Have you ever been in an auto accident? Worse yet, did you discover the driver who hit you was uninsured? Did you have to pay the damages yourself, or did you purchase uninsured motorist coverage to protect yourself against the selfish, inconsiderate morons on the road who drive around uninsured?
How would you feel if there was a national movement crying about how unfair it is to require everyone driving on the roads to have insurance? Do you feel just a little angry about how you have to pay more in insurance costs just because the guy in the lane next to you doesn’t pay any?
This is how I feel about the current outrage over the individual mandate in the new healthcare law. For those who haven’t been paying attention, the new healthcare law requires all U.S. citizens to have healthcare.
This, for some reason, has resulted in countless lawsuits by Republican politicians claiming the law to be unconstitutional.
When you go to the emergency room or have surgery, the actual cost of the medical care is adjusted to recover losses the hospital incurs by treating the uninsured or under-insured.
As your insurance pays for a large part of your bill, this drives up the cost of your insurance. So once again, you end up paying for the irresponsible behavior of others.
This is one reason the new law requires everyone to maintain a minimum amount of insurance. If everyone is covered, the hospitals can lower their prices and the cost of insurance will go down.
I truly understand that insurance is expensive and not everyone can afford it.
The government understands too.
This is why the law expands Medicaid coverage to those making under 133 percent of the poverty level and it is why the law subsidizes the insurance costs for those who make too much for Medicaid yet make too little to afford their own insurance.
My problem is with the short-sighted jerks that can afford insurance yet refuse to purchase it.
I don’t care about how healthy you are right now. I
don’t care about how long it has been since you’ve been sick last.
I don’t even care about how much money you have saved up for emergencies.
The simple fact is you cannot predict accidents nor can you predict the future costs of unknown untreated medical conditions. Because of you, everyone else has to pay higher insurance costs. This is simply not fair.
I suppose one simple solution would be to change the way we handle emergency care in America.
Perhaps the new rule should allow hospitals the right to deny emergency treatment to those that don’t have insurance and don’t qualify for Medicaid.
If you can afford insurance and refuse to purchase it then maybe you should be allowed to die in the hospital parking lot.
At least this way you won’t have to worry about whether being required to purchase insurance is trampling your Constitutional rights.
In all honesty, I don’t believe that denial of care is a plausible solution. It is simply too cruel and it does not embody the values that make America great.
So this leaves us with the solution of individual mandates. As the Supreme Court has a long history of upholding the right of Congress to make all laws necessary to regulate commerce, I’m fairly certain that the mandate will be found Constitutional.
But what if it doesn’t? What if the whiners get a ruling that the government can’t require people to purchase insurance? What then?
Essentially, one of two things will happen.
If the court throws out the entire healthcare law, then young adults will be kicked off their parents’ insurance and it will be legal again for insurance companies to deny coverage to those with pre-existing conditions.
If the court strikes down the individual mandate, but keeps everything else in the law, then most Americans will be priced out of the market as insurance premiums will skyrocket to keep up with the shifting ratio of unhealthy to healthy people that are insured.
It’s just another example of how the uninsured morons of America cost the rest of us more.
— Tom Taylor, political science graduate
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kdbp1213 1 year, 2 months ago
brnclear, if my legs (or any part of my body) get hurt by any means, i'll use my health insurance that i have with my job.
if i lacked health insurance with a broken part of my body, that's my problem; not the usna's problem. i don't need big brother telling me what i need and don't need.
kdbp1213 1 year, 2 months ago
in our society, operating a motor vehicle is an option and privilege. i can afford the expenses of operating a motor vehicle. if i lacked ability to cover those expenses, i'd use public transportation, a bicycle, skateboard, private services, etc. govt's mandate of the purchase of motor vehicle insureance is a part of the aforementioned expenses. i have the option of dropping ownership of motor vehicle and, thus, mandated motor vehicle insurance is dropped. in the end, i choose to adhere to big brother.
with (the pending and) mandated healthcare coverage, i can't choose to adhere to big brother. in this case, adhering to big brother is non-optional. what's next? big brother gonna dictate my intake of food, use of electricity, time of day i can walk my dog, amount of exercise, etc.????
i found and earned a job that offers healthcare coverage as a fringe benefit. i acutally work for a living. other folks can work for a living, too. drop the blackberrys, put down the video games, get off of facebook, and find a job, folks. you, too, can get healthcare as a fringe benefit. find an organization that offers it. can't find an organization? go to the next organization then.
is anybody tired of living in the unsa, the united nanny states of america????
bmclear 1 year, 2 months ago
the problem, mr nanny, is some day you will need health ins. while you are riding that bike to work,you will be hit by one of those uninsured drivers. Good luck setting those broken legs yourself.