Who is not buying health insurance? People who can not afford it. It is very expensive. When you are out of work, it is not affordable. If you are working for 8 or 10 bucks an hour, you can not afford it.
Everyone would like to have health insurance. It gives some peace of mind. Even though your health insurance will cheat you out of paying if they can figure a way.
Your answer makes sense. People will act according to their best interests. This is why the govt needs to step in and make sure there is one huge risk pool with all citizens in it. That way the 999 healthy 20-year-olds can help pay for the 1 that gets really sick.
I checked an online insurance quote page and a 20-year-old can get a $10000 deductible policy for ~$50/month. It’s not free but it wouldn’t break the bank either. But what 20-year-old is going to pay that voluntarily?
And BTW, if you get seriously injured without insurance the ER will only treat your immediate injuries. They will save your life, but it will be up to you to pay for your rehab and associated costs.
Another reason the auto insurance analogy is incorrect is this: Suppose you get into an accident, and to make matters worse, it’s your fault. If you don’t have insurance, you’ll face heavy penalties and may be civilly liable for any damages to the other party. But no body shop, repair shop, automobile dealer, or any other entity is required to make the injured party whole. By contrast, if you can’t afford health insurance and find yourself critically ill, the ER is obligated to receive and treat you. A hospital admission may ensue, and eventually the hospital will send you bills for five-figure sums that you have no hope of ever being able to repay. And I don’t think the hospital honestly expects you to, but putting a number on it is the beginning of their process of finding some other way of being at least partially reimbursed.
In essence, we already have universal health care, albeit very unevenly and haphazardly distributed. What we don’t have is a fair and efficient system for seeing that the providers get paid.
Guess what? You’re wrong.
All of the urgent care facilities in my area were closed being close to midnight. Oh and you might be interested in knowing that a lot of doctor offices are not open at that time so my choices were fairly limited. The only things open were the two hospital emergency rooms. You also have to understand that I was pretty sure he would only need a dentist (none open at that time) and given some tylanol it could have waited until Monday but the nurse practitioner (you know, the person with more medical knowledge than me) was made it seem like it was just this side of life-or-death if he didn’t see someone RIGHT NOW!
And the issue is not the $300. The issue is that I took my son to a hospital emergency room based on the insurance company’s recommendation that was completely idiotic and then they weasel out of paying the bill since it was not “life-threatening” and that it was my fault that I took their advice.
So no, I didn’t choose the best available I took:
- The only option available
- The advice given to me by a medical professional
- The advice of the insurance company which theoretically would have provided care beyond that which I thought necessary
Can someone direct me to the specific chapter and verse of the Constitution which Obamacare violates. Or is this just a case of “unconstitutional” = “I don’t like it”?
Thank you. The Emergency Medical Treatment And Active Labor Act of 1986 requires ER’s and ambulances to treat emergencies. The ER cannot simply place a bandaid on lacerated spleen and kick you out; you, the uninsured patient can only be discharged under you own informed consent. This notion that the ER must only stabilize you is pure fantasy, unless you have to be transferred to another facility for services not rendered at the ER. There are some instances where it took several years for hospitals to discharge a nonpayer.
So, do we repeal the EMTALA so that we may allow the poor and deadbeat patients a way out of paying for their illness? Is that what we’ve become?
Do you really believe that, starting from scratch in today’s America, we’d have public libraries? Or public schools even of today’s quality?
Public fire services and police, maybe; but a recent SDMB thread discussed one homeowner who watched firemen watch his house burn down. They were there in case the fire spread to a neighbor’s house – the neighbor had paid for protection.
You’re right, it’s hard to imagine public education or libraries getting passed in today’s environment. That’s kind of sad, all in itself.
I find the whole argument against charging a penalty for going uninsured under the HCR bill to be specious as Medicare Part D charges people a Late Enrollment Penalty for not having prescription drug insurance when they first become eligible if they sign up for it at a later date. Law is typically built on precident and Part D has already established it for late enrollment penalties.
Could the difference be that Part D was proposed by Bush and HCR was proposed by Obama?
Bri2k
You’re missing the point. The federal government has limited powers. You need to find the part of the Constitution that allows the federal government to force individuals to buy a product from a private enterprise. It’s more of “It’s constitutional because I like it.”
You said it yourself, for late enrollment. Not non-enrollment. Basically, what it amounts to is that prescription drug insurance can either be paid for in advance (by signing up when you first become eligible) or as a lump sum (by paying the “Late Enrolment Penalty”). It does not affect anyone who does not opt in to the program in the first place.
Can the federal government require that every adult buy $1,000 worth of vegetables every year?
Could the federal government institute a new tax of $1,000 per American, then give a dollar-for-dollar tax credit for the amount of vegetables purchased during the year?
Serious question (I’m not an accountant or tax attorney). BUt from my very limited understanding I think they can, as the federal government has the constitutional ability to levy taxes.
Also as far as my limited understanding goes, this is how the HCB mandate works.
Or am I wrong (I very well could be)?
I don’t buy health insurance (at least in the USA)… since nobody would sell it to me… when you get declined by every insurer licensed in the state (pre-existing condition), you have no choice but to not buy it… although I could easily afford it at normal rates.
Once I moved to the former Soviet Union (Rep. of Georgia) it was easy to buy.
I think you’re wrong.
No direct tax of $1000. This is why the first attempt at income tax was declared unconstitutional. Amendment XVI solved that problem, but also does not allow direct tax.
Bricker: Can you explain what that quote means? I can’t parse it.
especially about the “unless…” part. That seems to completely nullify the first part. I’m sure it doesn’t, so I must be reading it wrong.
Thanks Bricker. I’m with John - could you put that quote into english?
How about the Gov not taxing $1,000, but still giving a $1,000 credit for veggies?
Or in the context of the HCB, not fining or taxing anyone for not having health care, but giving a write off or credit for the insurance premiums? Coupled with not allowing companies to turn down, would this be acceptable?
And I know that in the above scenario, all of us are in essence paying for the premiums in the long term - some may find that objectionable.
Not if the argument against is a civil liberties argument.
I don’t see an error of my younger ways - I made a financial risk calculation. If a young person today wishes to engage in the same decision making process, I would understand their thought process.
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Of course it was economically advantageous for you to not buy insurance when you were young. If this were not true, we wouldn’t have a problem. The problem is that those people doing this are now increasing your insurance premiums now you are old. If we create a system where everyone whose expected annual return is negative gets to stay out, then we either raise rates so high that everyone is excluded, or we turn to the taxpayers to subsidize the system. The former is the reason Blue Cross gave for proposing giant increases in California. They raised rates on individual policies so high that everyone not in desperate need of insurance (read, high medical bills) left, which decreased the premium base by a lot more than the decrease in paid benefits.
But why coerce younger people? It is fine to charge smokers more, after all. The reason is that younger people will grow into older people (unless they die) and so each younger person benefiting from the system today by not participating will lose tomorrow. When immediate self interest works against societal interest is when we have to regulate.
It’s an argument of limited federal powers.
My comment applied to those who could afford insurance but who chose not to have it because they expected to use it less than they paid for it - and quite correctly. There are ways of calculating the expected benefits of insurance. People who really can’t afford insurance - young or old - need subsidies.
BTW, any group policy I’ve ever been in has required all members to purchase health insurance unless you can prove that you are covered by another policy.