Insurance is what we call it when we allow a third party to come in, and take the risk of an extremely unlikely event happening to us. For example, we may get car insurance, for the unlikely event that we may get in an accident. The insurer needs to decide how likely it is that we will have one of these events. For instance with health insurance, it is more likely someone with cancer will need costly medicine, so they must pay more for their coverage, or someone with a poor driving record may have to pay higher auto insurance fees, because they are more likely to get in a wreck. Conversely those with good driving records are deemed to be a safer bet for the insurance company, so they can be charged less. What the current socialized health care proposals do is make this sort of discrimination illegal. So the cost has to be spread across all policy carriers. Which makes it extremely expensive for anyone to buy insurance, because you have to pay for everyone with cancer, of MS, or whatever chronic disease they may be dealing with. Also it is illegal for them to discriminate against people with preexisting conditions, which means in theory, you could get diagnosed with cancer, and the next day get coverage for the same price as a 19 year old with no disease. When structured in this way, this is not insurance at all, it is a third party required to pay for everything health related, regardless of if you are insured or not.
The government says this will not happen, because you will be required to have insurance, whether you need/want it or not. There will be stiff fines, which will be levied on anyone who does not comply with this mandate. However the fines are way less than the cost of insurance, so many will just pay the fines and be done with it (after all you actually are insured without paying for it if they must pay for you as soon as you walk thru the door regardless of your health). This will quickly drive the private insurance companies out of business (making it harder to go back once we realize how catastrophic this is)
With this business practice, insurance would be a very poor business model, I believe the insurance premiums would go up more than they do right now. then the companies will go away entirely, leaving everyone with no choice but to go on the public option after all there is no incentive to live a healthy lifestyle (if you get sick, someone else pays for it). There is no incentive to find a cheaper alternative (someone else is paying for it regardless). The only cost control mechanism in health care setup this way is government mandates (cigarettes are illegal) or government rationing (no care for those who have a limited work life ahead of them because they will not have time to contribute sufficiently to make it a worthwhile investment). This is a terrifying thought where the government will be entirely in charge of every aspect of your life (ever thought of something you do on a daily basis which has no effect on your health?)
While I am on the subject of rationing, lets take a look at the claim that the private market rations as well (they do). The private market rations care but they have that rationing disclosed in a insurance contract, that is written down, consentually signed by you, and cannot change without your consent. Government laws change every year, in fact legislators believe they must write many new laws every year or they are not doing their job. Do you really think a promise made by this congress is going to last in perpetuity? Furthermore if a private insurance company violates their contract, you can take them to court, and sue to get them to honor their word. With a socialized system no such recourse is available.
I’ve heard people compare the insurance mandate to auto insurance mandates in states nationwide, but these are state laws, and you can escape if you feel it is unfair. They also do not usually require you to insure yourself, just other people you may be in an accident with. When structured this way, these laws just require you to protect other people from you, not you from the world.
Finally the constitution specifies what congress may regulate/legislate, and health insurance is not one of them. Health insurance is not allowed to compete across state lines, which means congresses old standby “we can regulate anything that crosses state lines” is N/A. Requiring people to buy a product or service (health insurance) in order to be a legal citizen flies in the face of freedom, and smells of a poll tax.
We in America have a significant portion of the medical advances occur in our country. This is largely due to the fact that there is a strong profit motive, if you discover the cure for the common cold in America you can be rich in short order. Remove the profit incentive as many are proposing, and the goose that lays this golden egg will die of malnutrition. If people are dying as suggested in congress from a lack of insurance, I propose we give them a subsidy to buy an insurance policy, this could be done for as cheap as 70$ per individual in America. As for Obama care JUST SAY NO.
Tim Reeves (Oregon tenth amendment center state director)
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