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Mandatory health care coverage?
Hilary says, "...a mandate requiring every American to purchase health insurance was the only way to achieve universal health care..."
The article tells us,"Her health care plan would require every American to buy health insurance, offering tax credits and subsidies to help those who can't afford it."
I have a question. Who's gonna define "those who can't afford it?" I'm a practicing attorney, and right now I "can't afford it." I buy health insurance for my family anyway, simply because I don't like the odds of us continuing to live our safe, happy lives in relative health. Especially with a two year-old who still likes to eat anything she finds on the floor.
Seriously, folks, I'm really not a cynic. But I can't help worrying about how Hilary-Care will drive prices even higher for those of us the government believes are able to afford it.
Understandably, no one's worried about the rich. They can afford to buy health insurance no matter what. Heck, some of 'em could probably buy an insurance company, if they wanted to. By contrast, everybody's worried about the poor. I don't guess I can argue with that, but wouldn't some serious Medicare reform help bring costs down, without hiking prices for the middle class?
We're being set up. When we're subsidizing private insurance for poor people instead of (or probably in addition to) Medicare, and driving the price of insurance sky-high, is anybody gonna cry for my kids?
Probably nobody but me.
UPDATE
She stole it? John Edwards' wife is yelling that Hilary's plan is a carbon-copy of her hubby's.
For shame, Hilary. For shame.
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1 comment:
I think the proper requirement is not that "everyone buy 'insurance'" but that everyone buy catastrophic insurance. As for not being able to afford it, presumably you can afford some level of car insurance (unless you're driving without like an illegal immigrant ;-). There's different levels of health insurance too.
I'm with you on reforming Medicare, but given that seniors are the most coddled group of voters in America (have you heard Obama's proposal to let them off paying taxes even if they have a middle class income?), I think money's going to get taken out of Medicare around the same time we let Social Security collapse (i.e., when my generation hits its golden years).
However, if what you meant by your references to the poor was *Medicaid*, I doubt we'd agree about reforming it. What can I say, the idea of poor kids running a fever not being able to go to the doctor because their mama literally can't afford it (as opposed to "can't afford it and high speed internet in the same month") just disturbs me too much.
Prices in health care already are massively distorted by the fact of insurance, a third party payer. If you wanted to see what the real market price of health care ought to be, get rid of insurance and watch the providers compete on price to the people who are receiving the care. Then the doctors won't have to hire people to fight with the insurers to cover a service, and they can just post a list up front. Or bill by the hour, like attorneys. If Grandma wants to complain of her aches for half an hour, she can pay the $100.
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