A great column here by Harvard economist Martin Feldstein, laying out for us why Obamacare's insistence on guaranteeing insurance to those even WITH pre-existing conditions provides a perverse incentive to drop healthcare altogether. A rational, healthy young person would be a fool to buy healthcare--pay cash for doctor's visits and if something catastrophic comes up, why, no insurance company will be able to turn you down. Fine them, you say? Fines in the current bills still provide our fine young cannibal with over $360 a month in extra walking-around money.
Hat Tip: Greg Mankiw
Monday, November 9, 2009
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But isn't this the entire point? To make us more reliable reliant on the state and less likely to remove this in the future. Who is going to be willing to vote away $361 bucks a month from their constituents. The more the govt can get otherwise healthy people to suckle at the teat of the govt, the more compliant that same population will be for further issues. The gov't run H1N1 vaccine distribution has been such a success, I am sure they will have no problem running everything else about my health care.
That's the pickle. If an insurance company must accept pre-existing conditions where's the incentive to buy it until you get sick? They had the same problem in Tennessee with Tenncare. People would move in and out of the insurance pool based on their health. THAT is why Obergruppenfuhrer Pelosi is requiring everyone to have health insurance or be penalized.
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