With the Obamacare rollout in full swing, several things are clear:<\/p>\n
Obamacare has been discussed at length on this blog, so none of these realities should come as a surprise. Nonetheless, Obamacare defenders just don\u2019t seem to understand why most insured young Americans are not flocking to the exchanges. The answer is simple: It\u2019s a losing proposition.<\/p>\n
Insurance is a gamble. Individuals consider it it when they believe a serious negative event\u2014a fire, a major illness, or even a loss of life\u2014could be devastating without outside help. They are willing to purchase it when the amount of the premium seems to justify the risk of the event and the payout that would follow if that event occurred. In everyday language, people buy a policy when they weigh the odds and premiums, and think it\u2019s a good deal. For the young and healthy it\u2019s not. This is true for a number of reasons, but one of them is the game-changer.<\/p>\n
Obamacare is designed to subsidize the coverage of high-risk and low-income Americans through the premiums of the young and healthy. Many Americans seemed okay with this idea when Obamacare was originally proposed, but most figured that someone else would be the subsidizers. Collectivism is often appealing to the masses when they are told that \u201cthe rich\u201d and \u201cbig corporations\u201d will foot the bill. When it comes time to make an individual decision, however, most opt in only when they are on the winning side of the wealth redistribution. This is why social security is required, not optional.<\/p>\n
Put another way, the financial losers in the healthcare game will only play if they are forced<\/em> to. The fine that must be paid for noncompliance is trivial compared to the cost of insurance, especially when EMTALA guarantees emergency treatment, hospitals are always willing to negotiate with non-payers, and bankruptcy is always an option. While none of these three situations is desirable, they underscore the fact that Americans without health insurance will be treated, thereby reducing the incentive to buy a policy.<\/p>\n There\u2019s only one way around this. Some call it single<\/em> payer, but I prefer the term collective<\/em> payer. The young and healthy must be forced<\/em> to contribute to a losing proposition in hopes that they will shift to the winning side as they get older. However, collectivists view seniors as financial liabilities because they are no longer working and \u201ccontributing to society.\u201d With government in control of healthcare finance, there\u2019s no guarantee that you\u2019ll get the care you need down the road.<\/p>\n The simple truth is that young and healthy Americans will not purchase health insurance at Obamacare prices unless they are required to do so. But don’t expect Obamacare to “implode” on its own. There’s too much emotion tied up in the concept of universal healthcare, and the left will propose as many costly band-aids as needed to keep this entitlement afloat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" With the Obamacare rollout in full swing, several things are clear: Washington will decide what kind of healthcare plan you need. The cost of your plan is likely higher than it used to be. Few Americans are actually purchasing health insurance through Obamacare. Most Obamacare buyers are in moderate to high-risk categories. Obamacare has been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/738"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=738"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/738\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}