You seem a decent fellow, i hate to kill you. You seem a decent fellow, i hate to die.

http://www.denverpost.com/ci_13591564

So for months insurance companies have been spending hundreds of millions of dollars to support Obama's general health care reform ideas, and when a specific bill comes out, and the criticize one part of it, they are "misleading fear-mongers" who "can't be taken seriously?" Funny no one on the left was critisizing them when they were supporting reform. It seems like at least the people in this article are intentionally misunderstanding the problem insurance companies have, either that or they don't have the brains god gave rocks (entirely possible given that they are public officials.) Death panels aside, this is just insurance companies worried about the economics of making this work.

The insurance companies are complaining that the requirement that offer insurance to anyone regardless of their previous condition is unmanagable because too many people will not buy health insurance until they need it. That is to say i'm a healthy guy so i won't pay for health insurance, instead i'll a 200 dollar fine. Then when i get diagnosed with cancer, i'll go buy insurance and the insurance company has to give it to me and pay for my health care. These people allege that is silly

First off they suggest that the issurance companies complaints are unfair because they assume that people would try to game the system. Really? are you a serious person right now? Why would anyone assume that people would game the system. Just because people have tried to game every system ever created, that's no reason to be a pessimist and assume that people would try to game this system.

Then they discuss that fact that due to government subsidies it wouldn't be that expensive for the poor to pay for health insurance, so they will go ahead and do it.
But the issue was never whether or not the poor who pay for health insurance (they aren't paying for it anyway, the government is) rather it's people who make enough money that don't qualify for government subsidies, but are also healthy enough, (and not super rich) that they'd rather save the money. Why would i for example pay for healthcare. I don't need any, unless something unexpected happens, and if it does i'll get healthcare then. The problem with this is that insurance companies will end up paying the healthcare of people who never put any premiums in. To compensate for that they will have to raise premiums on those paying the whole time so that when others come in they will have left over money. But raising the premiums could cause more people to drop out, which means they'll have to raise premiums more, in an unending circle. Those without any consistent costs (no children, no chronic illness, etc.) will stop paying, because they don't have have to pay just in case something unexpected happens. That's how insurance works. All the healthy people agree to pay into a pool, so that if something unexpected happens to 1 of them, they can be taken care of. If only unhealthy people put into the pool, it can't possibly be big enough to cover the costs.

The insurance companies haven't even said that they are against this legislation, just that you have to make the penalty for not having insurance greater than the cost of having insurance, basically requiring everyone to have insurance. That way everyone is paying premiums the whole time, and that will balance out the costs of those who get sick, with those who don't. But that idea is politcally unpopular. With so many people losing their jobs/losing money even if they have jobs, forcing people to pay for health insurance, and taxing them with big penalties if they don't is far too unpopular so obviously these insurance companies must be evil for suggesting. If the left was really interested in making healthcare work, they would listen to the insurance companies instead of burying their legitimate complaints.