No, not everyone has or needs a car. But everyone needs the healthcare system. Some more than others, but that is what insurance is all about.
Many Christian Scientists neither need, nor want, anything to do with modern medicine or the healthcare system.
The odds are that a healthy young adult will not have a need for a healthcare system.
So to say that everyone needs a healthcare system is a clear falsehood.
The justification for Obamacare was that there is a significant portion of the population that seeks medical services with no way to pay for it. Having staff, management and owners who are generally compassionate, the hospitals didn't want to or didn't know how to say "no" to those who could not pay for their services. And there are definitely medical practices, clinics and urgent care facilities who do know how to say "no". If you can't pay, you don't get any treatment. So the burden of covering the costs of uninsured or indigent patients was always a choice. It's not a great choice, but it is a choice.
But was it really necessary to hijack the entire healthcare industry just to accommodate the 10% of the population who do not have health insurance?
Wouldn't one option be for the hospitals and/or insurance companies to ask for other customers to voluntarily pay an extra 10% to cover the costs of medical services for the poor? Let's face it, the vast majority of people, regardless of political persuasion, would have a difficult time turning away some guy who was in a car accident and had injuries and who was brought to the ER. Why would we expect people at hospitals to do what we would not do? And if the kind and generous citizens of this country are compassionate to vote for a tax to cover these costs, why wouldn't they just do it voluntarily? Sure, a lot of people would opt to not check the box that requires them to pay 10% more for their insurance, but many would.
Or if it is determined that there aren't enough charitable souls out there and a mandate is necessary, why not just stop at a mandate that everyone who has insurance, pays 10% more to cover the costs of the poor. We do that on our phone bill already.
Why is it necessary to take over an entire industry to solve a very basic problem? The answer is that it isn't necessary. If the intent of the ACA as to ensure that everyone, including the poor, had health insurance, it could have been done at a much lower cost and with far less complexity and with far better results.
The only reason to mandate the ACA is for more government power and control. It's clear that it won't solve the intended problem and in the process of failing to solve the intended problem, it will introduce many more problems while reducing the quality of healthcare for the 300 million people who were happy with their healthcare coverage.
What's next? Food is certainly much more of a necessity than healthcare. And yet we don't force grocery stores and restaurants to give food to any poor person who shows up. But the same logic that has been applied to healthcare can absolutely be applied to food vendors. How far away are we from when food vendors will be required to provide food to the poor? And if we require food vendors to provide food for the poor, the only way that they can stay in business is to have their paying customers absorb some of the cost by increasing prices. And when the prices get too high, the government will have to step in and take over the food industry so that affordable food can be provided to everyone. Of course, they only way that they can control costs is to take over the entire supply chain from the farms and all the way to the retail outlets and everything in between.
There can be no argument that food is more of a necessity than health care. Why shouldn't we expect the same thing to happen in the food industry?
Message 29169305 |
