"It Is What It Is. Until It Isn't."
-Spongebob Squarepants
Tuesday, September 08, 2009
Health Care Stories
This is a story of living without health insurance. And so is this, and this, and so is this. So all these people, and all the tens of millions of others, are passing up health insurance so they can drive their Jaguars to their summer homes?
None of them will have their lives improved if the health care plan passes and whaps them with a hefty fine because they are in a situation without health care.
No, the situation has to go. The plan will make health care affordable and obtainable. All of these people would sign up for health care without hesitation if it were available to them. The problem is that it ISNT. Not because of some mystical "choice" they made, but because health insurance companies make them uninsurable, either but putting the cost out of reach or by refusing to cover them at all.
We don't do this(render someone uninsurable) with auto insurance. We don't do this with home insurance. We shouldn't do it with health insurance.
There does need to be an enforcement mechanism, just to ensure that everyone gets into the pool. I can't imagine a situation where someone wouldn't want to, but a law without a consequence is just a suggestion.
I'm fine with it being a mere suggestion. Apparently Obama was too, last year. The jackbooted fine came in somewhere in the House version of healthcare reform. Families are in dire straits don't need to be clobbered like that.
Working families on the lower end are the last people that government should be beating up on.
None of them will have their lives improved if the health care plan passes and whaps them with a hefty fine because they are in a situation without health care.
ReplyDeleteThe penalty has to go.
No, the situation has to go. The plan will make health care affordable and obtainable. All of these people would sign up for health care without hesitation if it were available to them. The problem is that it ISNT. Not because of some mystical "choice" they made, but because health insurance companies make them uninsurable, either but putting the cost out of reach or by refusing to cover them at all.
ReplyDeleteWe don't do this(render someone uninsurable) with auto insurance. We don't do this with home insurance. We shouldn't do it with health insurance.
If they would sign up for healthcare without hesitation were it available, there's certainly no need for any fines or mandates in this situation.
ReplyDeleteLet alone any.
There does need to be an enforcement mechanism, just to ensure that everyone gets into the pool. I can't imagine a situation where someone wouldn't want to, but a law without a consequence is just a suggestion.
ReplyDeleteI'm fine with it being a mere suggestion. Apparently Obama was too, last year. The jackbooted fine came in somewhere in the House version of healthcare reform. Families are in dire straits don't need to be clobbered like that.
ReplyDeleteWorking families on the lower end are the last people that government should be beating up on.
Indeed-but without everybody getting into the pool, the system doesn't work.
ReplyDeleteHR 3200 does help people pay for it, though, so it's not as much of a whack as you think.
Why don't you object to mandatory auto insurance?
Actually, a lot of people end up driving without auto insurance anyway.
ReplyDeleteSo maybe this "rob the poor"
mandate of the health care plan would be no problem at all, if people can end up getting around it if they need to.
That's true. Is Michigan not a mandatory insurance state? New Jersey is.
ReplyDelete