Posted on 08/03/2013 1:43:23 PM PDT by Jim Robinson
TWO beliefs continue to shape debate on Obamacare. First, pre-existing medical conditions shouldn’t prevent people from obtaining affordable health insurance. And second, people who don’t want health insurance shouldn’t be forced by the government to purchase it.
These may seem to be reasonable positions. But they are incompatible. That’s been shown by historical events, and it’s now being strikingly confirmed by recent experience in the emerging Obamacare insurance exchanges.
The crux of the matter is what economists call the adverse-selection problem. Uninsured people with pre-existing conditions often face tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket medical costs annually. If insurers charged everyone the same rate, buying coverage would be far more attractive financially for people with chronic illnesses than for healthy people. And as healthy policyholders began dropping out of the insured pool, it would become increasingly composed of sick people, forcing insurers to raise their rates.
But higher rates make insurance even less attractive for healthy people, causing even more of them to drop out. Before long, coverage would become too expensive for almost everyone.
The adverse-selection problem explains why almost no countries leave health care provision to unregulated private insurance markets. It also predicts that requiring private insurance companies to charge the same rates to everyone will make it prohibitively expensive for most people to buy individual health insurance.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Central planners be damned! America should remain a free country and health care should remain as a free enterprise market-driven system. We already have the best health care system in the entire world!
Similar to a pyramid scheme.
NSS!! And even if the government could force everyone onto its communist plan, it still wouldn't work!! Idiots!!
In reality, Obamacare will NEVER work
any more than welfare has EVER worked.
Unless you weight it with the accomplishment
of some social agenda, then it works perfectly.
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They just took over the student loan business. How'd that work out for the kids?
And that means EVERYONE. Except of course, the IRS, congresscritters, their staff, etc, etc... and etc.
AND, EVERY STINKING MEMBER OF CONGRESS AND THE FED GOV WHO IS EXEMPT HAS TO TAKE IT AND NOT HAVE THEIR SPECIAL PROGRAMS!!! Yes, I am screaming, from the roof top!!!!
Damn them to Hell. It is just SO un-American to even contemplate forcing everybody “in”! It just burns me up the government is attempting to create “exchanges” (pseudo-markets) with tens of billions of dollars when good old free markets do the same thing at no cost — they are self-arranging and operate at optimal efficiency.
Count me out.
Can't afford it, don't want it..
Disagree with the whole concept.
except congress,government workers, and the unions that is... right??? 
The way they have been hauling the hay surely they are getting close to that final straw.
Oops. :)
I'm never going to sign up for a program which seeks to force me to go against my religious beliefs against abortion and "contraception" (which includes post conception abortifactants).
In other words, for it to work, we must force others to pay for it at the point of a gun.
Income Inequality: Too Big to Ignore
By ROBERT H. FRANK
Published: October 16, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/17/business/17view.html
The middle-class squeeze has also reduced voters’ willingness to support even basic public services. Rich and poor alike endure crumbling roads, weak bridges, an unreliable rail system, and cargo containers that enter our ports without scrutiny. And many Americans live in the shadow of poorly maintained dams that could collapse at any moment.
ECONOMISTS who say we should relegate questions about inequality to philosophers often advocate policies, like tax cuts for the wealthy, that increase inequality substantially. That greater inequality causes real harm is beyond doubt.
No one dares to argue that rising inequality is required in the name of fairness. So maybe we should just agree that it’s a bad thing — and try to do something about it.
Any Republican congresscritter who fails to do his utmost to defund/derail communist ObamaCare is a traitor who should be tarred and feathered and run outta Dodge on a rail!!
It already doesn’t work for me. I’m healthy and the cost of my health insurance options is going through the roof. I’m going to end up having to pay way more than I had been paying for good coverage, just to get what in effect is catastrophic coverage.
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