Individual Mandate Will Benefit All, But Directly Affect Only a Few

[MindMover]

The Supreme Court examined today the requirement in the Affordable Care Act (that is, health reform) that individuals have health coverage or face a penalty. Apart from the legal questions before the Court, here’s what Americans need to know about this “individual mandate.”

It won’t affect the vast majority of Americans. Most Americans already have insurance — through their jobs or through a program like Medicare, Medicaid, or the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). They simply will check a box on their tax forms stating they have coverage. A new Urban Institute study found that only 7 percent of people under age 65 will have to buy health insurance or face a penalty — and many of them will get subsidies to make coverage more affordable.

Most uninsured Americans want coverage. Many uninsured people don’t have a job that provides insurance and either can’t afford to buy it in the individual market or would get rejected by insurance companies because they have (or have had) serious health problems. Only 7 percent of the uninsured report that they don’t have insurance mainly because they don’t think they need it, according to the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured.

The small number of uninsured people who don’t want coverage will simply pay a modest fee. That makes sense, given the burden that the uninsured place on taxpayers and people with health insurance, who help pick up the tab when an uninsured person receives health care (such as at an emergency room).

The individual mandate makes it easier to reform the individual insurance market. Health reform bans many of insurance companies’ most egregious practices — like denying coverage to people with pre-existing health conditions like cancer, autism, or diabetes or charging sick people higher premiums. But it’s impossible to end those practices unless almost everyone is covered.

http://www.offthechartsblog.org/individual-mandate-will-benefit-all-but-directly-affect-only-a-few/

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Interesting ......

[Vincardog]

1. Mandating that the insurance parasites remain in the picture is the root of the problem.

The best fix is Medicare part E for everyone.
Let the insurance parasites cover everything not required to promote health and life.

[MindMover]

3. We have a lot of answers just like this one........

for most of our current issues......thanks for the post.....

[MadHound]

2. Except for the fact that you are giving the insurance industry a mandated monopoly

The individual mandate will force virtually everybody to purchase health insurance, that meets a certain standard, from a private insurance corporation. It gives the insurance industry a monopoly. The prices for premiums are thus bound to go up, and with few price controls(and those very weak), those prices will skyrocket.

Sounds like another way to hammer the middle class with rising costs.

[Bluenorthwest]

4. Other countries who mandate the purchase of health insurance also make it illegal to

offer those policies for a profit. Illegal. Here, that forced donation to the pockets of others is the main point of the law. We here will be the only democracy to mandate the purchase of any for profit product.
As usual, this piece makes a good argument for 100% insured population, it does not in any way address why profit for a few is part of the process. Other countries do not do so. Why us?
To speak of mandates without speaking of that unique feature of our reform is really sort of disingenuous.

[MindMover]

5. Thank you for pointing out that distinction.....true that we still have ...

a very strong capitalistic system that seems to benefit only a few.... And the answer to why other countries and not us is our stubborn resistance to anything that looks like European socialism.....

[Bluenorthwest]

6. Of course, the other countries who mandate are also capitalist, and their for profit

insurance companies flourish. I also think that it is the lack of political support, from Democrats, that allows such ignorance to continue. This is why rather than altering his position to support mandates and no public option instantly, the President needed to talk to the nation on health care. If no one makes the case for that which is right, we are stuck with that which is wrong.