Posted on 10/07/2009 12:03:26 PM PDT by ElenaM
The requirement for auto insurance stems from the fact that automobile use exposes third parties to a level of risk which is higher than that posed by most other activities. People who finance their vehicles are generally required to carry collision insurance to avoid exposing their finance company to the risk of their collateral becoming worthless; people who own their own cars have no such requirement, but are allowed to assume their own risk. Who owns your body?
The majority of those with pre-existing conditions have already found some way of getting into a "no questions asked" private insurance pool or are covered under one of the existing taxpayer funded programs.
Anyone who honestly buys any form of real insurance should expect that they will likely receive zero payout in any given year. If an "insurance" program allows someone to buy in when payout is almost certain, such a program either is not insurance or, at minimum, has a substantial non-insurance aspect.
Transition from today's mess to a medical system based upon real insurance would likely be tricky, but the only way costs will ever be brought under control without trashing quality of care will be if people are allowed to decide for themselves what's important and make their (real) insurance purchases appropriately.
Is there any non-political reason why you see mandatory insurance as necessary? I can imagine that it may be politically difficult to refuse uninsured people who develop expensive conditions free access to Other People's Money, but requiring mandatory insurance is at best a very poor band-aid for a more fundamental problem of entitlement mentality. The entitlement mentality needs to be addressed and dealt with regardless of what else happens in the medical system, so it may as well be addressed directly.
True and I suspect the minimum coverage required by all States to be a barebones liability policy. As you pointed out, finance companies may require collision coverage and it goes on from there depending on a persons risk aversion and ability to pay.
What I advocate for health insurance is a high deductible barebones minimum policy free of pre-existing condition exclusions that is designed to provide catastrophic coverage only. Those less risk averse are free to add whatever additional coverage insurers offer and they can afford.
people who own their own cars have no such requirement, but are allowed to assume their own risk. Who owns your body?
An argument can be made that it's the provider of last resort which in this case will generally be a combination of the government and care provider.
A person at the shopping mall having a heart attack will be loaded into an ambulance, taken to an ER and provided care. Only later do questions of payment arise at which point the person says he's uninsured, recently divorced, has $13,407 in savings, rents his home and is Medicare/Medicaid ineligible.
The patient has no way to pay the bill and the hospital will designate it as a charity case or, send the bill to collections and write it off. Either way, the care provider is looking to the government for help.
Is there any non-political reason why you see mandatory insurance as necessary?
Not long out of college (athletic scholarship) in the days before portable coverage and with no prior family history, I was diagnosed with cancer. Fortunately, I had employer provided coverage and I was equally fortunate that the diagnosis happened when it did because I was actively contemplating a return to school. Unfortunately, I now became bound to my employer and I had already determined this was not the best place for me.
A health crisis is one of few things capable of changing something in a person so basic as their personality. My personality and outlook on life changed. Already sensing that my employer was going into decline and that a mismatch existed between myself, my job and career, I was actively contemplating a return to school.
Otherwise uninsurable and bound to my employer for reason of insurance only, I felt trapped.
COBRA was an option but I had a first class policy with low deductable which would make payments quite high once the policy converted out of the group coverage rate.
I had enough savings that even in school fulltime, I could have paid a $2K annual deductible out of pocket which is about what the doctor visits and lab work were costing. My concern was protecting myself against the big ticket items such as finding out that I needed additional surgery or chemotherapy/radiation (fortunately I didn't).
As my employers fortunes kept declining, the cage I felt I was in kept getting smaller. I wanted so desperately to make a change but had to stay put.
Over the years, I have spoken to many others who were in similar situations by reason of depending on employer provided coverage for a serious medical condition. I and others in my situation could have been much more productive members of society were we able to fully adjust to a life changing event.
Yes, I know the market oriented arguments against eliminating pre-existing condition exclusions but I don't think most people making such arguments understand the difficult to quantify productivity drain for those members experiencing a life changing crisis yet are unable to respond with their own major adjustments for reason of uninsurability.
With that as a background and to answer your question as to non-political reasons I would like to see mandatory coverage, it's because mandatory coverage along the lines I've outlined is the fairest means I can see of freeing people with serious pre-existing conditions from the cages they exist in.
Another reason I'm generally disposed towards mandatory coverage is a suspicion that most of the presently uninsured are generally healthy and do not perceive any great risk to their health. By bringing them into the aggregate insurance pool, the overall pool risk decreases making possible lower premiums for all or, compensating insurers for having to cover serious pre-existing conditions of the few.
If you feel I'm missing something, help me out.
Hi—
If the government would get OUT of health coverage you would have been able to purchase your own at reasonable rates, even with a cancer diagnosis.
My point, besides the morality issue, is that the government has caused these problems and presuming that the government is going to “fix” it defies reason.
Hope you’re doing well now.
If the government caused the problem, only the government will be able to provide a remedy.
In that respect, the only effective solution they could provide is to admit their complicity and bow out.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.