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Why force people to get health insurance?
Posted by mikeny07 • 9/14/09 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Topics: Health Insurance
A comparison that Obama made with health insurance is that you must have auto insurance. This doesn't make sense though.
If someone does not want auto insurance, they don't have to buy a car. They can also be driven by taxi, take public transportation, ride a bike, walk, let someone drive them...
Why should anyone be forced to get something they don't want? What is next? Dental insurance? Probably 100 million or more don't have that either.
User Comments
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Is it really in the best interest of all the members in any society to deprive a minority from access to healthcare?
Do sick people work as many hours and pay as high taxes as well people do when performing the same jobs?
Do sick and unemployed people have opportunities to become well so they can make a greater contribution to society by becoming employed and paying higher taxes?
Which segment of American society is best served by depriving the poor, ailing and unemployed of access to healthcare?
How can it be that right wing religious types, who are under the commandment to feed the hungry and heal the sick, are the most vehement protestors when it comes to providing healthcare to America's disadvantaged?
Are Americans not aware that 1/3 of the children being raised in single parent families today are being raised by mothers who make less income than their male counterparts do, and who find that the existing healthcare system is failing to provide for them and their children?
Women and the Individual Health Insurance Market: It’s No Shopper’s Paradise nwlc.blogs.com/womenstake/2008/09/women-and-the-i.html
Many Americans are unfamiliar with the harsh realities of the individual health insurance market because they receive health insurance through an employer. However, as a number of prominent health care reform proposals consider expanding the role of the individual market, it is important to understand how this system fails women. Download NWLC’s report, Nowhere to Turn: How the Individual Health Insurance Market Fails Women.
action.nwlc.org/insurance
Is it in the best interests of Americans as a whole to deprive 1/3 of the children in their country of access to healthcare? Are they likely to grow up to be healthy, educated and high income taxpayers without such access. -
I'm sorry - but EVERYONE at some point in their life NEEDS medical help.
Why shouldn't everyone HAVE health insurance?
I think Canadian Health insurance is the best model that I've seen. But there are others - and I haven't seen them all.
My belief is that we need health insurance.
It isn't whether you want it or not - YOU NEED it.
EVERYONE needs it.
Unless of course you choose to live without it.
If you choose to live without it - then you have NO ACCESS TO medical health unless you can pay for it.
I think that the INSURANCE companies are mafia - but it is how our system operates - and unfortunately - it is what we have.
But since it is how we structure how things get paid for - then we need to use it. -
Some people don't want it though. If you live a healthy life, you may never get a major illness until you are older at least anyway. If you pay $5,000 a year for your own health insurance and never get sick for 20 years, you just threw out $100,000 of your money out the window.
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that is why it is called 'insurance' -
First of all, I believe that medical care should be a right. But this subject was already driven into the ground in a political discussion and I won't comment further on it here.
As for your question, the reason for making health insurance mandatory is that hospitals are required to treat everyone, regardless of coverage. As HollytheHousewife mentioned in a post below, she has $30,000 in medical bills that she can never pay off. It's quite possible for someone without insurance to run up bills totaling 100 times that, which will never be paid off. Such unaffordable bills only add to bankruptcies, and leave medical professionals and facilities going without payment. The latter forces up the cost of care for the insured or those who can pay.
Just as bills from an auto accident are unaffordable to the average person, so are bills from a medical emergency. True, you don't have to drive, but you do have to live.
As for making it mandatory though, I believe that people should be exempt if they are in a very secure financial situation. Along the same lines, if this mandatory thing is to go through, inexpensive policies for the financially secure should be offered with deductibles of $1 million or more. -
If the government was to provide a low cost option it would not be $5000 a year. I was recently quoted something like $174/month for an individual plan with decent coverage. That's less that $2400 a year and that is what I'd be paying personally without employer assistance or without a low cost, non-profit type alternative.
I am not sure how I feel about mandatory insurance because I don't know what effect it would have on people who might struggle to afford it. I am by no means wealthy, but would be able to cover basic insurance. Another question is how do you enforce that? Deport those who refuse to get coverage? Refuse them medical assistance? Fine them? None of these seem like viable options.
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I don't see how you would enforce it and if it's not enforceable then how will it help? I'm sure a good number of people will conform, but there will still be the people outside of the system who won't and we will still be footing the bill for their medical expenses. I guess just severely cutting the number of uninsured people might cut medical costs picked up by tax payers enough to make it a viable option. I don't know. I do know this mandatory insurance is the one part of Obama's proposed plan that I'm not sold on. -
The only way to make it work would be if it were affordable for everyone. Therefore welfare programs like Medicaid would have to stay in place.
As far as enforceability, I don't know. I've heard that Maine, Massachusetts and Vermont already have it, but I don't know for sure. Many countries in the European Union have mandatory health coverage for all residents, but here we go again with socialized medicine. Citizens get it as a right there. Foreigners get it as soon as they're employed, through taxes paid through the employer. If any foreigner wants to live in most EU countries without working, they must first show proof of medical insurance. Otherwise no right of residency is granted.
Personally I see no harm in socialized medicine. I lived in the UK for years, where medical coverage was provided to all legal residents regardless of income (the key here is "legal" residency). Despite higher taxes, I had no medical insurance premiums to pay, nor co-pays, nor deductibles. And I was never denied coverage for any procedure. Consequently, my standard of living there was higher than here in the USA.
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I agree,your gov't shouldn't force you to get anything,but I would LUV to have some health ins. I have over 30,000 in med. Bills right now that is never gonna be paid off-
A society can't be wealthy unless all its members have equal access to education and healthcare. This is my opinion. -
True. Individuals can be wealthy, but not society.
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The real question to be asked is, is the cost of the treatment really that much?
People are pouring in 10000 a year into health insurance with no or minor treatments. Where does all the money go?
1. Salaries of insurance companies
2. Court case insurance of doctors
3. You can add more here if you know ...
All insurance is a funds sink. The entire idea of insurance is foolish and insurance companies have taken people for a long ride while artificially inflating the costs and making treatment unavailable to people
Imagine if there were none of these costs - if doctors' cases could be fought by hospitals, clinics or their own companies. In fact there is no need to file cases, if doctors just compete in providing the best care
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Smoking also adds to the cost of healthcare for all of us but the government does not ban smoking. There are other ways of solving the healthcare problem without forcing people to pay for coverage.
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let's ban unhealthy foods too!
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The government fairs fairly well on cigarette taxes . . . .
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Ha, I know. You see the route we are going down? This is just the start of it.
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The key problem of not having everyone pay into health insurance is that when any one of the uninsured does get sick, someone else will ultimately have to pay for them because few will standby and allow a person to suffer with whatever condition or injury they have. Eating healthy and exercising is no guarantee of health considering that accidents can easily happen. Thus, not getting insurance is simply saying that someone else should cover the cost. Be it a doctor, family members or a charitable organization, somebody is footing the bill on the behalf of those who would chose not to be uninsured. -
I wouldn't mind having health insurance. I can't afford it now..
But... I have a big problem with the health insurance companies picking and choosing what kind of treatments and medications they will pay for.. For denying a medical treatment recommended by a physician, and or denying treatment because they don't agree with how much the charge is..
Too many have gone without required treatments and medications because the person sitting behind the desk thinks they know more then the physicians that have diagnosed the medical need.
Take away that kind of control from the health insurance companies, and then it would really be helpful and worth it!-
Agreed. That's why medical care should not be a "for profit" industry.
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I disagree with the idea that health care should not be "for profit" as there many peripheral services that a person might wish for in health care that are not fundamental and could be optional. In addition, assuming that there is real competition that reduces prices and gives individuals choice, "for profit" operation of some aspects of health care can reduce overall health care costs and fill needs that a purely public system might not.
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All fine for the portion of the population who can afford it . . . . .
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To take your comparison with auto insurance, let's say you refuse to take auto insurance so you walked instead: wouldn't you be relieved to know that if a car (or bus, truck...) driver knocked you down on the road, they had insurance to pay for your hospital bills?
You don't ask a bus driver if the bus company he works for has insurance but I'm pretty sure no sane person would get on the bus if they knew the bus company was uninsured.
Here in Ireland health insurance is not mandatory but recommended. People who can't afford medical insurance can apply for the medical card which gets you free GP visits and free prescibed medicine or the GP card (I thinks that's just the GP visits that are free with this scheme).
It may sound unfair to hard-working people who pay for health insurance contributions in their taxes but if they ever lost their jobs (which tends to happen a lot at the moment), I bet they would be pretty happy to be able to get free medical care for their families and themselves. -
The whole smacks of bailout of the health insurance industry. This is just another way of our gov't to micromanage situations in our lives that they have NO BUSINESS.
If you want people to buy health insurance:
Make it affordable
Don't deny enrollment because of a pre-existing condition
And turn these companies into 'Not for profits.'
There's no guarantee that if you pay for it, the companies will cover you. -
The idea though that they make that all 50 million people without health insurance are falling over into the grave does not make sense.
I never knew anyone that had a major health problem until well into their older years. They would be on Medicare by then. How can all these 50 million need health insurance so bad? Are they that sick?
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