Posted on 07/21/2009 6:23:32 AM PDT by jmcenanly
New York – I'm one of the nearly 50 million Americans who don't have health insurance. I don't want it, either.
But the bill the House of Representatives is debating would force me to buy it. How good can any product be if Congress compels me to purchase it?
Politicians and interest groups have been trying virtually all my life to foist medical insurance on me. But their proposals rest on mistaken and even insulting assumptions.
First, they presume that everyone wants, needs, and should have abundant medical attention. But I come from a long-lived and healthy family, I've been a vegetarian since childhood because I've never liked the way meat tastes, I don't smoke, and I love to hike – the more miles the better.
I am disgustingly healthy, so much so that the only doctors I see – or try to: I'm near-sighted – are ophthalmologists. Could I be hit by a bus tomorrow when I head out for my daily walk? Possibly. But that's such an unlikely disaster that I've chosen to spend my money on more personally pressing needs than medical insurance.
On the other hand, unlikely disasters do happen. So I might purchase catastrophic coverage if it were reasonably priced – just as I might visit doctors for lesser complaints if their care were reasonably priced.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
“The Democrats would like you to think those folks are worried sick....”
You hit the nail on the head. I know there are some out there, through no fault of their own who do not have health insurance. My own personal experience has been they don’t have it because they are irresponsible. We know a couple from church who moan all the time because they don’t have health coverage. It didn’t stop them from purchasing a new vehicle, or having 2 cell phones or taking a vacation to the beach. I truly don’t mind helping someone in need. My faith requires it. I do have a problem supporting the irresponsible and people who don’t carry their own weight.-—JM
I was going to say that you are forced to have auto insurance,
but of course, you could choose not to drive.
You cannot choose not to live and have that choice make any sense.
It does not work that way. He has a condition that is an automatic decline under individual health insurance. The only plans that are available to him are cheap discount only-which are not true health insurance or hire more employees and start a group plan.
Welcome to Mitt Romney's Obama's world...
Fine, but don’t demand that taxpayers cover your medical expenses in the future.
I've got health insurance, but I agree that it is a giant scam. I only go to the doctor for things like a ruptured appendix or broken leg. One of the main reasons health care is so expensive is that people watch too many of these medical soap operas on TV. Then they want to get attention from some doctor or nurse themselves. I work as a firefighter and we see people all of the time who are on three dozen different meds who probably had nothing wrong with them to begin with before they whined until six different doctors each prescribed them five different meds. Then they become lab rats.
One thing Obama care will do is create long waiting lists so that it will take six months to even see a specialist. This will be good for the typical system abusing hypochondriac. Maybe they will get some fresh air and exercise instead of wasting some medical professionals time. It will suck eggs if you actually have some type of life threatening disease. Or if you are old and the government won't pay for any expensive procedures because they don't think your life is worth as much as some young deadbeat's life.
The only way the libertarian approach works with this is if people are allowed to die on the street, in their homes, etc. or have to suffer the consequences of their decisions. As long as they can fail to handle their medical emergencies or conditions and still get help or relief nothing’s going to change.
Let's say I don't smoke, I don't drink, I don't speed or disregard traffic laws, I work to keep my blood chemistry in good shape, etc. It takes a conscious effort on my part to do all the things that I feel are good for me, and I really have to work at resisting all sorts of temptations, but then someone comes along who's done none of these and has problems as a result. I still have to pay for it just as though I had made no effort to avoid the costs of poor choices.
I don't know the answer except to thank God, literally, that I am in a position to help those who can't or won't help themselves.
The (no number, not finished, the Lord only knows its final form) House Bill has a religious exemption.p. 170.
On the other hand, Becky is irresponsible if she doesn’t at least have catastrophic, high deductible insurance. She assumes the rest of us will pay for her. And so, she validates the mama-totalitarians who will force this hyper-complicated “insurance” (really State mandated, pre-paid medical care — I’m not ready to call it “health care.”)
What if I want and have a health sharing ministry?
It’s not insurance but it accomplishes the same goal — it pays in the case of accident or illness.
My family and 13,000 other families will be shut down in our sharing ministry.
http://www.samaritanministries.com
It works and costs less than half of that of an actual insurance company.
Individual health insurance in now 100% tax deductible-it used to be only 25%.
Many states have now make insurance portable once an employee leaves a job.
If you don’t believe that in America, we are free to make choices about how to live in accordance with conscience, what are you doing on Free Republic? Would I like Becky to have health insurance? Sure. I have it. It’s way too expensive, too. I would prefer to bank the $15,000/year we pay for “coverage” (and that’s with the highest deductible, etc) and bank it for health costs and just have a catastrophic policy. But it doesn’t work that way for us. But I support Becky’s right and the right of the Amish, and the right of anyone else to live without it. This isn’t Europe. This isn’t the Nanny State. At least not yet!! We are different from Europeans. Let’s make different choices! There are lots of ways to increase Americans’ chances to have good health insurance. It doesn’t HAVE to be a “job benefit.” It shouldn’t be. It should be your policy, a piece of personal property.
I doubt that this woman, with the logic she displays in this article, equates "rights" with entitlements. Far from it.
Most likely she thinks that the Gov't should NOT MANDATE that hospitals must care for every uninsured person who walks thru their door. Gov't intrusion (including stupid laws like this) is the thing to get angry at. Don't be distracted by misdirecting your anger at individuals who love freedom and refuse to participate in a corrupt system.
The concept of voluntary cannot exist if I am charged for the medical care of the uninsured.
And we STILL have 50 million uninsured?? NO I DON’T THINK SO. You must be counting illegal aliens.
When I look at how low the liability requirements are in Ohio ($7500 property, $12,500 one person injury or death, $25,000 multiple people injury or death) I think those should be jacked up to where they actually will pay for something other than a scraped bumper and a couple stitches.
“Individual health insurance is now 100% deductible” — quick, everyone, call your tax analyst, again I DON”T THINK SO!
I have one employee plus myself. I can’t afford a third in this economy. Discount plans cover some routine care, which is a nice to have. What I need is catastropic.
Sheesh, the number of boot-licking do-gooder fascists on FR has sure gone up lately. This thread is a prime example.
WRONG! You will not be forced to buy health insurance if you don’t want it. Jail/confiscation of your property are always a Hussein option!
An on-line family dr friend, Dr. G, has paraphrased the late Baptist preacher, Adrian Rogers’ essay on the poor and wealth:
“You cannot legislate the diseased into health by legislating their doctors out of prosperity. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work at staying healthy because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half (even when motivated altruistically at first) gets the idea that it does no good to work and study because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is the beginning of the end of Medicine as an independent profession. You cannot multiply health by dividing and diminishing its custodians.”
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