Covid vaccines - First feedback from people already vaccinated and... what do you think about it?

[nugget]

@Patron

The perpetuation is caused by the government, it’s up to them to decide getting rid of all the measures.

Wrong. The government has the constitutional obligation to protect its citizens from health hazards (among others). If the pandemic declines, measures are taken back as we have seen multiple times now. not the other way round.

[let us now not go into the timing of taking back measures…]

[nugget]

@Patron

why actively?

you do (don’t you?) actively go out into the public and interact with humans. In case you finally contract the virus, you will be a quite active superspreader.

[MrCheese]

@Barto

I find it ironic that self named libertarian, anti-vax people are ending up in hospital but the costs get socialised and paid by everyone else

There should be something like an organ donor ID for anti-vaxxers stating “I denied the COVID vaccine and I don’t want ICU treatment” solves all full ICU problems.

[Gesk]

@Patron

And everyone who gets into a car accident, why you sit in a car in the first place?

I would rather say, maybe the insurance should pay less if the person did not put the seat belt on.

[nugget]

@Patron

1.) You can also spread the virus if you are vaccinated

95% BS-argument. covered above.

@Patron

And you can wear masks if you feel threatened

One’s mask protects others, not oneself.

Oh boy

so in the end, you seem to be just fine with not caring to protect your peers from covid.
You feel your ego scratched when someone asks for you to war a mask
You reject the vaccine because of defience, because any of your other arguments dont hold on the bottom line

[Gesk]

@Patron

It has nothing to do with my ego. The mask is a symbol of power of an authoritarian regime, a symbol of oppression, similarly as women who are forced to wear a Burka or people who have to greet the Gessler’s hat … and I can’t support this, that’s why I don’t wear a mask.

I think everybody should walk around completely naked because that’s how we were made to begin with. I don’t get why we are forced to wear any clothes by an authoritarian government.

[Barto]

@Patron

Do you want to say that insurances should not pay costs anymore if someone gets Covid but is not vaccinated?

No. I mean to say that people choosing not be vaccinated by their own choice and ending up ill in hospital drive up health care costs and health care insurance premiums for everyone. So they are free riding similar to the “lazy scroungers” on social welfare

[male]

@Patron

@nugget

95% BS-argument. covered above.

Not true. It is evident that vaccinated people can spread the virus.

It is true, you are wrong. Yes vaccines have no 100% protection, so yes they can still spread the virus. BUT less so!

[Barto]

Indeed. I would also find it hypocritical for anyone falling in this category to complain about scroungers, lazy people etc

[bamboo]

This is to me an interesting position from Patron about what is covered from your health insurance and who can access to health care. I am sure we will not find the correct answer in this forum but our society will have to make a choice sooner or later. With always more people needing help to cover the fees of the health insurance and at the same time, the irresponsibility of many about preventive actions for their health (smoking, overweight, no exercise, no vaccine,…) we will end up to some limitation to the access to healthcare and it is an interesting ethical aspect. The covid pandemic only made this problem more apparent.

[Barto]

@MrCheese

@Barto

I find it ironic that self named libertarian, anti-vax people are ending up in hospital but the costs get socialised and paid by everyone else

There should be something like an organ donor ID for anti-vaxxers stating “I denied the COVID vaccine and I don’t want ICU treatment” solves all full ICU problems.

Indeed such an approach would help sort out the people who truly believe the illness is low risk and a conspiracy vs. the free riders

[Sandro]

@Patron

But it would be not fair.

Why wouldn’t it be fair? I think it would be fair. What is your definition of fair? Why doesn’t it match?

@Patron

You can’t have everyone pay insurance premiums and then deny to provide services the insured person paid for.

What do you mean by “you can’t”? Of course we could. Or is there a natural law preventing this?

@Patron

I wonder why some people bring it up now, but never brought it up before when talking about other aspects such as obesity, no sports, smoking, alcohol etc.

I brought it up before too, when talking about aspects such as obesity, no sports, smoking, alcohol etc.

@Patron

You know why? Because the other topics were not excessively covered by the media.

Wrong, it has been extensibly covered by the media. At least the dangers of smoking and obesity.

@Patron

That confirms my argument that people irrationally focus on one aspect that is over-proportionally covered by the media but ignore all facts and aspect that are not covered by the media.

ex falso sequitur quodlibet

@Patron

However, I would be up for a discussion about risk-based insurance premiums, e.g. people who take on more risks pay more, people who take on less risks pay less. E.g. People who do no sports, smoke, drink a lot of alcohol, are fat and have an unhealthy diet pay more than others. People who do a lot for prevention and take care of their mind and body, get a discount.

At least on one point we can agree…

[nugget]

according to

COVID-19 vaccine efficacy summary | Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation

vaccine	Efficacy at preventing disease:	Efficacy at preventing infection:	Efficacy at preventing disease:	Efficacy at preventing infection:
	ancestral & Alpha	ancestral & Alpha	Beta, Gamma, Delta	Beta, Gamma, Delta
Pfizer/BioNTech	92%	86%	90%	78%
Moderna	94%	89%	93%	80%
AstraZeneca	85%	52%	83%	57%
Johnson & Johnson	86%	72%	85%	56%

@Patron

How does it protect others if you still can contract the virus, still can get infectious and pass it on to other people?

by doing less so. much less.

[Sandro]

@Patron

You can’t change a valid contract unilaterally without breaking the law.

What you could do is resign from the contract and after a notice period the insurance company would not be bound anymore to it. However, in Switzerland this is not possible neither for the insurance company nor for the insured person, because health insurance is mandatory. And as long as that is the case, the insurance company is bound to the contract and pay for the health costs and in return the insured person is bound to pay the insurance premiums. That’s how it works, there is no way around it.

What are you talking about? I never said everyone could change it on their own or the insurance company could change it by themselves. I said it can be changed, which is a fact. The law about health insurance can of course be changed as it has many times in the past.

@Patron

If it would be possible, then rest assured lots of people would do it especially those who can afford to pay health costs by themselves e.g. the rich. So you would have many people not paying premiums anymore what would increase the costs again for everyone else. And then? You would again call for the government to cover the costs because people can’t afford to pay the premiums anymore? Or would you accept the fact that your policy led to this misery?

Again, what are you talking about? I never suggested anything like that.

@Patron

It seems like your own argument is not on your side I’m afraid.

What argument? I said your statement (“You can’t have everyone pay insurance premiums and then deny to provide services the insured person paid for.”) was false. Which it its.

[Sandro]

@Patron

You want to change the KVG to prevent insurance companies to pay the costs if a person was not vaccinated? Are we talking only about the Covid vaccination or also others? And what about alcohol, drugs, no sports, smoking, obesity, bad diet etc.? Will the insurance still pay or not? Or are we talking about a risk based premium which I mentioned earlier?

In my opinion these are all questions worth thinking about.

@Patron

What is your concrete proposal?

Of course I don’t have a concrete proposal. I never said so. It’s a very complicated matter. Do you have a concrete proposal?

[Barto]

I would be supportive to vary insurance premiums based on individual personal health choices

The problem is that obesity, alcoholism, smoking etc. are either difficult to detect or define and would result in creation of expensive bureaucracy, or there might be an underlying illness causing it (e.g. depression)

So it would make sense to start with the choices that are easy to measure such as vaccination for preventable illnesses like measles and Covid. Then people can choose whether to take the risk of a vaccine or to pay higher premiums based on the risks calculated by actuaries

Of course, this is not going to happen. The point is that unvaxxed people are now driving health care costs on the backs of others. If a person is unvaxxed because of libertarian beliefs then it seems very contradictory to me

[Barto]

The economic choice I am discussing is

Get vaccinated at cost of CHF50 to your fellow citizens and neighbours
or
Do not get vaccinated and carry a much increased probability of incurring huge costs for your neighbours to be hospitalised and unable to work for an extended period of time, of incurring costs of a chronic, ongoing illness, or even ending up on welfare
(and in addition probably increase risk of propagating above to other people, which I know you will say is not proven)

[Sandro]

@Patron

Allow insurance companies to offer risk-based discounts based on factors described above. It should be up to the insurance company to decide whether they want to offer this or not and it is within their risk- and financial consideration on whether it is worth it for them or not.

I like this idea. But I’m happy the leave it to experts, politicians or a public vote to decide what should be done. It’s always very difficult to see the consequences of things like this in advance. Maybe we should try and see. We could change it back if it would turn out to be a bad idea.

[Barto]

@Patron

One aspect completely left out is that what happens if you take the vaccine and you end up being disabled

It is not left out. I said above that people who take the vaccine choose to accept the (small) risk involved. People that choose to remain unvaccinated and choose not to take this risk are much more likely to become ill and drive huge costs. Currently there is a redistribution of wealth underway from the vaccinated to the unvaccinated.

Put another way, if there was no state interference and premiums were set by the health insurers freely, the insurance cost for the unvaccinated would increase based on actuarial data

[Gesk]

@Patron

sign a contract with the vaccine manufacturers that they subsidiarily cover the costs resulting from vaccine damage

This has nothing to do with a specific pharma contract, it is required by a law that is valid since 2016.