Posted on 08/03/2013 1:43:23 PM PDT by Jim Robinson
TWO beliefs continue to shape debate on Obamacare. First, pre-existing medical conditions shouldn’t prevent people from obtaining affordable health insurance. And second, people who don’t want health insurance shouldn’t be forced by the government to purchase it.
These may seem to be reasonable positions. But they are incompatible. That’s been shown by historical events, and it’s now being strikingly confirmed by recent experience in the emerging Obamacare insurance exchanges.
The crux of the matter is what economists call the adverse-selection problem. Uninsured people with pre-existing conditions often face tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket medical costs annually. If insurers charged everyone the same rate, buying coverage would be far more attractive financially for people with chronic illnesses than for healthy people. And as healthy policyholders began dropping out of the insured pool, it would become increasingly composed of sick people, forcing insurers to raise their rates.
But higher rates make insurance even less attractive for healthy people, causing even more of them to drop out. Before long, coverage would become too expensive for almost everyone.
The adverse-selection problem explains why almost no countries leave health care provision to unregulated private insurance markets. It also predicts that requiring private insurance companies to charge the same rates to everyone will make it prohibitively expensive for most people to buy individual health insurance.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Central planners be damned! America should remain a free country and health care should remain as a free enterprise market-driven system. We already have the best health care system in the entire world!
Similar to a pyramid scheme.
NSS!! And even if the government could force everyone onto its communist plan, it still wouldn't work!! Idiots!!
In reality, Obamacare will NEVER work
any more than welfare has EVER worked.
Unless you weight it with the accomplishment
of some social agenda, then it works perfectly.
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They just took over the student loan business. How'd that work out for the kids?
And that means EVERYONE. Except of course, the IRS, congresscritters, their staff, etc, etc... and etc.
AND, EVERY STINKING MEMBER OF CONGRESS AND THE FED GOV WHO IS EXEMPT HAS TO TAKE IT AND NOT HAVE THEIR SPECIAL PROGRAMS!!! Yes, I am screaming, from the roof top!!!!
Damn them to Hell. It is just SO un-American to even contemplate forcing everybody “in”! It just burns me up the government is attempting to create “exchanges” (pseudo-markets) with tens of billions of dollars when good old free markets do the same thing at no cost — they are self-arranging and operate at optimal efficiency.
Count me out.
Can't afford it, don't want it..
Disagree with the whole concept.
except congress,government workers, and the unions that is... right??? 
The way they have been hauling the hay surely they are getting close to that final straw.
Oops. :)
I'm never going to sign up for a program which seeks to force me to go against my religious beliefs against abortion and "contraception" (which includes post conception abortifactants).
In other words, for it to work, we must force others to pay for it at the point of a gun.
Income Inequality: Too Big to Ignore
By ROBERT H. FRANK
Published: October 16, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/17/business/17view.html
The middle-class squeeze has also reduced voters’ willingness to support even basic public services. Rich and poor alike endure crumbling roads, weak bridges, an unreliable rail system, and cargo containers that enter our ports without scrutiny. And many Americans live in the shadow of poorly maintained dams that could collapse at any moment.
ECONOMISTS who say we should relegate questions about inequality to philosophers often advocate policies, like tax cuts for the wealthy, that increase inequality substantially. That greater inequality causes real harm is beyond doubt.
No one dares to argue that rising inequality is required in the name of fairness. So maybe we should just agree that it’s a bad thing — and try to do something about it.
Any Republican congresscritter who fails to do his utmost to defund/derail communist ObamaCare is a traitor who should be tarred and feathered and run outta Dodge on a rail!!
It already doesn’t work for me. I’m healthy and the cost of my health insurance options is going through the roof. I’m going to end up having to pay way more than I had been paying for good coverage, just to get what in effect is catastrophic coverage.
Economist? The guy’s an out and out commie.
Everyon who did not actively support them, or who opposed them, has earned the right to fully participate in the scam program.
NSA has the names of those of us who comprise the second group.
Basic premise is wrong. obamacare won’t work, can’t work, period. Never will. Any discussion over this condition, that waiver, etc is moot. obamacare is a failure, period.
We have just seen what happens when an unscrupulous
administration controls the IRS. One can only
shudder to contemplate them having control of the
health of a nation.
Absolutely! Using this and amnesty they are determined to turn this into a third world socialist Hell hole.
So says another communist "economics professor", LOL.
I will NOT submit to this crap. I won’t pay ANY fines and I won’t back down.
If they decide to darken my doorstep they will get a rude awakening. I’ve had it with this tyranny.
I used to be part of a Union. I am still on their mailing list. They are dumping their members in ObamaCare.
In communism, you don’t get a choice .... you are part of the collective and you will participate even if kills you. You are encouraged (through threats and torture) to be enthusiastic in your participation.
In many ways they do--and that's why Liberty is on life-support.
The commands of the prophet may be performed alike, by fraud, or by force. JQA
That’s the Obama Democrats - putting the “total” into totalitarianism!
i've been in three of them and all they ever did was take my money and keep me from making more money... that said i thought all the BIG unions got wavers from 0bamacare?
Their only concerns are the next election, their children’s college funds, how much money they’re going to make on some future speaking tour and avoiding getting caught in some new investigation. Individually they act like they listen. As a group they don’t give a hoot.
Everyone to the rice fields!
Excuse me Citizen but are you R.Texasvet?
Obamacare #3927439278?
Yes.
Well citizen, I’m sure you’ve heard the bulletins
about the health of Citizen Obama,our great leader,
who suffers from a rare fatal heart condition?
Yes, it’s on all the newscribes.
Well then, I’m sure you will be glad to know that
your government has been searching high and low
to find a replacement heart for him that will not
be rejected.
Oh yes, I’m relieved.
Good, it’s you.
TAKE HIM!
The "rich" will still get access to the best doctors, while the poor will have to wait in line at their local hospital.
Unless Obama plans on busing the "doctors of the rich" into the inner city, and busing the "affirmative action" doctors to the suburbs, nothing will change regarding the quality of care that the rich receive.
-PJ
Apparently not. The UFCW local I was in is putting all PT employees on Exchanges in 2014.
Obama was truthful on this. He said in very beginning that he favored a univeral, single payer system. He also said this Obamacare was only the first step to reach his goal.
In five years, this the only thing on which he spoke the truth.
The current critique from the Left of America's health care system is that "only" the wealthy get the highest quality care, which is demonstrably untrue but that never stopped a Leftist from shouting it anyway. The system they're proposing to address this "economic injustice" will cost everyone more, lower the quality of care overall, place a great deal of power in the hands of those who ration it, and make the very highest quality of care available only to privileged classes, which tend to be - well, what do you know? - the wealthy. And loyal party members.
It's socialism when you can opt out, Communism when it's mandatory. And this commentator wants it to be mandatory.
They just do not want to give the free market a chance. I remember back in the 80s car insurance was insane. One accident and you could be paying $5000 a year which was a massive amount of money back then. Now because of the free market they give you freakin’ discounts if you have an accident! “Oh we are raising your rates” oh well then I’ll go Geico or Progressive or this or that. Same with phones, I remember getting massive bills for landlines now it’s $40 a month unlimited calls. But health insurance? Noooo, lets keep that under the thumb of the government, lets keep allowing OGYNs to pay $300k a year in litigation insurance because some crackhead ho gave birth to a kid with flippers and some Obama voting jury awarded her $40million bucks.
just PT but not full time... so much for union solidarity
Exactly. The real reform of health care industry won’t happen despite all the many ideas that have been proposed for the past 20-30 years, because it would hit the pockets of... lawyers, and who writes our laws and reforms? D’uh!
Obamacare will never collapse of its own weight, and must be specifically abolished from the books to rid ourselves of it. Anything less will result in an intergenerational usurpation of governmental power that will last generations, and may never be fully rectified, like many failed policies before it. Furthermore, the government is used to spending money that doesn’t exist, so we’d be deluding ourselves to think that “budgetary problems” will prevent the current crop of stalinists from instituting their wet dream.
I have a feeling the Union bosses got the exemptions, not the people they “represent.”
“forced by the government”
This is the key to everything the left promotes ‘for the public good’. The only thing people are willing to embrace without the use of force is freedom, because the very definition of freedom is the absence of force or compulsion. This is another of those simple, black and white truths that exasperates the left, to whom everything is convoluted and complex, and ultimately subjective.
LOL. I can’t believe I typed “ text massages,” but I did!
That’ll get the job done!!!!
Well, that’s what the Soviets said to.
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