Why Compel Young Adults to Buy Health Insurance They Don't Need and Don't Want?
Barack Obama won the presidency with 66% of the vote among adults ages 18 to 29 - a larger share than any presidential candidate in decades. So it's ironic that his health plan could impose its greatest hidden taxes on young adults.
Young adults make up just 17% of the population but account for 31% of the uninsured. The legislation before Congress would force young adults to purchase health insurance at prices far higher than the market would charge. The legislation would use that hidden tax to reduce premiums for their parents, who typically have higher incomes.
Since about one-third of young adults already reject health insurance at current prices, even more of them would avoid coverage if Congress drives those prices higher. Congress anticipates that response. Each bill includes an "individual mandate," which would force U.S. residents to purchase health insurance, whether they want it or not, on penalty of fines or imprisonment.
Why would Congress compel young adults to purchase health insurance they don't want to buy, at prices higher than they have already rejected? There are at least four possible reasons.
Read the rest here.
22 Comments:
TAX.
Many young people, especially today, work lower paying jobs with pitiful benefits. If such jobs offer health insurance, it’s often the of the high premium type that’s a mismatch for low wages. Those who cannot obtain insurance through their employer have to resort to the private market: this makes insurance vastly more expensive, and drives it out of the price range of many people.
It's true one can obtain health insurance for the monthly cost of a cell phone bill, but this is pittance coverage with exorbitant deductibles, high doctor and medical co-pays (50%), low maximum payouts (some as low as $10,000). This basic coverage is primarily good for basic doctor visits, some prescription coverage; it offers little of high comfort when one needs an appendix taken out, or one gets diagnosed with cancer.
The argument that voluntarily uninsured should not be forced to buy or pay a fine is fine if taken out of context. Buy have you noticed, we are well supplied with context these days.
Federal law requires hospitals to provide care so when these immortals do fall from the motorcycle, they will get "free" care courtesy of everyone else.
So, we demand that they either insure or sign away any rights under law to "required" treatment or only up to a modest cap--say, $15K.
This is the slippery slope socialists want to create. First we require uninsured by treated and then we are forced to cover them anyway.
I realize for the most part it is not the immortals who set up this scheme. I expect many barely analyze their situation "in context".
So for my money, if our turkeys in DC want to intervene in a perfectly good system, then I want everyone to bear the cost. Esp if they are voluntarily uninsured.
The real lesson is that once the government intervenes in a system, they must continually intervene and disturb the normal course of events. It's like a cancer, new "solutions" chasing their "unintended consequences" of their own making.
Please, I welcome any critique of this POV.
if kids today had had to walk 5 miles to school uphill both ways in the snow like we did, then they'd have enough character to pay higher costs and show a little respect dammit!
we sure didn't complain like this back in nineteen dickety seven!
...because "we can".
Mr. Obama gave this group of voters another prize: 35% Real Unemployment Rate for this age segment.
The 2 to 1 Pricing Plan is a joke. Risk measurement out the window, replaced with a Central Planning Price Scheme. Very nice.
The young should be forced to buy insurance at artificially high prices imposed for the government. They voted for Obama and deserve the higher taxes they get.
Titus:
You make a very good point. There are consequences to Elections. Ah the evil of it all!
I'm amazed that the story line for some in this crowd for more of the wealth (with a well defined extortion facet held by citizens is about health care...
John gets it!
Titus Pullo understands that actions like voting for a commie has consequences...
Heck, why not add mandatory insurance so they can subsidize older Americans. Young people already:
1) Pay social security taxes for a benefit they will not received until they are old which is past the date social security goes bankrupt.
2) Pay medicare taxes for a benefit they will not receive until they are old which is past the date medicare goes bankrupt.
3) Pay higher property taxes for equivalent property values in most states.
4) Frequently pay higher prices at various private retailers for the same product (senior citizen discounts).
In the long run we’re all dead.
- Lord Keynes
Let's hope that the "Hopey-Changers" money doesn't run out before then.
To answer Junkyard, older citizens pay school taxes for which since their children are grown they recieve no benefit.
On the SS my parents did not think they would get anything from SS. They got it for the proper period of their life. Actually on SS it would only take tieing the increase in initial amount to inflation, not to wages to fix the problem. This would mean that benefits would decrease over time relative to what they would have been.
Medicare can't be fixed without fixing all of health care. The Johnathon Swift (Modest Proposal) way to fix it is to stop all medical research, and say that no medical technology can be used that comes from after year X. That would control costs but more would die.
Young people already:
1) Pay social security taxes for a benefit they will not received ...
2) Pay medicare taxes for a benefit they will not receive ...
3) Pay higher property taxes ...
And, yet, they still overwhelmingly support the leftists who are responsible for all of these. Elections have consequences. Looks like they'll be getting their "Hope and Change", good and hard.
Young people tend to have higher turn out in national elections vs. state & local elections where senior citizens dominate the voting booths. Pelosi has not passed health care by a long shot.
Most seniors do not buy that you can painless cut billions out of medicare without impacting service levels. If you are a dem running for re-election in a red state, do you really want to support a 1,9995 page bill that is not being made available to your constituents to read? Isn't this what Sir Humphrey Appleby would term "very courageous"?
Ms. Star Parker writes: The Trouble with Socialism is that You Run Out of Other People's Money?
Six years ago I wrote a book called Uncle Sam's Plantation. I wrote the book to tell my own story of what I saw living inside the welfare state and my own transformation out of it.
I said in that book that indeed there are two Americas -- a poor America on socialism and a wealthy America on capitalism. (there's more)
====================
Perry says Obama taking U.S. toward socialism
(video clip)
Anonymous said...
To answer Junkyard, ...
Young people also pay taxes for educating kids they don't have. You can go on all day about things that people pay taxes for but don't use.
But the reality is the entitlement programs have been ridiculously beneficial to older folks. Not only have prior generations actually paid lower percentages of their income, they've been given benefits they weren't expecting, like electric mobility wheelchairs.
Meicare wasn't even going to make a decade, and they're looking at stealing money from that.
And your parent's experience has no bearing on the reality facing future recipients. Baring some plague wiping out mainly retirees, I will be hopefully only half way in retirement when the trust fund starts taking in less money than it pays out.
So we all know benefits will go down, taxes up or probably both.
Serves the 20 year olds right if they support this mess. Unlike SS and Medicare which they inherited, they have a say in this program.
sometimes I forget that government is always holding a gun to our heads
"Baring some plague wiping out mainly retirees..."...
Hmmm, I think the federal government is working (inadvertantly?) on that little detail...
From the WaPo: Maybe we're not so ready for a pandemic after all
Gee! One can only wonder what the results will be when the federal government takes on the rest of the medical problems...
This comment has been removed by the author.
juandos said...
Gee! One can only wonder what the results will be when the federal government takes on the rest of the medical problems...
Guess you didn't get the WH talking points on it being the private companies faults. The government is innocent. Except back when Bush was in office. That shortage was all his fault. Apparently back then the WH controlled the vaccine supply and now the government is just a passive relayer of vaccine delivery expectations from private companies.
But they do have control over creating jobs. Just check their website.
And while I was so freaked out that the CIA might eavsdrop on one of my calls, I'm totally cool with them having all my medical records tied to my IRS records. Those kinds of records never get leaked by government employees.
I love your new X-men outfit QT. Makes me wish I lived in your general vicinity. I'd wine you and dine you, dance you and romance you. Sigh! You can rescue me from Magneto any time!
Back to the question at hand.
When our society has the intestinal fortitude to deny people health goods and services when they are unable or unwilling to pay, then we can afford the luxury of not forcing people to have insurance. A catastrophic plan costs under $100 a month and retail clinic visits are minimal.
We can and should force young people to get insurance for the same reason we force them to get liability insurance for their car - because their unwise decisions impose costs on others.
A properly priced health insurance system in a free market would charge young, healthy people lower premiums anyway?
Ok, I'm going back to looking at QT.
"The government is innocent. Except back when Bush was in office. That shortage was all his fault"...
LOL! You have hit the nail on the head OA...
"I'm totally cool with them having all my medical records tied to my IRS records. Those kinds of records never get leaked by government employees"...
Jonah Goldberg also noted the diconnect back in 2003: For much of the last year, pretty much every Democrat has been campaigning on the issue of who can sob the loudest. Senators John Edwards, John Kerry, Joe Lieberman, and Congressman Dick Gephardt have all whined endlessly about how the Patriot Act shreds, folds, mutilates, cuts, and tears the Bill of Rights, even though they all voted for it...
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