Quote:
Originally Posted by Amanah
in Florida, everyone who drives has to have car insurance, or you can get your license suspended.
If you are buying a home, the bank forces you to have Home owners Ins, or the bank insures your home and bills you.
Maybe we should make it so everyone has to buy health insurance, and if you don't you are billed for it by the State. If you don't pay it, the state can take it from your income tax, or put a lien on your property, or garnish your wages.
Maybe it would be cheaper then everyone having their hospital costs jacked up to pay for the people who have to resort to the emergency room for health care.
By the time they get to the Emergency Room, they are full blown AIDs instead of treatable HIV, or they have terminal cancer, instead of just needing surgery and chemo, or they are blind and need their legs amputated instead of just needing insulin. And the costs are more in the long run then if we treated people up front.
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A single mother of three is working hard to provide for her family and cannot afford the health insurance. She suddenly comes down with a terrible disease that requires much care. Now, due to circumstances out of her control, she faces the government coming in and taking it from her income tax, putting a lien on her property, or garnishing her wages. I'm not sure if that's socially just. In a sense, that empowers government far more than a national health insurance program would.
The way I see it... in our current national situation the cost of the uninsured will almost always be passed on to those with insurance. When people can't pay the bill... the health care providers have to write it up as a loss and that is passed down to the consumer through higher health care costs. As health care costs rise, insurance premiums have to rise to meet the cost. As health insurance premiums rise... more people opt out of having health insurance. And the cycle repeats itself.
Using the logic you proposed, it would be much cleaner if the government formed a national health insurance program and required everyone to pay into it. This would also relieve businesses from the need to provide employees with health insurance. Business would be free to simply... do business.
But that would be very expensive. The government has to cut costs. I'd much rather see the government work on forming a national health insurance program than spending untold Trillions on foreign aid to foreign countries and unnecessary wars. We are not the world's police. If memory serves me correctly the United States and Canada both had legislation aimed at national health care systems... but WWI broke out and the American legislation was sidelined to fund the war... while Canada moved forward.
But then... that would be socialism. The problem is... this is 2011. The cost of the uninsured will ultimately be passed down to the insured. We need a way to insure that everyone pays into the system and the burden of the uninsured doesn't drive up our premiums until we too are found unable to pay for our health insurance. With my current understanding, this is the only way to do it without having to deny care or penalize those who are uninsured should they find themselves in need of care. It's a reality I DON'T like. But nonetheless, it's reality.
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