Jun 10 2009
Health Care Mandate: Just Say No
A health care mandate is a terrible idea.
People compare it to the auto insurance mandate which most states have. I tend to disagree, for a couple reasons.
First, auto insurance (or your lack thereof) affects other people. When you get in an accident without insurance and without the financial means to pay for the person you hit’s damage, that is a pain for both you and them. Even if they sue you for the money, if you don’t have the money to give them, they could now be out a car, with nothing they can do about it. While with our current system, the uninsured are treated, and the costs passed on to those who can pay, this is a whole different issue, and one that needs reform. If a doctor is able to turn away patients who cannot pay and who do not have insurance, nobody other than the uninsured is affected by their lack of insurance.
Second, enforceability. With auto insurance, police regularly patrol the roads, and when you are pulled over, they check for insurance. On the other hand, chances are that people without health insurance are not visiting medical providers unless they have an issue. Unless they are going to a government-run hospital, there is no way to enforce the mandate on them. The enforcement would require a new infrastructure to be set up, and also more than likely an inappropriate government involvement in private individuals’ medical and financial records, as well as those of medical providers.
Please, do whatever you can to stop the health insurance mandate.
Eli,
First of all, how much do the salaries and technology cost Massachusetts to cross-reference their tax database and their insurance database? Second, as a Libertarian, I have a very strong objection to the government poking around people’s health insurance and medical records.
Second, there are already charitable organizations which seek to offer discounted or free medical care to the uninsured and poor. If we, as a society, believe that other people deserve to be treated for medical emergencies at our expense, then we, as a society, should officially pick up the bill, like we do with subsidized housing, food stamps, and other welfare programs. Imagine if instead of Section 8, we had a law that said landlords could not evict the poor. So, if your neighbor did not pay his rent, instead of evicting him or getting government money, your landlord came to you for more money each month. Imagine if, instead of food stamps, we had a law that said restaurants and grocery stores could not turn away the homeless. Every time you ate, you were presented the bill for your own food, and the table next to yours. Or you were presented the bill for your groceries, plus those of the person that couldn’t afford to pay.
Tort lawyers and the uninsured are the reason medical costs and health insurance are so expensive. Instead of indirectly taxing doctors, and patients responsible enough to get health care, we need to either deny care to those who can’t pay and send them to free or subsidized clinics, or put them onto an actual welfare program of some sort.
Sorry again for the delay in approving your comments, and as always thanks for stopping by!