Posted on 09/14/2009 1:07:37 PM PDT by rabscuttle385
Last Wednesday the nation was riveted to the President’s speech on healthcare reform before Congress. While the President’s concern for the uninsured is no doubt sincere, his plan amounts to a magnanimous gift to the health insurance industry, despite any implications to the contrary.
For decades the insurance industry has been lobbying for mandated coverage for everyone. Imagine if the cell phone industry or the cable TV industry received such a gift from government? If government were to fine individuals simply for not buying a corporation’s product, it would be an incredible and completely unfair boon to that industry, at the expense of freedom and the free market. Yet this is what the current healthcare reform plans intend to do for the very powerful health insurance industry.
The stipulation that pre-existing conditions would have to be covered seems a small price to pay for increasing their client pool to 100% if the American people. A big red flag, however, is that they would also have immunity from lawsuits, should they fail to actually cover what they are supposedly required to cover, so these requirements on them are probably meaningless. Mandates on all citizens to be customers of theirs, however, are enforceable with fines and taxes.
Insurance providers seem to have successfully equated health insurance with health care but this is a relatively new concept. There were doctors and medicine long before there was health insurance. Health insurance is not a bad thing, but it is not the only conceivable way to get health care. Instead, we seem to still rely on the creativity and competence of politicians to solve problems, which always somehow seem to be tied in with which lobby is the strongest in Washington.
It is sad to think of the many creative, free market solutions that government prohibits with all its interference. What if instead of joining a health insurance plan, you could buy a membership directly from a hospital or doctor? What if a doctor wanted to have a cash-only practice, or make house calls, or determine his or her own patient load, or otherwise practice medicine outside the constraints of the current bureaucratic system? Alternative healthcare delivery models will be at an even stronger competitive disadvantage if families are forced to buy into the insurance model. And yet, the reforms are sold to us as increasing competition.
What if just once Washington got out of the way and allowed the ingenuity of the American people to come up with a whole spectrum of alternatives to our broken system? Then the free market, not lobbyists and politicians, would decide which models work and which did not.
Unfortunately, the most broken aspect of our system is that Washington sees the need to act on every problem in society, rather than staying out of the way, or getting out of the way. The only tools the government has are force and favors. These are tools that many unscrupulous and lazy corporations would like to wield to their own advantage, rather than simply providing a better product that people will willingly buy. It seems the health insurance industry will get more of those advantages very soon.
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I’m confused.
How is Obama’s plan forcing anyone to buy a private insurance company’s insurance?
You know, the one who just happens to be a highly regarded and successful Obstetrician (That's an "MD" for y'all goobers in the audience), delivered I dunno how many thousand babies and a lotta other unimportant stuff.
Pay him no never mind. Big Government RINOS and Socialists who couldn't even pass freshman Biology know much more then Wacky Ron, you know?
Just ask them.
Ping
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Already happened with car insurance...Next up, mandatory firearms insurance, to go along with flood insurance, fire insurance, theft, death, and pet liability insurance.
Might as well throw in mandatory health care insurance...
The insurance company elites and the corrupt political insiders that are being paid off, will eventually own all of us and all of our income.
Oh, and the television industry already received that gift from government, with people being forced to purchase new technology televisions, while being all but forced to purchase cable or satellite...
Remember when television was free and sponsors paid for the commercials as they should?
Remember when "Pay television" first surfaced? They told everyone, "Commercial free" television. lol...It was for a while.
This has been one of the biggest frauds ever perpetrated on the American people, as they finally got Americans to pay money to watch their commercials....Commercials I might add, that have already been paid for.
You talk about a sweet heart deal for the fat cats. This one of the biggest fraud schemes in history.
ping
Because the government will be the administrator of Obama's healtcare plan, but not the insurance provider. Private insurance companies will still exist as providers; they will simply be paid by government (who you are forced to pay), instead of directly by you or your employer.
I've talked to two doctors, both of whom have said that the health insurance companies are behind this plan. Mandated coverage will mean that they can cover 100% of the US at whatever price lawmakers (whose campaigns they finance) set and whatever coverage lawmakers want us provided with.
Yeah, the loon has only been right about EVERYTHING that's happened during the past couple of years. He obviously shouldn't be listened to. /s
And what I find even more irritating, is that more and more non English channels are included in the "basic package" while channels I might actually watch are taken away.
The bill forces everyone to buy health insurance, whether from the public option or from private companies or pay a fine. And each plan must meet the minimum coverage required by the bill, which basically requires everything to be covered.
It isn’t forcing them to buy from any company in particular though.
I cannot fathom how so many people are unaware of this. It is the worst part of the bill.
I don’t own a TV - no cable bills, no satellite bills, no related hardware expenses. In the realm of television, we are not (yet) forced to partake in the consumption of mass cultural retardation.
The FCC has abused our public spectrum beyond belief.
The quality decreases and the price increases.
We now have to pay to watch commercials.
We now have to watch ads for Viagra and Girls Gone Wild.
Enough is enough! Down with the MSM & Hollywood filth!!!
Remember when television was free and sponsors paid for the commercials as they should?
Remember when "Pay television" first surfaced? They told everyone, "Commercial free" television. lol...It was for a while.
This has been one of the biggest frauds ever perpetrated on the American people, as they finally got Americans to pay money to watch their commercials....Commercials I might add, that have already been paid for.
You talk about a sweet heart deal for the fat cats. This one of the biggest fraud schemes in history.
The FCC has abused our public spectrum beyond belief. The quality decreases and the price increases. We now have to pay to watch commercials. We now have to watch ads for Viagra and Girls Gone Wild. Enough is enough! Down with the MSM & Hollywood filth!!!
Just another entity that is controlled and regulated by government. Everything they touch turns to sh**.
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