Posted on 09/02/2009 7:26:48 AM PDT by markomalley
If health care reform occurs, it is likely to include an individual mandate — a requirement that every American have health insurance.
In theory, health coverage would work something like the requirement that drivers buy auto insurance.
But everyone knows someone who has been hit by an uninsured, and sometimes even an unlicensed, driver.
So just how would an individual health insurance mandate work?
“I have difficulty understanding how we’d police the mandate,” said Truman Medical Center Chief Executive John Bluford. “It’s near impossible. People will game the system.”
Even so, an individual mandate appears to be the best way to ensure coverage for the most people.
The three major reform proposals under consideration in Congress each would require individuals to buy a minimum level of health insurance if they are not covered through an employer-based plan and if they are not eligible for low-income or older-American subsidized care.
The individual mandate would be accompanied by public subsidies for those who couldn’t afford the price of health insurance, whether on the open market, through an insurance exchange or from a government option.
Complicated formulas would set those subsidy levels based on household incomes.
To achieve universal coverage, an individual mandate is necessary to spread the risk pool, insurance companies say. It is considered the only way to insure that young, healthy people buy in and that people don’t game the system by opting in and out as their health needs occur.
(Excerpt) Read more at kansascity.com ...
Additionally, I am so sick of people who compare mandated health insurance coverage to auto insurance mandates.
First, if you don't want auto insurance, you don't drive. Let me guess, if you don't want health insurance, they will give you the option to reduce the national carbon footprint?
Second, the purpose of auto insurance is not to insure YOUR damage, it is to protect the other guy from your poor driving ability. The purpose of health insurance is to protect you against your own frailties as a human being. There is a difference.
Third, auto insurance protects the other person against damage caused by an accident. It doesn't pay for maintenance or auto repairs. If you have an accident requiring medical care, your health insurance will attempt to bill the responsible party's accident insurance, liability insurance, or auto insurance. The purpose of you having health insurance is to pay for "maintenance" and "repairs."
Bottom line is that there is no analogue between auto insurance and health insurance. Period. And I wish these idiotic liberals would stop citing that false analogy.
Gee, so we can fine people who can't afford it $2500 a year and exempt illegals of course who will still get the exact same treatment as those forced into paying the fine. Wonderful. Welcome to the new slavery. Where the government decides where all of your money goes. ALL of it.
Agreed, and you won’t see the insurance companies lining up to fight this. They want mandated care, more profits, less competition from smaller carriers. It’s a win for the insurance companies.
That’s where the IRS comes in. How about illegals?
How about forcing those with no insurance at all to get emergency room insurance unless they can prove they have assets? Like auto insurance. Now what would the punishment be?? No emergency room treatment LOL
Yeah...like MANDATED AUTO INSURANCE has worked.....we HAVE to pay additional insurance $$ for the “UNINSURED” coverage....because so many people here do NOT have insurance! Idiots. Make people prove they have health insurance (in the private market) BEFORE they get a cell phone or tattoo....VOILA...problem solved.
“Complicated formulas would set those subsidy levels based on household incomes. “ The easiest way to accomplish this is to make everyones income the same. Sounds simple to me...........if you want total and complete socialism.
Then the proper analogy would seem to be an extended warranty on an automobile. It pays for repairs, after a deductible, but you are required to provide evidence of regular maintenance (for health insurance, an annual check up).
For this to be affordable (individually and collectively, the coverage on a universal health-insurance mandate would have to require a sizeable (means-tested?) deductible and nontrivial co-payments.
IF these assclowns really want to see insurance coverage pick up and drop the COST of health care, then OVERTURN
42 U.S.C. § 1395dd, AKA EMTALA.
What’s that you ask?
The Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (42 U.S.C. § 1395dd, EMTALA) is a United States Act of Congress passed in 1986 as part of the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act. It requires hospitals and ambulance services to provide care to anyone needing emergency treatment regardless of citizenship, legal status or ability to pay.
There are no reimbursement provisions. As a result of the act, patients needing emergency treatment can be discharged only under their own informed consent or when their condition requires transfer to a hospital better equipped to administer the treatment.
Talk about the ultimate unfunded FedGov mandate and a massive hifdden tax.....
THey couldn’t get HillaryCare, but they did get this stinker. And YOU pay for it, every day in oh so many ways.
Possibly, but there are a couple of problems with that analogy:
You still have that pesky little 10th Amendment issue to deal with, in addition.
“The cost of an extended warranty goes up based upon the age and mileage of the vehicle.”
And a rational health insurance mandate would have premiums based to some extent on risk categorization as well, but there would be too much political opposition to that.
I suspect they would hire about 50,000 ACORN people to go door to door every 3 months, who will demand to see your proof of insurance. Set up some special court system ouside of our normal justice processes, and shake down all the non-compliers. Seems simple enough. There is nothing I would put past 0bama in trying to do. Wonder what they’ll do to 3rd-time offenders who cannot prove upon the insurance?
Hey Dems,
Keep your laws off my BODY!
You are right about developing risk pools. However, the analogy falls apart pretty quickly.
The concept with an extended warranty being that it is no longer economically feasible to maintain a warranty and it would be economically beneficial to trade in the rustbucket on a new model.
(For example, can you imagine what the cost would be on a 25 year old Chrysler K-Car?)
What would the analogy be for a health insurance mandate? Drop the "extended warranty" when it is no longer economically feasible to maintain it? Do a trade-in?
Well, like all analogies, this one is obviously imperfect, especially with regard to the trade-in option! But Medicare (and most private plans) now has something akin to “dropping the extended warranty when it is no longer economically feasible.” It won't reimburse for some procedures after the patient reaches a certain age.
If the premiums for a mandated health insurance policy aren't appropriately risk-adjusted (especially with regard to “exogenous” traits like age), then you would have to impose coverage restrictions based on those traits. And if the premiums aren't properly risk-adjusted for “endogenous” traits like smoking behavior and weight, then you would have severe moral hazard problems. So, my opposition to health-insurance mandates is that the necessary risk categorizations wouldn't be politically feasible.
I doubt they could base premiums on risk categorization, since the group with the greatest risk of AIDS has too much political clout.
You only need auto insurance if you drive a car. Are they going to claim that the air belongs to the government and you need health insurance if you breathe air?
However, for everything else it's okay for the government to take over my health care.
That is precisely the point of my continual repeating of the phrase! It shuts every liberal down immediately.
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