It’s Not Health Care ‘Reform’; It’s Exploitation
Scratch a health care “reformer” and you’re likely to find a health care exploiter. As ObamaCare’s provisions and taxes begin and resistance builds through lawsuits and state-level measures, it’s important to see the exploitative motives driving increased political control of your medical care. Health control advocates won’t stop with ObamaCare (HR 3590). “Once we kick through this door, there’ll be more legislation to follow,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Whether health control supporters demand that all policies include certain benefits or that everyone must buy government-approved insurance or something like “Medicare for all,” the policies don’t follow from the alleged justifications for them. But they do follow from one motive: charity at gunpoint. That is, forcing you to finance other people’s medical care. This is exploitation. It’s about time freedom advocates reclaim this term often misused by the left, as so-called health care “reform” is a clear case of exploitation.
Mandated insurance benefits are one means of health care exploitation. For example, many states mandate that all small-group policies cover maternity care and comprehensive autism treatments. One of the ObamaCare mandates effectively bans limited-benefit plans. Surely some people want such coverage, but the plans available to them do not include it. But it’s a non sequitur to mandate that all plans include such coverage. This forces everyone to pay higher premiums for coverage they may not want or need.
If this is just a matter of insuring against certain risks, supporters of mandated benefits should support only mandating the sale of supplemental insurance policies, or “riders” on existing policies. For example, insurers in a few states sell supplemental maternity insurance. Canadian companies offer critical illness insurance, which pays parents a lump sum should their children have a serious condition such as cystic fibrosis, Lyme disease, heart disease, and cancer. Given existing products like these, it’s not hard to imagine a supplemental policy for expecting couples seeking to enhance their insurance coverage related to child birth and their child’s health.
Then why are mandated benefits so popular, while mandated riders or allowing for interstate insurance competition is not? Exploitation. It’s not about access to a specific type of insurance, but about forcing you to pay for other people’s medical care.
The demand for mandates would lessen if government didn’t shield insurers from competition and the need to please customers. The tax code favors employer-provided insurance, which makes it very costly for patients to change insurance providers. States prohibit patients from buying better or more affordable insurance policies sold in other states. Lifting this ban would make insurance affordable for 12 million more Americans, and improve quality by increasing competition among insurers and states that regulate them.
“Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive” When originally challenged they said the FORCED purchase of Obama care was NOT a Tax but now they have been challenged in Court they realise that the Constitution does not allow them to impose it that way so now they claim it IS a TAX.
Its only going to get worse look at Arizona they were condemning RACIAL PROFILING and that was the reason THEY said they had to take it to court but then they realised there was NO RACIAL profiling in the Law and it in fact specifically disallowed RACIAL PROFILING so now they PRETEND its about Federal paramountcy over State Law even though the Arizona Law is virtually IDENTICAL to the Federal Law and the FEDS are NOT DOING THEIR JOB and upholding THEIR Law.
Has there ever been a more RACIST corrupt Govermnet than this?
I keep wondering why no one is pointing out that over 52% of the border patrol officers are Hispanic. Furthermore, border patrol officers are required to speak Spanish. Hispanic law enforcement officers “racially profiling” Hispanics is laughable.
Healthcare is NOT a right, as you said. Rights never demand anyone else surrender the fruits of their labor. None of the rights enumerated by our founding documents cost you for me to exercise them. They are inherently “free” (hence “freedom”) therefore healthcare, housing, clothing, food or any other tangible good which takes labor to produce cannot be a right.
Excellent points Kender, the money in my bank account was earned by me, it was not a gift from the Government. Having the federal, state, and local governmentss step in and confiscate a sizable chunk of my cash each year to pay for others to laze about just sets my teeth on edge.
“Laborare est orare.” Some of you labor; the rest, like Poor Citizen and BC, who now and again sully some of the comments sections of these blogs, pray they can get your salaries so highly taxed that some people won’t have to pay for their food, housing, medical care, etc., etc. There is no end to this gimme game, so there will always be a Democraticic party around ready to grab more of the low-hanging fruits of your labor.
But there is another reason for high taxes such as those imposed during and right after WWII when there was a lot of money being made everywhere. They imposed high taxes to fight inflation by taking money out of circulation. Unfortunately, now the Dems want to impose high taxes when, at the moment anyway, it seems we have low inflation if not deflation. A riddle: how can a Dem economist not be knowledgeable about Economics. I don’t know. But you take Paul Krugman…please.
Thank you, Brian, for making these crucially important points. If we wish to truly dismantle ObamaCare, we have to oppose it not only economic or constitutional grounds but on more fundamental philosophical grounds. A critical step will be debunking the notion of a mythical “right” to health care — a bad idea which then opens the door for complete government control over medicine, as we’ve seen in other countries.
More than ever before, America needs to hear this message before it’s too late. Thank you, Brian, for making this point loud and clear.
Let’s face it; Obama wants to enslave the United States. He considers this reversing the roles of autocrat and slave.
“Constitution? We don’t need no stinkin’ Constitution!”
1 problem i have with it is it’s not based on facts.try http://www.allvoices .com/6339650 that came to me from the first lady. they are giving tax breaks to small business to make it more affordable to insure you and if you buy insurance they will give you a tax break to help you. if you put the healthy and the sick into the same pool and make the insurance cover any preexisting condition. that what the mandate is about so they can’t take advantage of you
It’s not just health care that government meddles in — it’s THE TEXTBOOK INDUSTRY TOO! http://bit.ly/9iRBdf…….These libs won’t leave anything alone. They have their dirty little hands IN EVERYTHING! We NEED to get more conservatives in office this year!
Mickey has the key solution to the whole problem. The textbooks that purport to teach the truth are often no more valid than Obama’s speeches. After generations of learning from books that shaded the facts, a large part of our population has missed the whole message of what our country originally stood for. Sure, we celebrate all the national holidays, but many look at them only as a paid holiday and have no idea of their origin. They have no understanding of how to combat the “we’re no better than anybody else” mantra that Obama spews at us. Nikita Krushchev predicted that we would be conquered from within, and he was right. Elect conservatives who are actually conservative, not who just say they are (are you listening, McCain?).
Freedom and free markets with government limited to ensuring our safety and property rights can be a very stable system. The main destabilizing force as the author states comes from within as politicians exploit our naive attraction to the high-sounding but unworkable principles of collectivism.
The problem with “Progressivism” is that it can never be stable. It lives on a very slippery slope as government – and the special interest groups that benefit from it at the expense of others – spend a significant portion of their available time and taxpayer money expanding their domains and gaining an ever increasing claim on our collective productivity while contributing less and less.
The momentum that these people have right now is truly frightening. Progressives have essentially perfected their ability to buy the votes of a majority by taking from a minority. As this “majority” becomes a super majority the scheme will collapse upon itself just as it did in the USSR, Cuba and as is happening in Greece. The only winners are the political elites, union leaders and the corporations and the very rich who have played along with the people in power.
This is primary reason that the founders insisted on limited and enumerated roles for the Federal government. Anything else is unstable and eventually enslaves most of us once again.
“ObamaCare” is a perversion, period.
My professional actuarial opinion is that:
1. The sole justification for insurance is to reveal the prices of risk.
2. The sole use of insurance is to level risk, to swap a $1,000 premium for the one-in-a-hundred chance of a $100,000 illness.
It is unconscionable to separate risk from cost. It is irresponsible to have employers, workers and doctors in a cut-throat poker game. And it is stupid to insure first dollar medical, just as stupid as “grocery benefit” under homeowners or “oil change cover” in auo insurance.
The sooner we cause the socialist scheme to collapse, the better, and the less long term damage to America.
******
In a similar way, we shall soon see the failure of FDR’s folly with social security.
Ten citizens, one poor. The right solution is to take 10¢ from each of nine, and give 90¢ to the poor one.
Instead, FDR perpetrated a fraud, took $1 from each of the nine, and then gave EVERYONE 90¢.
That sort of scheme has multiple bad effects. First, it hides the net cost of 10¢ behind the shell game of take a dollar and give some back. Second, it creates a deleterious dependency on all 10 people, making all of them believe (wrongly) that government can actually give them something. Finally, it creates too much latitude for further bureaucratic tampering and interference.
Politicos are in the re-election business, bureaucrats are in the bloat business, and only those two groups benefit from this sort of manipulation – back then with Social Security, and today with efforts to promote socialized medicine.
(cross-posted at TigerHawk)
Thanks Robert for these insights. An actuarial acquaintance told me this same story years ago. The result was this, FWIW.
Government’s motives and goals regarding health care – and their consistent attempts to control the way we pay for it – reveal a transparent, ongoing push toward socialism going as far back as the ’50s.
Heart Disease – 28.5%
Malignant Neoplasm (Cancer) – 22.8%
Cerebrovascular Diseases (Stroke) – 6.7%
Chronic Lower Respiratory Disease – 5.1%
Accidents (Unintentional) – 4.4%
Diabetes Melitus – 3.0%
Influenza/Pneumonia – 2.7%
Alzheimer’s – 2.4%
Nephritis(Liver Disease) – 1.7%
Septicemia – 1.4%
Here is the enemy of health and productivity and cost. The cures are not in more government and more taxes. If anything, clean up the food industry with their processing and additives. Put down the cigarette and doughnut, walk!
I would say that these are side effects of the advancements in medicine that have allowed more people to live longer. Once-fatal illnesses can now be managed. Diabetes used to be 100% fatal, strokes nearly that rate. Heart disease was also fatal because the only to find out about it was to have a heart attack, and there was little/no treatment for survivors. Cancer, too, was usually fatal.
Your argument that people get sick because of poor health habits is flawed. I have an uncle and four cousins who contracted serious illnesses in childhood. All were under age 12 at the time of diagnosis. My uncle and a cousin died from cancer, in 1957 and in 1964. Another cousin was diagnosed with cancer in 1973, and advanced treatment helped her survive. She’s now 41, happily married with three kids. A third was diagnosed w/leukemia at 9 months old. Not a smoker, I can vouch for that, and neither are his parents. He is now 14 and cancer-free, thanks to a bone marrow transplant. His oldest sister was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes at age 5, and it was heredity, not junk food, that was the cause. She’s now 21 and kicking hiney at a top college.
It’s much more expensive to keep someone alive than it is to bury him or her. Which would you prefer for your loved ones?
I am talking the macro, and you may be talking the micro, we may not be arguing, and the scale is different. Bad things can happen to good people, and massively bad things can happen to populations that are self-addicted to overeating, smoking, neuro-toxins, et al. . . An individual must be responsible for their own health, because government control of one’s health may pan into eugenics. It has happened before.
I understand that. However, Obamacare–especially the mandate–pits us against each other and makes us, not the govt., want to deny others their freedom. Why be resentful of someone who wants to eat bacon and eggs? Why be resentful of a mountain-climbing, off-road-racing thrill seeker? There’s no reason, EXCEPT when you’re literally being forced to pay for their health care.
The only health insurance reforms that will alleviate this “me vs. you” situation are:
a) Sever the ties between employment and HC coverage. This includes eliminating the gigantic tax advantages employers receive for providing HC coverage.
b) Abolish the insurance monopolies and make it legal for individuals to buy insurance across state lines. The competition will be fierce, but that’s what is SUPPOSED to happen!
c) Allow senior citizens to opt out of Medicare without losing their Social Security benefits.
d) Allow insurers to pool by risk, rather than all the artificial/mandated categories like location; in exchange, the insurers should not be able to reject an applicant due to a pre-existing condition. A higher-risk customer will pay more, but he or she will be insured.
e) Make sure health insurance coverage is truly portable–across state lines, jobs, family changes, health changes, and from one carrier to another. Again, these changes may cost the individual more (or less), but he or she will be covered.
It is a good point, but wouldn’t your use of the term “exploitation” apply just as well to any number of public needs that taxes provide? I am certain we have all funded through our taxes bridges we will never happen to drive on or emergency services some of us will never need. There are some great interviews and discussions about the different angles and challenges to the health care reform effort at http://www.ourblook.com/topic/healthcare.html which I have found useful on these subjects.
If publicly provided health care is justified by the fact that we pool our resources to build roads and bridges then why stop there? Let’s have government supply everyone’s food, shelter, transportation, and entertainment. Of course they will have to tax more and conscript people to build and provide these things to others.
The point is that there are limits to government involvement in a free society. Bridges are reasonable, asking me to pay for your health care is not.
Tangentially, I actually used to work in a family business doing State road and bridge projects. The over-regulation / waste / fraud was stunning. If you wanted the same bridge built on your own property based only on good sound engineering and construction practices, we could deliver it for about half the cost of the public project. And when a project was done by the State’s own construction arm, the cost to the taxpayer was even more frightening if it could be truly known.
Also, other than a few politicians trying to make points with their local constituency, people do not demand more bridges just becasue they appear to be free. With Obamacare there will be skyrocketing demand and costs. Get ready for a disaster.
Speaking of government mandates on health insurance, my favorite is still Utah’s.
Utah mandates that health insurance must pay at least $4,000 for an adoption. And that’s for the adoptive family, not the birth family, who is presumably covered under maternity benefits, either through private insurance or Medicare/Medicaid. See page 46 of the 2009 Health Insurance Market Report (.pdf file) if ya don’t believe me.
Now, granting that adoption is a good thing, and should be encouraged, why is it considered a medical condition for the adoptive family? Note also that this is separate from the requirement to cover newborns, which is actually a federal mandate… so this isn’t money to cover a very sick baby.
Anyone wanna guess where that four grand per adoption comes from? Two words: insurance premiums. Insurance companies don’t have a money tree orchard growing in some secret greenhouse somewhere, they get the money to pay for mandates like this from the people that pay premiums.
The problem with health care in the developed world is lack of competition. The medical practice acts in every state, and the FDA, markedly limit the supply of medical care and pharmaceuticals, while simultaneously increasing the costs of supplying them. The outcome is predictable: grossly increased costs which are, or are perceived to be, beyond the reach of the average citizen. Unfortunately, not one in a 100 even of those who carefully study the issue realize the source of our problem. Even physicians who tend to be politically conservative will mouth pious platitudes supporting the medical practice acts, all in the name of protecting the public, seemingly oblivious to the conflict of interest. In fact, the gov’t is incompetent by design to determine who is a competent physician, and what medical care, pharmaceuticals, and devices are safe/effective enough to be worth utilizing. But the gov’t pretends to be competent to do just those things. Any citizen who wants to provide any medical product or service to any other citizen who is willing to pay for it and receive it should have his right to do so protected. If I want to have the village idiot (Chicago’s is in the WH, but I digress…) take out my appendix, I should be allowed to do so.
Repeal the medical practice acts. Abolish the FDA. Watch medical prices drop like a rock, eliminating the perceived need for Obamacare, Medicare, BC/BS, and every other administrative monstrosity. Watch many of my patients finally be able to afford to receive the care I recommend for them, as the supply of pharmaceuticals, medical equipment, and physicians of all types skyrockets.
Hey, Robert, your country needs more comments like the one you just made. We are sinking in a sea of studidity and duplicity and clear insightful comments like yours make it possible for the average working stiff to figure out who is sticking it to him. Keep writing. The country is in dire straights and we need your contributions to help get our freedom back.
The purpose of govt is to take from those who work, and give to those who vote.
Obamacare Off the Radar as the NHS Implodes
For the most part, things have quieted down a tad about Obamacare in the past few months as far as emanations from D.C. “progressives” are concerned–and with good reason. Those progressives, formerly known as liberals, leftists, and Democrats, prefer it that way.
Quiesence serves to enable them to perpetrate their sedition on the sly.
Senate Majority Leader Harry The Undertaker Reid is an exception to that quiesence but he’s gasping for breath in Nevada, fearful that he may follow the lead of former Democrat Majority Leader Tom Daschle and be dispatched back home. In Harry’s case that would be to beautiful, downtown Searchlight, NV to live out his days in obscurity and ignominy.
That is, unless he pulls a Daschle and instead milks his government contacts as a lobbyist.
Harry is desparate for November votes, especially from the disenchanted, the disenfranchisd, even the disembodied if he can figure a way to get dead people to the ballot box ala Chicago. So he has been stroking the disenchanted, the disenfranchised, the disembodied who amazingly feel that Obamacare does not go far enough, even if it was applauded and proclaimed “a miracle” by Fidel Castro.
Officially titled with the typical governmental mouthful, ”Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act,” Obamacare will ultimately, soon, incorporate a “public option.” Harry is promising, averring, pledging, (Mormons don’t swear), that, even if President Obama swore that was not part of the plan.
Rep. Barney Frank has been less evasive all along and considered the initial Obamacare Act just a foot in the door, a progressive camel’s nose in the tent, which would enable the neo-socialists in Congress to enact the public option which would effectively mean the end of private insurance coverage for everyone in the United States. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1804)
Have you seen 5 Strategies for Improving Employee Satisfaction in Healthcare ? I found it to be really helpful in these troubled times…:o) I think it’s helpful to look at the reality of cost related to keeping top talent instead of having to retrain poor talent.