Should We Accept A Compulsory Medical Care System?
Under our present system, a man or woman with a life threatening medical problem can get medical care at almost any hospital whether or not that individual has the means to pay for the treatment.
The medical care isn't necessarily free. The patient will be billed for the medical intervention. However If the patient does not pay for the treatment, the paying customers bills have to be (and are) increased to make up the difference.
Those of us who have health care insurance are paying for the uninsured already. Hospitals aren't mandated to give uninsured patients preventative care. They are mandated to give expensive life-saving treatments (in many instances). This means that we may be paying a lot more than we should.
If we all had health insurance, inexpensive preventative care treatments would be more commonplace and expensive life-saving treatments might be less so.
Also, a healthier population is a more productive population. A populace that benefits from more preventative care procedures misses fewer days of work each year. Healthier people take fewer sick days. They are less likely to become disabled. They earn more. They pay more in taxes.
If we allow our healthy twenty year olds to opt out of the medical-care insurance system, many of them will become fifty-year old heart patients who will get treatment from our system but who have never paid into it. Unless we are going to deny them treatment when they desperately need it, we should get them to pay their fair share.
Few of us want to live in a society where desperately ill people who are without insurance get forcibly removed from our hospitals and left in the streets to die. Can you imagine the images on the nightly news if that were allowed to happen? Can you imagine walking through these poor people on your way to get to your doctor?
Whether it is right or wrong, we are required to pay for many things that we as individuals, don't need. Even though you may not drive, part of your taxes pays for roads and bridges. Part of your childless neighbors taxes pay for schools.
If you choose not to pay the part of your taxes that goes toward your local police force, would they be allowed not to investigate your murder or help you if you were being robbed? If you never got robbed or murdered should you get a rebate on your taxes? Of course not.
Using the same logic, a person who might have a heart attack or a major accident should pay an equitable piece of the cost whether or not he or she ever needs significant treatment.
If we are not going to employ armed guards in our hospital emergency rooms to remove the bleeding would be patients who haven't paid into our system, we need to get every citizen to pay into the system. Obligatory medical insurance or tax funded universal health care insurance is the only fair way.
The medical care isn't necessarily free. The patient will be billed for the medical intervention. However If the patient does not pay for the treatment, the paying customers bills have to be (and are) increased to make up the difference.
Those of us who have health care insurance are paying for the uninsured already. Hospitals aren't mandated to give uninsured patients preventative care. They are mandated to give expensive life-saving treatments (in many instances). This means that we may be paying a lot more than we should.
If we all had health insurance, inexpensive preventative care treatments would be more commonplace and expensive life-saving treatments might be less so.
Also, a healthier population is a more productive population. A populace that benefits from more preventative care procedures misses fewer days of work each year. Healthier people take fewer sick days. They are less likely to become disabled. They earn more. They pay more in taxes.
If we allow our healthy twenty year olds to opt out of the medical-care insurance system, many of them will become fifty-year old heart patients who will get treatment from our system but who have never paid into it. Unless we are going to deny them treatment when they desperately need it, we should get them to pay their fair share.
Few of us want to live in a society where desperately ill people who are without insurance get forcibly removed from our hospitals and left in the streets to die. Can you imagine the images on the nightly news if that were allowed to happen? Can you imagine walking through these poor people on your way to get to your doctor?
Whether it is right or wrong, we are required to pay for many things that we as individuals, don't need. Even though you may not drive, part of your taxes pays for roads and bridges. Part of your childless neighbors taxes pay for schools.
If you choose not to pay the part of your taxes that goes toward your local police force, would they be allowed not to investigate your murder or help you if you were being robbed? If you never got robbed or murdered should you get a rebate on your taxes? Of course not.
Using the same logic, a person who might have a heart attack or a major accident should pay an equitable piece of the cost whether or not he or she ever needs significant treatment.
If we are not going to employ armed guards in our hospital emergency rooms to remove the bleeding would be patients who haven't paid into our system, we need to get every citizen to pay into the system. Obligatory medical insurance or tax funded universal health care insurance is the only fair way.
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