Why have people come to believe health care is a "right" when it actually isn't?

[regent]

Insurance companies are rightly upset that the government is entering their territory, but like any capitalistic endeavor insurance companies exist for money. The corporations refused to touch any applicant on whom they might lose money, and in a capitalistic system who can blame them. But what of the those Americans that the insurance companies sold crappy policies or no policies at all?
If the insurance companies had worked honestly with Obamacare, government and insurance companies might have reached a compromise that all Americans were covered correctly and insurance companies could still make some bucks. But it looks like a war now and in the end the government will win. Too bad.

 

[Flopper]

ROFL you are completely ignorant with regard to how insurance works and also ignorant as to how people work. Everyone in the nation pretty much is gonna end up dropping insurance until they have expensive health care needs, then they will sign up. Congrats, you idiots have killed the health insurance industry. Prices for individual plans are doubling and trippling this year. Prices for group plans will double and tripple next year. The result is healthy people will leave the group en mass. The result of which will be an annual 20-50% increase until the entire system busts. I give it 4years. Then we will have no choice but to go with single payer. That or the fine has to be moved up to 1k a month. You can't get something for nothing. You dorks are agreeing to hand over hundreds of thousands of dollars to people with pre-existing conditions to save them from the indignity of having to meet means testing by using up their assets first.

This country's health insurance industry is done, put a fork in it.

First off the majority of people in the country are going to carry insurance not because the law requires it but rather because they need the protection for themselves and their family.

I think there will be very few people who drop insurance and sign up when they have expensive health care needs. Here's why. The insurance exchanges will be open only a little over a month a year and if you don't sign up, you'll have to wait up to a year. Also once you sign up for insurance there's a waiting period for the policy to take effect. You might be able to delay treatment for nagging knee problem, but you can't delay treatment for a suspected heart problem. The penalty for not carrying insurance is low in 2014 but increases yearly. For most people who might consider not carrying insurance, it will be about 2,000/yr in a few years. This is quite a bit of money to give the federal government for the privileged of going without healthcare coverage.

Your expectation that the cost of insurance will double and triple and the industry will collapse is certainly not shared by the insurance companies. There stocks have out performed the market over the last 12 months. and there CEO's are looking for substantial growth in earnings over the next 5 years.

2k a year is nothing compared to the 20k a year for insurance premiums this beast is gonna be at in two years. Further, you don't have to pay the 2k fine, if you don't have a rebate coming back to you. Why on earth would anyone pay 1500-2k a month for something they don't use?

As to the CEOs.... most could give a shit. They were already wrong because the rates have already doubled and trippled for individual plans. My point is, they will not only double and triple they will continue to increase exponentially. They will take their Obama provided windfall cash rewards from the taxpayers and run for the hills when the companies belly up.

What you have to calculate is what is the most expensive customer. Yeah that person is the only one that will be left, everyone else is gonna leave. Shared pain does not work when people have the option of opting out.

Where in the world do you come up with this crap. Go to the healthcare exchange, https://www.healthcare.gov/ Select "See plans in your area". When asked to enter who the plan is for. Entered yourself and spouse. When asked to enter a state. I entered Tennessee. When asked for a county, I entered Cheatam county. The lowest priced plan was $384/mo or $4608/yr. The highest priced plan was $794/mo or $9528/yr. This is less than half your claim of $20,000/yr and it doesn't even include rebates.

 

[Flopper]

You have a point, to be sure. It was nothing like a free market. But we could at least choose not to play at all. Now we've lost that last shred of freedom, thanks to the sellouts in Congress.

The idea behind the ACA is to increase the number of people buying individual insurance thus increasing the competition and bringing down insurance costs.

I understand the idea, and it's just plain wrong. It would be like forcing everyone else to buy the kind of food you like so groceries could deal in higher volumes and bring the prices down. But some people don't like the kind of food you like and you have no fucking right to force them bend to your will for your convenience, regardless of whether you 'vote' on it or not.

Well, according to the law and the Supreme Court, government does have the right to demand you purchase health insurance. You do not have to buy what is listed on the exchanges. You can buy from anyone you want. The plans must meet the minimum requirement of the ACA. However, health insurance has always had to meet government requirements, state and federal.

Even in regard to food, government dictates what you can buy. Twenty-one states ban the sale of raw milk. Banned products include Absinthe, Ackee, Mangosteen, Sassafras Oil, Puffer Fish. Redfish, Wild Beluga Caviar, Chilean Sea Bass, Horse Meat, etc... In addition government dictates to food processor how food can be prepared, how it is stored, and under what conditions it can be sold.

 

[thereisnospoon]

Health care insurance started going downhill in this country during the Great Depression and World War II, despite the numerous technical advances that were made during that period.

Then-President FDR clamped huge restrictions onto many parts of the economy during the Depression (resulting in that depression stretching out further than any ever had in world history), and they became even worse during WWII. One of them was wage and price controls, which became onerous as many able-bodied men joined the armed services to fight in the war.

Attracting talented people to fulfill the jobs they left was tough enough with so many good men joining up, and the govt's wage controls made the situation worse when employers found they couldn't offer higher wages to get people to hire on. Whether this was justifiable, not to say effective, by the war emergency is debatable.

Employers screamed bloody murder as their businesses approached collapse due to unfilled jobs, and while government refused to lift its wage and price controls, they announced the employers could offer benefits in lieu of pay to attract workers. One benefit was a tax exemption for employer-provided health insurance.

This helped somewhat, but with an employer only able to offer a few insurance plans, it locked employees into fairly uncompetetive market unless he changed jobs. And FDR's relatively new policy of "tax withholding" was extended to the employee part of the payments for insurance, further insulating the employee fro the gut-check of having to write weekly or monthly checks to the insurance company.

Employers offered "Cadillac" plans in their efforts to attract workers, and the employees seldom saw the actual cost of those expensive plans, which often paid for routine medications and office visits formerly not covered by real insurance plans. That, plus the lack of competition most insurance companies found themselves facing, removed a lot of their impetus to pare costs. And employees became used to health care which "seemed free", and started thinking of it as something akin to a "right", since it (sort of) appeared to cost nothing.

When the war ended, government did NOT remove the tax exemption for employer-provided health insurance even though the circumstances that made it desirable were now gone. And so health insurance has existed in a strange nether world ever since for most people, with employees of a company locked into the few (or one) insurance plan offered by that company with little likelihood they will ever leave it. At the same time it appeared to cost little or nothing, with even routine services (far beyond the major-event coverage real insurance is for) included and seeming "complimentary".

Fast forward to the 21st century. Now we have self-serving politicians screaming from the rooftops that health care is somehow a "right", though it comes nowhere close to resembling a right to liberty, right to speech, right to self-defense etc. - all of which are based on the fundamental right to be left alone and to associate only voluntarily with others. And most people, used to generations of "free" health care that was caused by that very government long ago, are actually believing it, despite the clear unworkability of the idea, the unnecessary expense and clumsiness of one-size-fits-all (or even three-sizes-fit-all) policies administered from thousand of miles away in Washington.

The cockeyed notion that we somehow have a "right" to have a broken arm set or an infection cleaned and treated by others, came (as so many cockeyed ideas do) from government intrusion into private matters in the first place.

We should be thankful that the government didn't offer tax breaks for food purchased by one's employer. Or by now, the same deluded people would be screaming that they had a "right" to food (some actually believe this one too, after generations of food stamps). Ditto for rent, phone service, etc., all of which have been tainted at one time or another by government programs to make them nearly "free".

Weaning Americans off these destructive addictions to "free" necessities and "rights" that aren't rights and never were, will be painful, as breaking an addiction always is. But it is no less necessary, if we are to survive as sovereign citizens in a free society.

Because public medical facilities cannot legally turn away any patient, in that context health CARE is a right.
On the other hand, health insurance is NOT a right.

 

[thereisnospoon]

We the people decide what will or will not be a right when we decide what kind of society, or country, we're going to be.

True but not accurate.
Your idea is based on the premise that if enough people demand something, it should be provided by others...for no out of pocket expense.
Please...

 

[dblack]

The idea behind the ACA is to increase the number of people buying individual insurance thus increasing the competition and bringing down insurance costs.

I understand the idea, and it's just plain wrong. It would be like forcing everyone else to buy the kind of food you like so groceries could deal in higher volumes and bring the prices down. But some people don't like the kind of food you like and you have no fucking right to force them bend to your will for your convenience, regardless of whether you 'vote' on it or not.

Well, according to the law and the Supreme Court, government does have the right to demand you purchase health insurance. You do not have to buy what is listed on the exchanges. You can buy from anyone you want. The plans must meet the minimum requirement of the ACA. However, health insurance has always had to meet government requirements, state and federal.

Even in regard to food, government dictates what you can buy. Twenty-one states ban the sale of raw milk. Banned products include Absinthe, Ackee, Mangosteen, Sassafras Oil, Puffer Fish. Redfish, Wild Beluga Caviar, Chilean Sea Bass, Horse Meat, etc... In addition government dictates to food processor how food can be prepared, how it is stored, and under what conditions it can be sold.

Whatever. You aren't forced to buy a particular food to make it less expensive for others, which is the analogy drawn.

I think you know it's wrong and you're rationalizing it - maybe even to yourself - with equivocation and sophistry. It's wrong to force others to cater to your preferences merely for your convenience, and THAT's what's happening here.

 

[thereisnospoon]

Because they are believing an emotional argument instead of a logical one. If people thought about it, they would realize that in order to get health care someone has to provide it to them. Logically, we don't have a right to other people's labor. That would be called slavery. But people don't think about it logically. They think about it emotionally.

Then logically, i.e., by what you call logic, education should be available only to those who can afford it.

Incorrect.
We have by our power at the voting place have decided together that we should all contribute to our kid's education.
In the case of the ACA, some of our elected officials have decided that THEY will start the process of providing medical insurance...at the expense of others.
There was no consensus on this. Washington by partisan political maneuvers, took OUR money, with NO input from the people at large and decided to create a 2500 page law that essentially made us customers of the federal government's insurance plan. All based on two lies. Well, actually, three. One, our premiums would fall by as much as $2500 per year.
That if we liked our current insurance plan, we could keep it. No one would take that away.
That if we liked our doctor(s), we could keep seeing them.
All three are patently FALSE.
What ACA did was pit slightly less than half the American people against the rest.

 

[dblack]

Insurance companies are rightly upset that the government is entering their territory, but like any capitalistic endeavor insurance companies exist for money. The corporations refused to touch any applicant on whom they might lose money, and in a capitalistic system who can blame them. But what of the those Americans that the insurance companies sold crappy policies or no policies at all?
If the insurance companies had worked honestly with Obamacare, government and insurance companies might have reached a compromise that all Americans were covered correctly and insurance companies could still make some bucks. But it looks like a war now and in the end the government will win. Too bad.

A war we are losing. Google Liz Fowler.

 

[thereisnospoon]

We the people decide what will or will not be a right when we decide what kind of society, or country, we're going to be.

No we don't. Rights are created by nature, not by government. The belief that rights are whatever the government says they are is inherently servile and totalitarian.

So where has nature listed those rights she created and has given us?

There is no 'list'....These rights are in existence. Think of it this way. Our rights are not something one can see feel or touch. They are not revocable. They are unalienable. Meaning, these rights cannot be taken away by popular or legislative action. Nor can they be undermined by political fiat.
As much as your side would like to pick and choose which rights we should be granted. No matter how inconvenient your side may find these rights, you will never be able to take them away. As much as you'd like to. Nor will your side ever be permitted to decide when or who for they apply.

 

[thereisnospoon]

We the people decide what will or will not be a right when we decide what kind of society, or country, we're going to be.

No we don't. Rights are created by nature, not by government. The belief that rights are whatever the government says they are is inherently servile and totalitarian.

There are no rights created by nature. That is the biggest crock going.

If nature created rights, then there would be a source to which we could go to that would reveal to us, definitively, what rights nature created.

So which rights would you like to see taken away?

 

[thereisnospoon]

According to the laws of nature, the only inalienable right that anyone has is the right to die.

The inalienable rights listed in the declaration of independence are derived from religious beliefs - they are "endowed by our creator". They are based on western civilization's concept of morality in a civilized society.

As society evolves, life's expectations evolve and our sense of morality evolves. For example: none of the major religions condemned slavery explicitly. Slavery was considered a normal oart of any civilization. Yet in modern times slavery is condemned as being undeniably immoral.

So the same holds true for health care. As society evolves our concept of inalienable rights evolves.

"governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed..."

Once a majority of the people determine that health care is a right then it will be a right.

The question should not be whether health care is a right, but given limited medical resources, what level of health care should be considered a right.

That is one fantastic rationalization.
You libs are very scary people.
Based on the posts by those on your side it is clear you people would prefer to see certain rights to be taken from us.
Let it be known that your side will NEVER be successful.
How unfortunate for you that you'd divide the nation and pit people against each other in what would most certainly be a struggle of life and death for the sake of politics and political power.

 

[thereisnospoon]

There are no rights created by nature. That is the biggest crock going.

If nature created rights, then there would be a source to which we could go to that would reveal to us, definitively, what rights nature created.

The rights created by nature are basically all included in one statement: survival of the fittest.

Civilization is man's way of overcoming that basic natural right by creating systems by which those who are not the fittest have equal survival rights.

What we have now reached is a system by which the survival of the unfit is achieved by taking things from the fittest by government mandate i.e. theft.

We can debate whether this is "right" or "wrong", but those terms are in the minds of each individual as to what they mean.

The idea that we should not have to pay for healthcare is an extension of man's attempt to change the laws of nature. The idea that everyone should pay into a collective administered by the government comes from Lenin and Marx. It is the basis of socialism and communism.

If thats what the majority of americans want this country to become, then fine. But lets have an open discussion and vote on it first.

The idea of socialized health care DID NOT come from Marx or Lenin.

The first country to institute socialized health care was GERMANY UNDER Otto von Bismarck. Bismarck was an advent anti-socialist:

Otto von Bismarck - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Germany had a tradition of welfare programs in Prussia and Saxony that began as early as the 1840s. In the 1880s his social insurance programs were the first in the world and became the model for other countries and the basis of the modern welfare state.[44] Bismarck introduced old age pensions, accident insurance, medical care and unemployment insurance. He won conservative support by promising to undercut the appeal of Socialists—the Socialists always voted against his proposals, fearing they would reduce the grievances of the industrial workers. His paternalistic programs won the support of German industry because its goals were to win the support of the working classes for the Empire and reduce the outflow of emigrants to America, where wages were higher but welfare did not exist. Politically, he did win over the Centre Party which represented Catholic workers, but Socialists remained hostile."

Who cares. It sucks. It doesn't work as intended because it is funded in a manner which those who pay for it will eventually run out of money or the patience to keep paying with little return.

 

[thereisnospoon]

Before Obamacare, if you had no insurance, where did you go?

Short answer, if you wanted to live, you went to the ER and they would treat you regardless of whether or not you could pay.

It was never a "liberal" policy, it was a humanitarian one.

Unfortunately, hospitals had to pass these costs on to the government, because no way could they afford to foot the bill.

The government would pass this on to the taxpayer, Sound familiar? Yup, that's the premise of Obamacare - shared responsibility.

In a perfect world, we would not have to pay for other people not being responsible - It ain't a perfect world. Therefore, there are no easy solutions.

You will never find a more "Liberal" institution than the IRS. Some people get back more money than they paid in federal taxes via the Earned Income Credit (EIC) - others pay much more than their fair share and are basically penalized for their hard work.

At least with Obamacare, the insurance companies are the one that have to cover the cost (to a much greater extent) and everyone has to be insured in order for that to happen.

It is not 'shared' responsibility. Not even close. There are too few paying for Obamacare for there to be anything close to the concept of 'sharing'...
No. If ACA were shared responsibility, then there would be NO subsidies. EVERYONE would pay.
My prediction is that if Obamacare lasts, the subsidies will disappear and the fines for non-participation will increase dramatically.
Public hospitals are already funded by the public. However, the bulk of the revenues are generated by the users of the facilities. That's the perfect solution. user fees as opposed to taxes. Plus many states require hospitals both publicly and privately funded to have accounts earmarked for 'charity care'...
yes, the uninsured do drive costs, but not nearly as much as the democrats would have us believe.
Obamacare was built on a pile of nonsense.
The liberal notion of shared responsibility is a misnomer. It is NOT shared. It really should be termed 'shifting the burden' which is lib speak for redistribution of wealth. Marxism.
From each according to his abilities. To each according to his needs.

 

[hunarcy]

Not until ACA came along. Prior to that, all our transactions with insurance companies were voluntary. If we didn't like the way they shared risk, or who they shared it with, we didn't have to do business with them. Congress took away our right to make that choice. And the Court let them.

It sounds like you believe there was a free market for healthcare insurance before the ACA where we could really choose a plan that best met our needs. The fact is 85% percent of the people were covered by either:

• The plan(s) their employer chose for them
• Medicare if they were seniors
• Medicaid if they were poor
• VA if they were Vets.

The rest of us had to deal with the individual healthcare market which in most places only had a few plans available with crappy coverage, sky high premiums, and pre-existing condition limitations.

We have never had an open free market for healthcare insurance.

So, you've taken a system that you didn't approve of and have made the situation much worse. Between having to pay for coverage that isn't needed except in the minds of some government drones and the incredibly high deductibles, the ACA is setting us ALL up for bankruptcy.

Thanks for that.

 

[dblack]

Not until ACA came along. Prior to that, all our transactions with insurance companies were voluntary. If we didn't like the way they shared risk, or who they shared it with, we didn't have to do business with them. Congress took away our right to make that choice. And the Court let them.

It sounds like you believe there was a free market for healthcare insurance before the ACA where we could really choose a plan that best met our needs. The fact is 85% percent of the people were covered by either:

• The plan(s) their employer chose for them
• Medicare if they were seniors
• Medicaid if they were poor
• VA if they were Vets.

The rest of us had to deal with the individual healthcare market which in most places only had a few plans available with crappy coverage, sky high premiums, and pre-existing condition limitations.

We have never had an open free market for healthcare insurance.

So, you've taken a system that you didn't approve of and have made the situation much worse. Between having to pay for coverage that isn't needed except in the minds of some government drones and the incredibly high deductibles, the ACA is setting us ALL up for bankruptcy.

Thanks for that.

There is the cynical view, sometimes even offered by advocates, that the point of ACA was to deliberately make things worse - to drive the situation to a crisis point where people would 'demand' that government take over entirely.

 

[thereisnospoon]

It sounds like you believe there was a free market for healthcare insurance before the ACA where we could really choose a plan that best met our needs. The fact is 85% percent of the people were covered by either:

• The plan(s) their employer chose for them
• Medicare if they were seniors
• Medicaid if they were poor
• VA if they were Vets.

The rest of us had to deal with the individual healthcare market which in most places only had a few plans available with crappy coverage, sky high premiums, and pre-existing condition limitations.

We have never had an open free market for healthcare insurance.

You have a point, to be sure. It was nothing like a free market. But we could at least choose not to play at all. Now we've lost that last shred of freedom, thanks to the sellouts in Congress.

The idea behind the ACA is to increase the number of people buying individual insurance thus increasing the competition and bringing down insurance costs. This will take years not months. The CBO is projecting 7 million people will move from employer sponsored insurance to the exchanges by 2023. The long term outlook is for continued growth of individual insurance. If this comes about, then we will see increased completion for customers, more choice for buyers, the cost of providing insurance taken off the back of employers, and health insurance will move with the employee from job to job. I think there will be changes in the law that promotes this but that will take time with the highly polarized political environment, I don't think anything in the law will change for a couple of years.

So good they made it mandatory.
The idea behind ACA according to the Obama regime was to lower costs. That's a lie.
ACA in very narrow circumstances lowers PRICE. It does not lower cost.
The CBO has zero credibility. This program was supposed to cost taxpayers less than $1 trillion. The real cost is going to be 2.5 times that.
ONLY 7 million? Hmm. I could swear the Obama regime stated there are over 40 million uninsured people in the US. ACA was promised to cover them all.
It is clear this program is not working as planned and logically nor will it ever work as planned.
PPACA has now become a political hot potato for democrats. Bill Clinton just turned up the over baking the potato. OOPS!

 

[hunarcy]

It sounds like you believe there was a free market for healthcare insurance before the ACA where we could really choose a plan that best met our needs. The fact is 85% percent of the people were covered by either:

• The plan(s) their employer chose for them
• Medicare if they were seniors
• Medicaid if they were poor
• VA if they were Vets.

The rest of us had to deal with the individual healthcare market which in most places only had a few plans available with crappy coverage, sky high premiums, and pre-existing condition limitations.

We have never had an open free market for healthcare insurance.

So, you've taken a system that you didn't approve of and have made the situation much worse. Between having to pay for coverage that isn't needed except in the minds of some government drones and the incredibly high deductibles, the ACA is setting us ALL up for bankruptcy.

Thanks for that.

There is the cynical view, sometimes even offered by advocates, that the point of ACA was to deliberately make things worse - to drive the situation to a crisis point where people would 'demand' that government take over entirely.

Based on Harry Reid's comments in the Las Vegas Sun, I can't disagree:

>>>But already, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is predicting those plans, and the whole system of distributing them, will eventually be moot.

Reid said he thinks the country has to “work our way past” insurance-based health care during a Friday night appearance on Vegas PBS’ program “Nevada Week in Review.”

“What we’ve done with Obamacare is have a step in the right direction, but we’re far from having something that’s going to work forever,” Reid said.

When then asked by panelist Steve Sebelius whether he meant ultimately the country would have to have a health care system that abandoned insurance as the means of accessing it, Reid said: “Yes, yes. Absolutely, yes.”<<<

Reid says Obamacare just a step toward eventual single-payer system - Las Vegas Sun News

 

[Bern80]

According to the laws of nature, the only inalienable right that anyone has is the right to die.

The inalienable rights listed in the declaration of independence are derived from religious beliefs - they are "endowed by our creator". They are based on western civilization's concept of morality in a civilized society.

As society evolves, life's expectations evolve and our sense of morality evolves. For example: none of the major religions condemned slavery explicitly. Slavery was considered a normal oart of any civilization. Yet in modern times slavery is condemned as being undeniably immoral.

So the same holds true for health care. As society evolves our concept of inalienable rights evolves.

"governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed..."

Once a majority of the people determine that health care is a right then it will be a right.

The question should not be whether health care is a right, but given limited medical resources, what level of health care should be considered a right.

you make some sense. But you are avoiding the real question. Should the government control medical care and dispense it as some civil servants deem necessary? Will such an arrangement cost more or less than what we have today?

should insurance cover every aspect of medical care? or just major expenses?

What those on the left are really after is a system by which they will get free medical care and the evil rich will pay for it. This whole thing is nothing but the left wing of the govt using class warfare to take over 1/5 of the economy.

Lets face reality and decide if thats what we really want.

It's kind of funny that you seem to ask these questions as though socialized health care were a great new experiment. It's not.

The questions you raised have been more than answered by the health care programs that have been working for many years in every industrialized country in the world except the U.S.

None of these countries are considering reversing their health care programs.Just one more point:

The "evil Rich" get rich by taking advantage of the the economically disadvantaged. So having them foot the bill for a national health care program id O.K. by me.

If they don't like it, they can start paying their workers fairly. Then the costs of socialized health care will be redistributed down to the workers.

A couple of the above points are simply not factually correct. That socialized medicine is 'working'. How do you define 'working'? If it is relatively inexpensive to the consumer I suppose that's one definition. But how about what it's costing the governments that administer it. France can't argue their system is working. It's tens of billions in debt and being forced to cut the services it will provide. What about quality of care. In this area the U.S. has always been at or very near the top. If other countries can't maintain a high standard of quality regardless of what it costs consumers, is it really 'working'?

The other incorrect statement that the rich got that way by taking advantage of the poor is simply asanine and barely worth comment other than to point out how unsupportable and falacious a statement it is.

 

[Flopper]

I understand the idea, and it's just plain wrong. It would be like forcing everyone else to buy the kind of food you like so groceries could deal in higher volumes and bring the prices down. But some people don't like the kind of food you like and you have no fucking right to force them bend to your will for your convenience, regardless of whether you 'vote' on it or not.

Well, according to the law and the Supreme Court, government does have the right to demand you purchase health insurance. You do not have to buy what is listed on the exchanges. You can buy from anyone you want. The plans must meet the minimum requirement of the ACA. However, health insurance has always had to meet government requirements, state and federal.

Even in regard to food, government dictates what you can buy. Twenty-one states ban the sale of raw milk. Banned products include Absinthe, Ackee, Mangosteen, Sassafras Oil, Puffer Fish. Redfish, Wild Beluga Caviar, Chilean Sea Bass, Horse Meat, etc... In addition government dictates to food processor how food can be prepared, how it is stored, and under what conditions it can be sold.

Whatever. You aren't forced to buy a particular food to make it less expensive for others, which is the analogy drawn.

I think you know it's wrong and you're rationalizing it - maybe even to yourself - with equivocation and sophistry. It's wrong to force others to cater to your preferences merely for your convenience, and THAT's what's happening here.

In other words the government is forcing you to do some that you don't consider to be in your best interest or the country. When the government drafted millions of men to serve their country, enacted the income tax, or forced workers to pay into social security, there were certainly many people that felt just as you do now.

The purpose of the healthcare law is to improve healthcare and reduce cost in America over the long term. It will take years, not months and there will be many bumps in road, some real and some created by the opposition. Like Medicare, Social Security, and a number of other laws, it's going have to be amended to fix what doesn't work but we're going to have to wait until the law is fully implemented in order to determine what exactly needs to be change and how it should be changed.

 

[Bern80]

Well, according to the law and the Supreme Court, government does have the right to demand you purchase health insurance. You do not have to buy what is listed on the exchanges. You can buy from anyone you want. The plans must meet the minimum requirement of the ACA. However, health insurance has always had to meet government requirements, state and federal.

Even in regard to food, government dictates what you can buy. Twenty-one states ban the sale of raw milk. Banned products include Absinthe, Ackee, Mangosteen, Sassafras Oil, Puffer Fish. Redfish, Wild Beluga Caviar, Chilean Sea Bass, Horse Meat, etc... In addition government dictates to food processor how food can be prepared, how it is stored, and under what conditions it can be sold.

Whatever. You aren't forced to buy a particular food to make it less expensive for others, which is the analogy drawn.

I think you know it's wrong and you're rationalizing it - maybe even to yourself - with equivocation and sophistry. It's wrong to force others to cater to your preferences merely for your convenience, and THAT's what's happening here.

In other words the government is forcing you to do some that you don't consider to be in your best interest or the country. When the government drafted millions of men to serve their country, enacted the income tax, or forced workers to pay into social security, there were certainly many people that felt just as you do now.

The purpose of the healthcare law is to improve healthcare and reduce cost in America over the long term. It will take years, not months and there will be many bumps in road, some real and some created by the opposition. Like Medicare, Social Security, and a number of other laws, it's going have to be amended to fix what doesn't work but we're going to have to wait until the law is fully implemented in order to determine what exactly needs to be change and how it should be changed.

dblack is right. You are rationalizing because you just don't want to admit what a colossal failure this is. What economic mechanism can you point to in the health care law that would have the economic effect of bringing down cost? You can say what it's purpose is until you are blue in the face. That doesn't mean the mechanisms Obama has put in place will actually accomplish that and upon examination, there is simply no evidence to suggest it will happen. Look at a supply and demand curve sometime.

Increased demand in the form of the individual mandate doesn't cause price to go down. It causes it to go up.

Adding 'value' to a product in the form of all the mandated coverages Obama says insurers must provide doesn't cause it's price to go down. It causes it to go up.

Adding taxes to providers in the form of medical device taxes doesn't cause the cost of their services to go down, it cause them to go up.

A mandate on how insurance companies must formulate community ratings and the inability to deny pre-existing conditions, does not cause the price of premiums to go down. It causes them to go up.

Even the administraton admits that the effect they are seeking from all these young healthy people entering the market is not to drive the costs of premium down. It an attempt to offset the new massive outlays on insurance companies for actually having to cover sick people. And we are seeing those enrollment numbers fall woefully short of the administrations projections.

What you lefties need to do is muster a modicum of objectivity here. Most of us want the same thing; for health care to cost less. You just need to get out of the Obama circle jerk long enough to see this was about the worst means a person could come up with for accomplishing that.