Wednesday, March 28, 2012

So - the Obamacare side argues that it is not fair that there are people who will get sick without insurance, and, since emergency rooms cannot refuse treatment -- treatment the patient presumably cannot afford, the cost for that treatment will fall on the taxpayers. So let's get this straight: they are NOT concerned with the health of the poor, but rather with WHO will pay for their care.

Their solution for this problem is to preemptively require everyone to buy health insurance making those who didn't want to buy health insurance pay for those who need care. Isn't this just enforcing a transfer of money from those who don't need care to those who do? How is that transfer different than the transfer from taxpayer to patient that is considered not fair to begin with? And why do we think that those who are not sick should take up the responsibility to pay for those who are? (for that matter, why do we think that those who are now working should have to work to pay for the retirement of those who are now not working - social security?) Whatever happened to personal responsibility? Shouldn't we rather encourage people to find ways to save and thus self-insure?

Beyond that, insurance pools are a voluntary thing - the market there cannot be coerced by the government any more than price caps on gasoline or bread. And, as for reducing costs, Medicare (the gov't) pays doctors only around 2/3rds of the actual cost of the care they support. That's the way the government keeps costs down - underpayment. So Medicare patients look a lot like Emergency room patients without insurance -- but instead of the taxpayers paying for them, the taxpayers pay 2/3rds, and the doctors eat 1/3rd. How is that any fairer? Many doctors won't take Medicare patients, knowing that they will lose money on each. How would Obamacare (which guts Medicare by $500B to pay for ITS program) do any better? I assume that Obamacare would REQUIRE doctors to take patients, and eventually set prices, as well as require insurance companies to take high-risk patients, and extend care to dependent children (to 26) which is the equivalent of market/price manipulation and caps. This is a complicated mess when compared with allowing individuals to handle their own healthcare. Reminds me of the tree swing scenario (for a larger version, go to this web site -  scenario):  


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