On June 28th
of last year the U.S Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act’s provision
that individuals may pay a penalty for not obtaining health insurance, as that
may be reasonably characterized as a tax.
The only way
to get a different result is to make a change.
Granted, the new system with insurance exchanges will likely not solve
all the issues. It will likely make
insurance much more affordable and accessible for many people though.
People with health
insurance don’t wait as long to see doctors and so get care when conditions are
preventable, more treatable and less costly.
People
without health coverage wait longer to see doctors and so get care when conditions
are advanced, less treatable and more costly.
And who picks up those increased costs?
Well…there
is no free ride…on anything. Uninsured
people in any system do not get free health care. The costs are simply spread among everyone by
the way of higher fees, higher premiums and an erosion of benefits.
Insurance 101
means gathering as large a pool of people as you can in order to collect the
lowest premiums possible to be able to cover the anticipated claims of the community. Having more people in the pool is better. Except regarding adverse selection, and this can
be avoided if younger and generally healthier people are incorporated.
But instead
of trying to work from simplicity and common sense there are too many people trying
to add complexity and nonsense into the equation.
If the
Affordable Care Act were to fail, that’s okay.
Another change can begin.
Doing
nothing….well that’s a failure from the get go.
© 2013
Christopher’s Views
