If you’ve been reading the news lately, you’ve probably seen a lot about the Health Care Reform Act. And of that act you’ve probably heard about some of the controversial things that people say are included in it. One of the most important things that exists in the Democratic package that everyone is concerned about is the Mandate to buy Health Insurance.
Basically, of the 40 million people who don’t have health insurance, they will have to buy it, if they can’t afford it, the government will take money from other people and help them pay for it.
The reason they are doing this is because they think it will avoid uncompensated expenses (which are less than 2% of the money spent on health care) and that it will help lower costs for everyone. It will include young and healthy people who have made the choice to not get insurance in order to lower premiums for sick or elderly people. They have said, 50% of the money is spent by 5% of the population. What I haven’t heard yet is anyone mention how 75% of the 2 trillion plus spent on health care is spent on diseases and conditions that are near 100% preventable.
So the government is proposing we attack something thats less than 2% of the money spent on Health Care by proposing something that over 70% of Americans are against, while ignoring prevention which is causing 75% of the health care expenditures. Does this make sense? Probably not, simply by promoting that people eat healthy, exercise, don’t pick up bad habits, and live stress free would almost instantaneously reduce the Health Care spending by a significant amount.
But here’s why the mandate won’t hold in courts. It’s not constitutional, that’s as simple as it gets. You cannot force an American to buy anything against their will. It’s kind of disturbing that just by being a live you are responsible for having to buy something. Especially when you consider, of the 40 million people and the uncompensated health care costs, most of them don’t have health insurance by choice, most of them pay for their doctors and emergency room visits in cash, and most of the uncompensated health care costs are for illegal immigrants, of which, mandating insurance cannot fix.
Can mandating health insurance help lower premiums? Yes, I’m sure it can. But imagine if the government told you tomorrow that you had to buy Car Insurance, even if you didn’t own a car, because some day you might need to use it, and they want you to pay now so others can afford their insurance. There are a lot of unethical and unconstitutional things that someone can do to solve a problem. For example, what if I kept 90% of everyones income, do you think I could pay back the deficit then?
The Simple Solution: Don’t mandate health insurance and focus on things that play a bigger role in the cost of health care, like prevention.
What do you think about the Mandated Health Insurance clause?
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