Our point of contention is whether they should be ALLOWED to do that from a policy standpoint, and/or whether it's a good idea to allow them to do that from a macroeconomic standpoint.
And the answer is yes.
Some economic reasons why that is indeed a good idea:
Now then, what are your economic reasons why it's a bad idea?
Oooh... moving the goalposts.
The issue was POLICY reasons. I dont need to limit those reasons to just economics.
1: People are responsbile for themselves, not others. Forcing people to -directly- subsidize the health care cost forces them to be respobsible for others when they have no such responsibilty
2: Fixing insurance costs meddles with the free market and limits options for consumers. People should not be forced to buy insirance at all; forcing young, healthy to but insurance they do not need unnecessarily takes from them money they could better use elsewhere.
3: Policy holders are forced to pay larger premiums that they woudl otherwise need to and all they get in return is some hope that their insurance will not go up later. There's no -guarantee- that this will be the case, for any number of reasons.
As for YOUR reasons:
- To eliminate economic uncertainty and help people make better financial plans for their lives
This is a false premise. Thats the intention; there's no guarantee. Meanwhile, these people spend money they dont need to spend and must go without things they might be better off having.
- To eliminate age discrimination in the work place
Only in terms of the cost of insurance. There are a zillion resons why an employer might want to hire a yonger person over an older one; to think tha this small facotr will eliminate age discrimination in the workplace is farcical at best.
- To steer the system toward catastrophic - rather than comprehensive - health insurance, which will likely be the result of a more level playing field across age groups
Nothing in forcing younger people to subsidize the insurance costs of older people does this.
Why do you continue to bring up this red herring? I've already said numerous times that I don't have a problem with charging people for their lifestyle choices (e.g. smoking, obesity). Your age, however, is not a lifestyle choice.
No,. It is, however a demonstrable risk factor.
Like any other demonstrable risk factor, age is a legimitate factor in determining premiums.
Once you agree that something is a demonstrable risk factor, there's no sound argument for excluding those factors when determining premiums.
And this is why you're a political extremist.
Hey... you stated something and then you admitted that you were wrong. Dont be mad at ME.