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This man has a good reason to smile. |
Posted on 06/14/2006 7:57:57 AM PDT by Mike Bates
Millions of upper-income Americans refuse to buy health insurance because they're young and healthy and figure they don't need it.
But now the American Medical Association wants to force them to buy coverage.
At its annual meeting in Chicago on Tuesday, the nation's largest doctors' group called for mandatory health insurance for anyone who makes more than five times the poverty level. That works out to $49,000 for an individual and $100,000 for a family of four.
No one would go to jail for refusing to buy coverage. The AMA instead suggested using the tax code to force compliance. There would be incentives such as tax credits for people who buy insurance and higher taxes for those who don't.
Of the 46 million uninsured Americans, about 5 million, or 11 percent, make more than five times the poverty level. The AMA said these people burden the health care system when they incur catastrophic medical bills they can't afford to pay. The cost gets passed on to those who largely pay for the health care system: taxpayers, employers and the insured.
"Society should not be penalized by the potential costly medical treatments of those uninsured who can afford to purchase health insurance coverage," an AMA report said.
(Excerpt) Read more at suntimes.com ...
It would be better to increase the supply of doctors than to increase the demand for health care.
Why should doctors care if rich people pay cash as opposed to through an HMO?
Use the government to force people to buy your product, goods and services.
It is the worst of man in a free society.
"Society should not be penalized by the potential costly medical treatments of those uninsured who can afford to purchase health insurance coverage," an AMA report said.
Just another tax on the middle class working stiff. Nothing to see here, move along folks.
I'm surprised to see the first few posters supporting passing the costs on to others. So it goes.
Maybe it has something to do with people availing themselves of a service for which they're already paying.
Not if the 'Rats have their way.
Message to AMA: Go Pound Sand!
So.... rich people are the PROBLEM? This is soooo bogus.
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This man has a good reason to smile. |
They suck. They are now just another lefty authoritarian organization.
The end result of this kind of push is socialized medicine. And the end result of that is low pay for doctors. Physician, heal thyself's own economic illiteracy.
I must be missing something-how are they using services they are not paying for? If rich people can afford to pay catastrophic health bills, how is that overburdening health care? Why force them into coverage they really dont need? I wonder how many doctors on this plan invest in HMOs and Group Health?
The fact of the matter is that one can get medical care, ability to pay or not. That is what will lead to socialized medicine. If those without insurance were denied treatment, or those paying cash had the treatment stopped when the cash ran out, then it wouldn't be necessary.
"What is wrong with them lately. They need to stuff it...
There is a thing called Personal Responsibility."
But that is just it -- there is no Personal Responsibility. When those folks require medical treatment, they don't have the insurance to pay up. Then, guess who pays it? The people who do have Personal Responsibility and have medical insurance and pay their bills.
I understand both sides to this -- however, since the hospitals can't practically turn people away that don't medical insurance or money, those costs have to be recuperated some other way -- namely us.
"Unless we put Medical Freedom into the Constitution, the time will come when medicine will organize into an undercover dictatorship . . . to restrict the art of healing to one class of men, and deny equal privilege to others, will be to constitute the Bastille of Medical Sience. All such laws are un-American and despotic and have no place in a Republic ... The Constitution of this Republic should make special privilege for Medical Freedom as well as Religious Freedom."
Benjamin Rush - signer of the Declaration of Independance.
I'm going to push for the passage of a law requiring the purchase of the product my company makes, also. Such laws are not only fashionable, it is, of course, for the 'good' of the consumer...
Yep, the severe restriction of supply, and government involvement have turned a healthcare market into a healthcare racket.
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