[facepalm] Yeah, we might get some of that dangerous, you know, ....freedom! Then we'll start expecting it, and then DEMANDING it from those statist jackasses we pay to live in Washington. Just turribul. We can't risk THAT.
This is about principles, and freedom, not some short-sighted approach to medical economics. Liberal solutions are almost always dictatorial, without regards for personal freedom and choice.
Although the economic realities of slavery are debatable, moral human beings eradicated slavery because it is morally wrong. One could make the case that enslaving the entire medical profession and making them all work for minimum wage - and making medicines all generic without any patent protection - would save the country lots of money. One could make the same case for farming, or any other line of work. Sadly, there are plenty of people in the US at this point in history that would support these approaches.
“So here is a thought — if you are one of the many Americans who favors the idea of guaranteed issue at fair prices yet despise the government’s requiring you to buy the insurance coverage that is necessary to make it all possible, consider asking your friendly, local GOP presidential candidate how he can support the death of the insurance mandates and still deliver on giving Americans those parts of Obamacare that they like.
I know I’ll be anxiously awaiting the answer – and so should you as you are likely to discover that you should be much more careful with what you wish for.”
What I would do, is split the baby. Continue with the children on their parents health plan until 26, if the parents are agreeable to do so for their children, as they will still be paying the extra dollar amount to cover their child, and the insurance companies thus lose nothing; in fact they gain the extra premium.
As to pre-existing conditions, unless someone can come up with a cheap way to do that, then it will revert back to what it was before Obamacare changed it, otherwise it ends up with mandated insurance payments by everyone in order to pay for those with pre-existing conditions. Unfair as it may seem to some, I think the answer will just have to be a high risk pool being established for those people with pre-existing conditions and an inability to easily get insurance elsewhere. It is not the job of federal gov’t to level the playing field of fairness for everyone in society. Besides, no one currently is turned away from the hospital door if they can’t pay. They are still treated through the emergency rooms. Hopefully, some brilliant politician(s) will come up with a less expensive “cure” to this particular issue.
I write on politics with a 'specialty' in health care policy from my home in Santa Monica, California. My interest in the field began with an experience fifteen years ago in a hospital in Los Angeles that has led me to my current life where I consult a number of government officials and health care advocacy groups in addition to my strategic consulting work with noted health insurance "whistleblower" Wendell Potter. In addition to my contributions to Forbes, I write a political column at The Washington Monthly. On Saturdays, you can find me on your TV arguing with my more conservative colleagues on "Forbes on Fox" on the Fox News Network.
This liberal idiot seems to believe that we must keep Obamacare because there are a few parts Americans like. We can repeal it and craft new legislation to address specific problems. We don't have to change the entire health care system to fix them.
Like it or not, those are the choices —and the only choices.
This author is such an arrogant prick, that he, and only he, can understand the deep nuances of health insurance.
We have only "the inability or unwillingness to grasp the truth". What an ass and it's too bad all of my guns were lost in the great canoe sink.
These are not the only choices, they are the only choices that the author will recognize.
The one choice that he doesn't mention is the free market solution.
Let Americans make their own decisions, pay their own way, and live with their choice.
The path to affordable healthcare includes:
Tort reform to remove the practice of defensive medicine and lower malpractice insurance rates. (saves $250 Billion/year)
(Defensive medicine is the practice of ordering unnecessary tests and procedures for fear of law suits.)
Allowing interstate competition among insurance companies could reduce premiums 10% to 15%.
Which is why the passing of Obamacare was such a dark and sad event in the unfolding of the country's demise.
“despise the government’s requiring you to buy the insurance coverage that is necessary to make it all possible”
He starts with a false premise - that the requirement is necessary to make it all possible.
In my view, Ungar is an example of the thinking on health care that would dominate policy under a Romney administration. It would be “Campaign promises are one thing, but governing is another, just as I discovered in Massachusetts. We need to compromise.” I can hear it now.
There is a third option: You don't have to buy insurance, but, if you can't pay, the ER doesn't have to treat you.
Same old story: The Democrats propose to tear down the Washington Monument, and the Republicans respond with a workable plan to do it in three stages.
When the Republicans say “repeal and replace,” what they are really telling you is that they think they can do socialism better than the Dems, and intend to try.