The Truth About Mandatory Health Insurance

[ZombieHorde]

By BETSY MCCAUGHEY
January 4, 2008; Page A11

This week, Hillary Clinton's supporters attacked Barack Obama for not proposing a federal mandate that every American buy health insurance. Mr. Obama's health plan, they said, is a "Band-Aid" for the nation's gaping wound: 47 million people without health insurance. Mrs. Clinton would require all Americans to get coverage. Presidential candidates John Edwards and Christopher Dodd say they would, too. Not Mr. Obama.

Snip some sections

The first myth is that it's fair to make everyone pay the same price for health insurance. It is not: For young people who rarely use health services, this is a rip-off. If people in their 20s paid attention to politics and voted, politicians wouldn't dare try this.

Snip some more

The second myth behind federal mandate proposals is this: Lack of insurance forces people into the emergency room for routine health care. "It's a hidden tax, the high cost of emergency room visits that could have been prevented by a much less expensive doctor's appointment," Mrs. Clinton said recently. The truth is that the uninsured do not use emergency rooms more than other people.

Yet even more snipping

The third myth, in the words of Mr. Edwards, is that a "system that leaves 47 million Americans without health care is a moral disgrace." The remedy he has in mind is a mandate.

The rise in the number of uninsured people (up from 42 million in 2002) is not due to a sudden moral failure of the country or a broken health system. Instead, a major cause is immigration and cultural differences that make recent arrivals especially likely to be uninsured.

A whole bunch at link-
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119941501118966929.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

What do you think about this editorial? I don't know if I buy it or not.

[sandnsea]

1. Well I think she's nuts

But I guess she's entitled to her opinion. It's kind of hard to argue with people when they just say "uninsured do not use emergency rooms more than other people", based on what? I don't think her arguments relect Obama's though.

[ZombieHorde]

2. The articles full argument is-

The second myth behind federal mandate proposals is this: Lack of insurance forces people into the emergency room for routine health care. "It's a hidden tax, the high cost of emergency room visits that could have been prevented by a much less expensive doctor's appointment," Mrs. Clinton said recently. The truth is that the uninsured do not use emergency rooms more than other people.

Federal data (the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey provided by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality) show that the elderly are most inclined to go to the emergency room, though they are universally covered by Medicare.

Other repeat users, according to an Institute of Medicine study, are the "frequent flyers" who are in the ER repeatedly because of mental illness or substance abuse. Enacting a mandate isn't going to eradicate the behavioral problems that land them in the ER.

[sandnsea]

3. The elderly use most of the health care, period

It's like saying we don't need health care reforms because the elderly have Medicare. Like I said, she's nuts. I just can't get worked up about these fools. It annoys me that they get paid for writing this garbage.

[bluerum]

4. You are late 20's/early 30's married, kids, with a mortgage and paying

insurance premiums for two cars, homeowners ins, life ins, car payments etc. etc. Your employer does not provide health insurance - or you are self employed. The wife stays home with the kids because day care for three kids is out of reach.

Now some yahoo comes along (MITT ROMNEY DID THIS BEFORE HE BAILED OUT ON MA) and says you MUST pay $800+ a month for a family health insurance plan or else be penalized on your state taxes.

on edit: added tax penalty

[Cleita]

5. Oh gawd! Look at the source!

I'll bet there was no shilling for the for profit health insurance industry there! :sarcasm:

I used to answer these posts about those editorials line by line but I finally got tired of repeating myself. So instead I will direct you to this website that has all the answers you want and that repudiates these points with real facts and statistics on health care reform.

http://www.pnhp.org

Click on the FAQ link first to start.

[Benhurst]

6. We pay more per capita for health care than any other nation in the world,

and we are ranked anywhere from 38th to 52nd for the quality of the care provided at such an exorbitant price.

But our corporate masters spend millions churning out propaganda to scare the American people away from the universal health care people in the more progressive countries take for advantage.

So long as the American people continue to buy into such lies, perhaps they have the health care they deserve, crappy as it is.

[regnaD kciN]

7. And the most recent lie...

...is that the only way to provide universal health care is through "individual mandate" (forcing people by law to buy insurance).

[Benhurst]

9. Universal single-payer health care is the only way to go.

[old guy]

8. Same thought here.

It pays to check the link. I never pay much attention to the WSJ.

[papau]

10. bull - the WSJ is full of it - we can kill those in other cultures because death is not a big deal

to them - right - problem is immigrants not buying insurance :-(

And health ins is a rip off for young? - so if you buy life insurance and do not die, you were ripped off?

How hard is it to understand that uninsured using emergency rooms and not paying leaving the payment to the city means it is a tax for the rest of us?

Do smart people read the WSJ still?