Health Care: 2011 Style

The boys are at it again.  Back on health care.  And, to their credit, it’s gonna be the news of the day.  For many many days.

For example, the new House is going to convene Wednesday and theya re going to, repeat, going to, vote to releal Obamacare.  Gonna happen.

And then we’re in a world of debate as the country wrestles with this problem throughout the next two years.  And when I say 2, I mean that Obama is going to be fighting this through his next election campaign.

Anyway, onto Brad and Britt

Time and time again these two continue to misrepresent insurance and who it’s protecting.  Time and time again they either:

1. Do compare it to automobile insurance
2. Don’t compare it to automobile insurance

And more than once, they make the false claim that by providing health insurance to everyone is really, NO REALLY, protecting all of us innocent tax payers who have to foot the bill of the people who seek medical attention in emergency rooms.

Consider clothing.  A required “good” in the same category as food and shelter.

Imagine, as we discuss poverty and the impacts of being poor, we passed legislation that required clothing stores to provide clothes to anyone who came into their place of business even if they couldn’t pay.

People who didn’t have clothes could walk right in off the street and shop for the clothes they needed, accrue a bill, and then walk back out onto the street.

Think we’d have people who would benefit from this new law?  Ya’betcha.  For sure.  Think we’d have people who’d take advantage of the new law and game the system.  Again, for sure.

And the result would be that:

1. Clothing would become more expensive.  Right. Away.  Those clothing stores are not in business to provide free clothes to any old person.  They need to recoup their losses, and the way to do that would be to raise the price on the people who DO pay.
2. The tax payer would have to foot the bill for all the people who don’t pay for their “clothing care”.

Now, as the debt for clothing continues to mount, is the problem due to the fact that we are not providing some form of “clothing insurance” or is it due to the fact that someone was successful enough to legislate their favored charity into law.  And that new law is now costing the nation trillions of dollars?

To claim that we need to pass health care legislation to protect ME is the most asinine argument I’ve seen to date.  The fact is that I am not obligated to provide medical care to people in the FIRST PLACE.  I may be driven in that direction because of my religion, my feeling of community or basic charity as a human being, but you can not make the case that Liberty requires me to provide care legally.

We have a health care problem because people are not responsible for their own care.  Coupled with the fact that we shop for medical services using other people’s money only drives the cost through the roof.

For example, consider Big J.  Big J has found that health insurance is too expensive and he would rather self insure than pay the massive premiums.  [ This is a tactic that I recommend, however. ]  This is what happens when you are self insured and go to the doctor:

…what really pissed me off is the doc snuck a Hepatitis Panel into my blood work without saying anything. Had Doc said, “You’re gonna die, and I want to ensure it isn’t Hepatitis.” I’d have replied with, “I was vaccinated from Hep-A and Hep-B three years ago, and I gave blood before getting married, so no Hep-C.”

But my nemesis said nothing to me, now I have to pay $500 in addition to the $100 office visit, plus whatever-other bullshit charges Doctor Evil can add on.

Big J is seeing the direct cost of medical care.  And he’s reacting as you would if you were asked to pay $7 for a Snickers bar.  The market reaction to this problem?  My suggestion:

…if you remain self insured for any length of time, you may find this useful:

scmsoc.org/Prepaid3.htm

Part of this project:

.scmsoc.org

Without understanding anything about medical testing and acknowledging that I’m not at all trained in anything medical, it sounds like you could have gotten all three tests for $89.20.

summitcountymedicalsociety.prepaidlab.com/Hepatitis-Panel-Acute.html

The point is insurance is meant to protect the individual; not society.  No matter how much some liberal talk show host wants to spin the debate and make it about his favored charity.