as for the cost saving effects of more accessible medical care and preventive care etc., I agree with Bill. It is wonderful for the individual, but eventually, in aggregate, it becomes more expensive.
It's not clear to me how more frequent access to health care can be cost effective for individuals, but wasteful for a group. Add the individual costs together and you have the group cost.
It's an interesting theory, spelled out in this article in Vanity Fair:
vanityfair.com
The two assertions seem reasonable, the first being more intuitive than the second.
1. The costs of medical services for the 42 million uninsured Americans are already in the system, and the people paying for insurance are paying that cost. I think it's true that sick uninsured people don't just go sit under a bridge and die at no cost to the health care system. Instead they go to the emergency room, get treated, and insurance premiums paid by insured people incorporate those costs. So Obamacare doesn't give free health care to people who previously didn't get it - they were already getting free health care via the hospitals' requirement to accept anyone into an emergency room.
2. The per capita cost of care for uninsured people is higher than the cost of care for insured people. An emergency room visit costs more than a regular visit to the doctor, but that by itself doesn't mean the claim is true. I have no idea if this one is correct, but if it is then you get your economic benefit of Obamacare.
It would be nice if there were some more data and evidence to support argument #2. If it is factually correct, then the cost of subsiding insurance should pay for itself by reducing overall health care cost. Obamacare mandates that any reduction in health care cost be passed on to the consumer since it mandates that a fixed percentage of premiums has to go toward hospital care - in other words the insurance company can't take the cost reductions as its own profit. On the other hand the likely thing that would occur if hospitals do realize meaningful savings in their emergency room operation is, of course, they will spend more elsewhere to "improve" services.
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From a personal perspective my family of 5 has no health insurance. We just pay as we go, we've probably spent $10,000 in medical services over the past 5 years, which has been primarily having two babies. We don't have to pay anything into Obamacare since overseas exempts us from the mandate. If I get diagnosed with some horrible cancer that requires $100k/year in medical treatment to survive, I'm pretty sure I can move back to the US, sign up for insurance, and the system will pay for it even though I've contributed zero while living overseas. From this perspective the law seems completely nuts. |
