It Turns Out that People Hate Paying a Massive Tax that is the ACA
You are not going to believe this but:
Health insurance enrollment declined among people who do not qualify for financial help under ObamaCare as premiums rose to make coverage less affordable, new federal data shows.
So, let me get this straight, we have a massive tax that is now voluntary. It is a redistribution of wealth where some people have to pay literally nothing for their health care while others get to pay the amount of a mortgage for their house. Not true, you say? Well, I can tell you that where I am there is a clear dollar amount that you can make that decides whether you pay about $1800 a month for a family for ACA insurance on the exchange or you pay ZERO. ZERO! They couldn’t even figure out how to make a sliding scale. Idiots. They also couldn’t figure how to use the method by colleges to see what you net worth is. Nope, they went by income so rich retirees also got free care.
The result of all this is that people are protesting with their feet and walking away from this massive tax. And we are surprised by any of this? Please peruse this blog that started talking about the ACA failure before it was even passed.
People like free stuff. How is that a surprise?
Tax definition: A tax (from the Latin taxo) is a compulsory financial charge or some other type of levy imposed upon a taxpayer (an individual or legal entity) by a governmental organization in order to fund various public expenditures.
It’s not a tax if it’s voluntary.
Is it your contention that if people are too poor to buy health insurance and/or too poor to pay cash that they do not deserve and should not have healthcare? If the answer is no, how can if be financed other than redistribution of wealth?
The concept of insurance is sound, but the application isn’t because the cost is too high.
Insurance costs are high because healthcare costs are high.
Healthcare costs are high partially because a lot of the money spent on healthcare goes into profits and doesn’t go to actually procuring healthcare (your recent posts about the Beaumont Health System’s CEO 82% raise, the profits that healthcare “non-profits” take out of the systems, the outrageous prices of drugs in the US compared to the rest of the country etc).
It may surprise some to learn that government insurance (Medicare) is actually more cost efficient than private insurance.
https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2017/sep/20/bernie-sanders/comparing-administrative-costs-private-insurance-a/
It is my contention that the daily provision of health care is NO business of the federal government. FDR started this crap in WWII with wage & price controls. LBJ threw gas on the fire with Medicare/Medicaid as a very successful vote bribe. And now bi-partisan idiocy worsens this with constant meddling, including the crony corporatist theft of the ACA.
You are plucking two emotional strings that I reject: saying that I do not wish to be stolen from is not tantamount to saying I want the poor to do without care (allowing a full write-off for charity care, and declaring an unqualified sovereign immunity for all Medicaid patients would be good starts).
As for the great “efficiency” of Medicare: it’s soooo efficient, that it has run in the red since 1972, five years after the shuffleboard set gained a “right” to care. Anyone living into their 80’s will consume far more than they could’ve contributed, and the “prime rate” set by Medicare reimbursements enabled private insurers to lower payments, even as growing includes of gov’t cash for a half-century fueled price inflation. And don’t let’s pretend that only private insurance CEO’s get fat payoffs; every GOP and Dem politician promising a sustained Medicare for the Werther’s gobblers, and wringing their hands over the Medicaid poor bleeding state budgets white is receiving payment in kind (votes, adulation), using others money.
There is no added nobility in doctors happy to care for some by advocating taking from others.
The main reason medical costs are so high is third-party payment.
The Medicare “3% administrative cost” is a myth. Most of the cost gets foisted off onto the private sector. What happens to the huge administrative wing of the hospital if it doesn’t accept Medicare? It mostly goes away, as shown by surgerycenterok.com.
The threshold for investigating fraud by Medicare contractors is about $200 million (see https://www.jpands.org/vol8no4/burr.pdf and https://www.jpands.org/vol8no3/burr.pdf)