average lifetime healthcare cost is about $250k for men, $350k for women.

So yes, definitely people should be paying for health insurance while they are healthy, so that they can also have it when they are sick.

In a sense, health insurance should be priced just like a $250k/$350k term-life policy that you take out at birth.

replies(1): >>12309023 #
2. antisthenes ◴[17 Aug 16 22:42 UTC] No.12309023[source]▶
> Another way to put it is that average lifetime healthcare cost is about $250k for men, $350k for women.

Do you have a source for these numbers?

replies(1): >>12309617 #
3. zaroth ◴[18 Aug 16 00:30 UTC] No.12309617[source]▶
The Lifetime Distribution of Health Care Costs http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1361028/