“Buy insurance or go to jail!”
I understand that most of us in this forum find this objectionable.
What I’d like to know from people here, though, is what do you do with a system like we have now where irresponsible people without insurance are covered anyway, so the rest of us end up paying for them?
I would not object to people not having to buy insurance if they would be on their own or in the mercy of charity or family in case of a medical problem. But are we as a society prepared to do this? What other solutions do you have?
It’s about freedom
What I’d like to know from people like you is why you insist on distorting our current system to make such a phony and disingenuous argument.
When a person who doesn’t have insurance needs emergency care, they are treated immediately at the emergency room. Once that is over and done with, the subject of the bill comes up. Those who don’t have the fee on site (most) are given time to pay or this wonderful thing we like to refer to as a payment plan.
Everyone who gets treated has to give a social security number. You wouldn’t be trying to protect people who don’t have social security numbers by lumping everyone else who doesn’t carry insurance in with them, would you?
So, how about it? Do you rail on about how everyone with a credit card is having ‘the rest of us’ pay their bill? How about the unforgivable sin of taking out a mortgage or a car loan? Hmm??
In no particular order:
Medical care loans. Doctors offering pro bono care. Payment plans. Charity. CATASTROPHIC INSURANCE - you know the kind that is really insurance and not a misnomer for getting other people to pay for regularly scheduled and foreseen occurrences. My insurance only costs about $160 per month and I pay out of pocket for a lot of stuff. Imagine that - personal responsibility.
None of those things require government.
1): Tort Reform
2): Free Market competition across state lines
For starters, we could get back to what "insurance" is really for ... insuring against catastrophic events. Most states require car owners to carry liability insurance ... to protect a third party in the event of the driver's negligence. But many people CHOOSE to add comprehensive, collision, rental car, towing, etc. In other words, they tailor their policies to their own needs. Why do I, as a 60-year old woman with her tubes tied, need to have pregnancy care included in my health insurance? Most states also require that drivers keep "uninsured motorist" coverage, to cover the cost of damage from an uninsured driver.
Auto insurance is NOT used for ordinary maintenance, diagnostic testing, etc. Imagine what auto insurance would cost if "insurance" included routine care. People buy additional warranty or maintenance services if they want that stuff covered.
The same should be the case with health insurance. Let us decide what we want covered for ourselves. Add an "uninsured motorist" type of coverage, if necessary to cover the deadbeats in the ER.
Consumers and providers need to be in direct contact with each other. This is what keeps the costs in line.
You bill them for whatever services they recieve and you make so they pay. For those who can’t afford treatment there are other means besides the government.
I'm pretty sure doctors, nurses and medicine were all invented by health insurance which then invented countries and societies.
There is no way our country can survive without health insurance. And there is no other solution than mandatory health insurance because no one anywhere in the world has or ever will be able to survive without it. It has never happened b/c it simply can't happen.
If you really think about it, health insurance is more important than food and water. It is so important, that no one could ever be expected to have it on their own.
Unless we force every American to have health insurance, we are doomed. It'll be the apocalypse. Have I missed anything?
Get the federal government out of health care and return it to the states where our neighbors can be held accountable for their actions and charity is face-to-face.