A few year ago in my city, we had a transportation problem for the disabled and the elderly. The only options they had were the bus or call a cab. The buses didn't always run at the time they needed them, and most couldn't afford a cab. Entrepreneurs saw the need, and now we have literally dozens of transportation companies that have popped up to serve this population. Many of these people are on Medicaid, but can spend their Medicaid dollars on the transportation of their choice. That is called a free market, folks. Now some of these companies will go out of business if their service isn't good or if their prices are higher than people wish or can afford. That is also a free market. If the government gets involved and starts regulating so these companies can't do business and make money, there will be a problem. Same concept for healthcare. If the government would get out, and stop telling the insurance companies how they have to do business, there will be hundreds of them all competing to get the consumers, prices will go down again and everything will be fine. And the truly poor would still be covered by Medicaid and the elderly would still be covered by Medicare. The ones in the middle would be able to afford to buy insurance and if they opt not to, it's at their own risk.
Isn't free-market health insurance what we had before the Affordable Care Act? How was that working out for everyone?
You're referring to Medicare and Medicaid, I presume, but the question still applies. How was that working out for everyone, especially those with pre-existing conditions? If health insurance is so cheap when government isn't involved, why did only 55% of seniors have health insurance in 1965? Why did it take government action to stop the practice of rescission?
So Medicare (a government program) solved the problem for seniors, but to solve the problem for everyone else the government should get out of healthcare? Sorry, but I don't see your logic here. How is that any different from what we had before ACA?
The problem with your fairy tale is that what you propose is exactly what existed before - rates were going up, too many couldn't afford insurance. The GOP Heritage Foundation came up with the plan of a mandate to force healthy, young people to buy private insurance so overall rates would come down. Romney adopted it for MASS, and it became RomneyCare. When then democratic party took up healthcare, many/most wanted Medicare for all, but in an effort to gain GOP support, the GOP RomneyCare plan was adopted and became ObamaCare. The GOP would not approve ANYTHING that had "Obama cooties". By the way, do you work for a health insurance company?????
There’s no such thing as a perfect system. Past and current experience will tell you that everything wouldn’t be fine with your proposals. For example, there would be a gap of people not quite poor enough to be covered by Medicaid but not wealthy enough to pay for full insurance, especially those with existing conditions or generally seen as high risk. There will be a certain set of people that no insurer would cover if they didn’t have to because no reasonable premium is ever going to cover their healthcare costs. You can certainly make an argument that your government is micromanaging too much, at least in the wrong ways, but if you’re presenting some magical solution where “everything will be fine”, you’re living in a fantasy world.
That is just silly since the system was not working before the ACA. Free enterprise has never worked anywhere in the world in the healthcare arena. And unfortunately not buying insurance never is at ones own risk. Those without insurance get care in emergency rooms or hospitals and the bill gets paid by those with insurance or by the government. What everyone forgets is the real issue is how much healthcare costs as a percentage of the GDP. Just dividing where that part of the pie comrs from is is really just a meaningless quibble.
Consider: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C7JbKP7X0AAN-YI.jpg and also: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C7t2EyfUwAAJmdG.jpg
I have to agree that no system is perfect. I guess we need to do what works for the greatest number of people. Bottom line though, as long as people insist that health insurance has to pay for everything it is going to be sky high expensive, no matter who pays for it.
