Off topic: Actually, New Hampshire doesn't have a mandatory liability insurance law. However, people are liable for any damages if they cause an accident.
Somehow you think paying auto insurance to cover somebody else is ok, yet paying health insurance to cover yourself is not! You guys are totally wacko. If it would make you feel better ... how about the government makes you buy health insurance to cover the other guys because people like you (those with no health insurance of your own) probably get sick at one point or another without taking care of it, hence you are more likely to spread infectious diseases to the rest of the people. Call it liability health insurance if you would. Is that good with you?
But it does require you to maintain $$$ on hand to pay for damages, thereby effectively requiring self-insurance. It's the exact same thing, economically.
No, it just means that a person is liable for what happened. Insurance is a definitely a good thing to have to mitigate any sort of risk. But is it right to force people to buy insurance in every instance where there's risk? You're right that it has the same economic effect. Why not let people mitigate risk on their own terms?
So you're saying that instead of an insurance mandate, you support requiring everyone to have several hundred thousand dollars in savings sitting around in case they get sick? Or should they just be liable for any bills they rack up from medical costs without being able to declare bankruptcy to avoid paying them?
See post #100 for your answer. The only other way out of it is to go with what Sweet Lou wrote in post #95. I wouldn't mind turning away emergency room patients who can't pay, but I'm an evil cold-hearted b*stard, and that's just not going to happen in our society. If "forcing people to buy" means fining people who get caught without health insurance, then that's okay with me. That's what we do to people who get caught without auto-insurance in Texas (or the card that says you have $50K set aside in a special bond that will be used in case you are at fault for an accident). Once again, post #100 is on the money. I'll just go ahead and quote it. I honestly would like to read an honest rebuttal to this because I'm having a hard time finding a flaw to the following logic.
Just because a person is held liable for some event doesn't mean that they are required "to have several hundred thousand dollars in savings sitting around in case they get sick." They should be liable for the bills, and if they're unable to pay, bankruptcy should be an option for them. It's an entirely normal process, and it doesn't force people into inescapable poverty.
I largely agree with post #100. "You can choose to not have insurance, go to a hospital and get emergency care. If you can't pay it becomes up to the hospital to recoup that from other patients, charity and/or the government. The problem with this of course is that this is a public option paid for in the most wasteful and inefficient manner. " However, I disagree the methods outlined are "the most wasteful and efficient manner," for recouping costs. It's just that these methods are constrained by scarcity. It seems like there is a misconception that by using taxes to recoup these losses, has a lesser economic effect (as though it isn't constrained by the same scarcity of resources). The opportunity cost is the same in either situation. Donations, charity, etc. could all be invested in other ventures. The same goes for taxes. One method is voluntary and the other method is coercive. The state is less efficient and more wasteful because they just act as a middleman.
Well, I think the court will do the right thing. If they do their job and interpret the constitution then there is no way they can not rule this is unconstitutional. Of course, my right thing and yours are on COMPLETELY opposite ends of the spectrum but that is what makes this country so great. Does it concern you at all that the government is mandating you to purchase something for no other reason than you are a alive? If not, then where would you draw the line?
Well I will say, with how activist and ideologically entrenched this court is right now I'm not ruling anything out. But to your question: I would have no qualms at all paying 5, 10% more in taxes if I knew the entire country was covered with insurance and every kid was assured an undergraduate education if they so desired. If that makes me a socialist libpig, so be it.
you are right that the gov't is less efficient but you are wrong about overall costs. If people have health insurance they can get the care they need that will result in overall lower cost in treatment. It's much cheaper to treat someone for hypertension than it is to treat a heart attack. Our current scenario is treating people at the end of the disease - when a heart attach occurs. That's immense cost. 10's of thousands of dollars or more. You absorb that cost. Wouldn't you rather pay hundreds of dollars instead of thousands? Think about it, your premiums would go down, and you could get better value on your dollars.
But if you allow for bankruptcy, then ultimately people will not be liable for the majority of their bills. When medical emergencies come up, the costs are usually so extreme that most people cannot pay them. That's why they (should) have insurance. If you let them out when they can't pay afterwards either, the costs still get left up to tax payers and insurance premium payers.
A good point and this is key. There is no way around it without hospitals refusing to care for those who cannot pay those that can will bear the cost. Those who cannot pay are still being subsidized by those that can through those higher premiums and taxes. We basically have the most inefficient form of socialism possible as it is currently structured. A truely capitalistic structure would just allow those that cannont pay to fail and not receive care.
Actually I am not talking about scarcity or opportunity costs as that factors in whatever system you have what I am talking is that even though we have a defacto public option we actually aren't set up to do so. From what I have read and heard is that when someone comes in to a hospital who doesn't have insurance an attempt is made to collect. If they can't then a whole lot of paperwork gets generated to figure out how to collect and from whom. At the same time since a medical problem doesn't usually end with emergency care there ends up being a problem with what to do with the uninsured individual. Either the individual gets temporarily better and goes on only to repeat the cycle again, or the individual gets passed on to other health care in an attempt to find care that is affordable or provided for through other means, or they die. Many of these problems could be avoided if from the beginning there is some way to recoup the costs through being insured. In regard to the state being more wasteful and coercive I will agree it is by nature coercive yet as I have stated under the situation we have now doctors are already coerced to provide service and without mandates we essentially allow people to take advantage of that in the name of liberty. In regard to wasteful I don't think that need be the case and having experienced a government run health care system first hand a state system can be efficient. Also consider that our free market system creates a lot of waste by creating a lot of paperwork and bureaucracy to deal with multiple insurers and policies.
