Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Many conservatives think young people...

...should boycott the new health care law. Jon Gabriel, above, writing on the FreedomWorks website says:

The President and his hired guns have figured out that smart, independent, free-thinking millennials know Obamacare is a sham. Sophisticated young consumers realize they shouldn’t pay overpriced monthly insurance rates when they can just pay $95 if they get sick.

But an article in the Times yesterday said (my emphasis):

But many consumers, particularly younger ones, may ultimately decide to consider their odds: A person 25 to 34 years old (insured or not) had a 5 percent chance of incurring medical bills of at least $27,000 in 2011, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. The chance of ending up with a bill that exceeded $13,000 was 10 percent.

“Most medical bills are racked up by a relatively small percentage of the population, whether you’re young or old,” said Larry Levitt, a senior vice president and co-executive director of the Program for the Study of Health Reform and Private Insurance at Kaiser. “The real point of insurance is to protect against these catastrophic medical events, which few people could pay for without coverage.” 

I don't like paying for health insurance either. Or home, car or life insurance for that matter. But, really, isn't it the prudent thing to do? 

2 comments:

Ed Crotty said...

I saw a facebook post from a high school classmate of mine who is a doctor, which said "As a teaching doctor, my feedback to the residents now consists mainly of explaining how to document their visits so that we will all get paid, instead of teaching them how to take care of elders in their homes."

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/11/17/242366259/why-a-patient-s-story-matters-more-than-a-computer-checklist

When are we going to come to our sense and get single-payer? Doctors spend way too much of their time on billing, instead of care.

Healthcare is a right. We should just raise taxes and make it happen. The way we do this is the most asinine system possible.



Ed Crotty said...

also - conservatives have a history of sacrificing young people for their goals - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_invasion_of_Iraq