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Monday, January 18, 2010

How to Get Libertarian/Republican Health Care Freeloaders to Buy Insurance Without a Fine!


How smart is it for someone to refuse to buy into SUBSIDIZED health insurance coverage, resulting in dramatically lower health care costs, simply because they didn't want to be forced into it?

And if they become a burden on society after a catastrophic illness, go bankrupt and raise the cost of health care for everyone else, so be it. At least they protected their freedoms from those damn Democratic, socialist, big government politicians. Here's another "Party of Freeloaders" (POF) example, as pointed out by Harold Meyerson, editor-at-large of American Prospect:

Another political time bomb could be the fee on those Americans who, despite the subsidies, refuse to purchase insurance. In such libertarian-leaning regions as the Mountain West … the issue could loom large even before the fee is imposed (which wouldn’t be until the exchanges are up and running in three or four years) … the accounts of its magnitude can, and surely will, be exaggerated by Republican opponents.
For all of the libertarian and Republican Party's talk of freedom and independence, making other people pay for their medical help because "real Americans" don't like being forced to buy insurance themselves, is the height of hypocrisy and irresponsibility. But guess who'll be the first in line applying for coverage, getting government, help once they become ill? That's why this solution is so incredibly smart:

My American Prospect colleague Paul Starr (suggests) Instead of fining those who go without insurance, Starr has proposed this: “For five years they would become ineligible for federal subsidies for health insurance and, if they did buy coverage, no insurer would have to cover a pre-existing condition of theirs.” They would not be fined for avoiding the new system, but neither could they benefit from or exploit it.

This period of ineligibility, Starr adds, “deters opportunistic switches in and out of the public funds, and it helps to prevent the private insurers from cherry-picking healthy people and driving up insurance costs in the public sector.”

Damn that's good. Is anyone else considering this?

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