Choose any two
Because we do not deny necessary medical services to those who cannot afford to pay them, buried deep my insurance costs are bills for other people who do not buy insurance.
These “other people” generally only seek health care services when absolutely needed. Why? Because they have to pay the full cost of anything not urgently needed.
Meanwhile, the only real obstacle I have from getting healthcare service is the time spent waiting. Copayments are a minor nuisance, roughly equivalent to going to Arby’s rather than Red Lobster for lunch.
Health care costs rise, and our Congress takes note. Yet to “solve” this cost problem they move those “other people” into the same system I’m in that has little disincentive to cost rises.
Logic says the only direction system wide costs go are up.
We can argue, then, about what happens as systemic cost rises. In most existing systems similar to that proposed, rationing decided by bureaucratic fiat takes hold. And that sucks, but we should also recognize that rationing takes place now amidst those “other people”. A key difference being that most of them decided to ration their healthcare themselves, where as in the new system unknown bureaucrats do it.
So “logic” says that what we get at the end of these proposed changes is:
- higher total systemic cost
- rationing for everyone by bureaucrats
And I wonder, again, why we do we do this? Whatever the reason it certainly isn’t to help all of us.