The requirements for people to purchase health insurance that the would be totalitarian future presidents are serving up is really a combination of two requirements: 1. Paid by employers or 2. Paid by the individuals themselves. Both are horrible and will only make health insurance and more generally health care more expensive and less consumer focused. The concept here is to stick it to those who need health insurance the least: That is young, healthy and active people and PRAY that this money makes it to the less young, less healthy and less active. Of course with any scheme where violence is the mechanism to enforce compliance there is always enforcement loss and inefficiency built into the system that only exacerbates the issue.
Let’s start with the requirement/mandate for employers to pay: This is modeled off of the Anti-Social In-Security System. It exists because of the tax system where employees save tax money getting health insurance as a “benefit” instead of cash.
The second is to require individuals to pay for health insurance. This is very ominous as it requires an enforcement mechanism, ready police force, to make sure those young, healthy and active folk buy into a program that they do not need nor want with the other end of folks skimming off of the healthy ones.
The problems as I see it with this required health bliss are: 1. Individuals under either requirement ARE NOT GOING to set by and let the unhealthy, old and inactive steal their money, they will do one of two things. That is over-use health care and bill as much as possible out of the system or they will find ways to cheat the system. I use the former method as I have an excellent employer provided health insurance package. Although tougher for individuals, people manage to cheat every enforcement system all the time, think taxes, speeding, zoning, etc through a myriad of means: fake marriage, theft, fraud, etc.2. It gives suppliers power over buyers. The other side to these required “benefits” is that suppliers of health insurance and health now have it made as they get access to the best customers who must under penalty of property appropriation, imprisonment or even violence to buy their products. 3. Another issue with forced insurance is that if the employee does not need the amount of health insurance then that is tough turkey for the employee. A better mechanism is to unwrite the insurance laws altogether and let individuals or groups purchase insurance freely. This would mean that suppliers of health care would have to price their services cheaper for those unable to get health insurance and more expensively for those who possess it. Also the most charitable nation to ever exist would as it has done in the past step up with religious or charity hospitals and clinics for those unable to pay.