Quote:
Originally Posted by chumdawg
The whole idea behind requiring folks to buy insurance is to get those folks paying into the system the whole time and not just waiting until they're probably about to need it.
Those of you opposed to the idea, would you support a system where you chose whether or not you wanted to buy the insurance...but if you went for some time without it you would have to pay to pay a significant startup fee (a means of collecting the money you didn't pay in) once you decided you wanted coverage going forward?
That system should be plenty amenable to you, I would think. If you don't ever want the insurance (like not putting a car on the road), you aren't out one red cent.
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The problem with what you're suggesting is that you couldn't set the premium high enough and collect it, in most instances. For example, let's say that a 50 year old develops prostate cancer. He hasn't had health insurance for 20 years. Are you going to charge him 20 years of premiums in one lump sum? Of course not. He couldn't pay it. And even if you did, that still would have to be a lump sum that exceeded the value of the 20 years of premiums, because of the time value of money. So in that instance, the government would step in and subsidize him, since they have prohibited the insurance company from barring him for a pre-existing condition.
I think a more reasonable solution would have been (and is) to call welfare by its real name, and simply expand the eligibility parameters for government programs like Medicaid and CHIP. That would help those who truly cannot afford health insurance to do so. Instead, a bunch of people who don't need or want complete coverage will be forced to purchase it under the auspices that they are "paying into the system". Of course, it will be impossible to collect enough to pay for health care this way, which means that they will either: a) reduce benefits, b) increase taxes on top of the mandated health insurance premiums to subsidize "the system", or c) (the most likely outcome) both.