Monday, September 30, 2013

common sense 101 vs. convolution 99.9



The health care system in the United States had been broken and bleeding money for a long time.  The Affordable Care Act makes an attempt to change that scenario. 

On June 28th of last year the U.S Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act’s provision that individuals may pay a penalty for not obtaining health insurance, as that may be reasonably characterized as a tax.

The only way to get a different result is to make a change.  Granted, the new system with insurance exchanges will likely not solve all the issues.  It will likely make insurance much more affordable and accessible for many people though.

People with health insurance don’t wait as long to see doctors and so get care when conditions are preventable, more treatable and less costly. 

People without health coverage wait longer to see doctors and so get care when conditions are advanced, less treatable and more costly.  And who picks up those increased costs? 

Well…there is no free ride…on anything.  Uninsured people in any system do not get free health care.  The costs are simply spread among everyone by the way of higher fees, higher premiums and an erosion of benefits.

Insurance 101 means gathering as large a pool of people as you can in order to collect the lowest premiums possible to be able to cover the anticipated claims of the community.  Having more people in the pool is better.  Except regarding adverse selection, and this can be avoided if younger and generally healthier people are incorporated.

But instead of trying to work from simplicity and common sense there are too many people trying to add complexity and nonsense into the equation.

If the Affordable Care Act were to fail, that’s okay.  Another change can begin. 

Doing nothing….well that’s a failure from the get go.

© 2013 Christopher’s Views