Wednesday, April 05, 2006

Universal Health Insurance with Republican Principles

It's illegal to drive a car in Illinois without insurance. It ought to be illegal to go without health insurance. JBT and Birkett should jump onto this band wagon because it makes All Kids look awfully timid.

From the Boston Globe,

Lawmakers overwhelmingly passed a bill yesterday that would make Massachusetts the first state to require that all citizens have some form of health insurance. The plan -- hailed as a national model and approved just 24 hours after the final details were released -- would dramatically expand access to healthcare over the next three years.
And passed 152-2 in a Democrat held House.

23 comments:

Anonymous,  5:53 PM  

At first glance, I thought this was a very socialist thing and it kinda pissed me off. Then I started thinking about it... this might actually be the one thing that prevents the nationalizing of our healthcare. Maybe, maybe not. The jury is still out....

Anonymous,  6:04 PM  

It was left-leaning advocates and legislators that crafted and passed this bill. What makes you think that conservatives or interests benefitting from the status quo in IL will be for anything resembling comprehensive healthcare reform?

Anonymous,  6:41 PM  

This isn't a "Republican" idea. It's been supported by moderate conservatives and liberals for years now (check the New America foundation website for policy briefs), and it only makes sense that it came about in a state with a liberal legislature and a conservative governor, because it represents the best of both ideas.

This is why, all things equal, divided government is definitely better than one-party government, like in Springfield or Washington.

I'd love to see either Rod or Judy get behind this. It is compatible with either party because it makes great sense.

Jeff Trigg 6:52 PM  

Do we really want to throw people in jail just because they can't afford health insurance or choose not to have it? Land of the free, yeah right. This is socialism. And talk about an unfunded mandate. Is MA gonna cut their budget by 15% and stop taking people's income so they can afford this new law?

Seriously, who is in favor of putting people in cages for not having health insurance? That is just sick.

Anonymous,  8:20 PM  

Sorry this a bad idea on to many levels to mention, but let me point out one that I believe most of us can agree on...It will further push people and business out of the state and it will hurt our economy! It amazes me that we can't understand this. The cost to fund everyone without healthcare care will be huge and the economic strain of forcing healthcare on everyone else will be a killer on our local economy.

The state is in major economic trouble as it is and we are going to add a huge bill. This is not a good idea.

So now Repulicans are going to be for Higher Taxes, Universal (socialist) Health Care, Abortion, Homosexual Marriage, and Big Government?

Jeez and you are wondering why many of us are going to be voting for Stufflebeam!?

Bill Baar 9:22 PM  

It's no more socialistic than mandating every driver have liability insurance.

It means healthy people can't opt out of the risk pool and shift the risk burden onto the state and people with employer paid health insurance.

It should be a big boost for small businesses and entrepreneurs.

Ideally, I'd like to see all business get out of the benefits business; breaking the link between a job and health insurance. This is a good first step.

Anonymous,  10:28 PM  

Bill, I disagree that "it ought to be illegal to go without health insurance."

If the idea is to promote health or long life, the idea is lunacy.

I think it was Ludwig von Mises who said something to the effect that whenever someone proposes, they must ask themselves if the principle is worth killing someone over.

Remember, our laws are enforced by police armed with deadly force and backed up by prisons that are guarded by corrections officers who will shoot to kill.

Trigg is close, but I'll ask the question correctly--is it worth killing someone who would refuses to "go without health insurance"?

I don't think so.

Anonymous,  10:44 PM  

The thing is, the state passed a law that says that people must have health insurance. It does not say that the state is providing subsidized insurance. The state doesn't provide me subsidized car insurance. If the government stays out of the insurance business, this would be a defining example of supply-side economics... Not that I am neccesarily for it, I am just open-minded...

Jeff Trigg 11:31 PM  

I stand corrected. Bill, you are right, this isn't that much of a socialist policy. It fits the fascist ideology much better.

I'm not comfortable throwing human beings without car insurance in a cage either, but it happens every day. The PJStar just did a study of the number of arrests in Peoria and found most of them were failure to appear in court arrests. And a good chunk of them never were notified they had to appear. Yes, I think it's sick that we cause people to lose jobs and throw them in cages because they don't have car insurance.

And thank you GWOT VET for taking this to the logical conclusion beyond my point. Are we willing to kill human beings because they can't afford or refuse to buy health insurance?

Now wouldn't the world be a better place if we were all Christians who had health insurance? Why not mandate church attendance while we are at it, and force the churches to offer free health insurance?

That actually makes a lot more sense than this policy because churches aren't allowed to throw people in jail. This way we are only holding a gun to people's heads forcing them to give their time to church rather than their property to a health insurance company.

It amazes me how people forget that the only way laws can possibly be enforced is by holding a gun to someone's head. Would you a hold a gun to the head of a rapist or murderer? I would. But not a lack of health insurance convict.

Anonymous,  11:43 PM  

I have no problem with health insurance being mandatory, but I guess the program could be modified so that if you don't buy health insurance, you will get no public assistance if you need medical care, meaning that if you get sick, you'll have to sell all of your property if you can't pay the hospital bill because the state won't be helping your deadbeat butt.

If you want to avoid that option, you can buy insurance, which the state will subsidize with a voucher if you are indigent.

Extreme Wisdom 12:17 AM  

Bill,

You said "it is no more socialistic than requiring auto insurance" and "healthy people can't opt out of the risk pool."

Sound's 'socialistic' to me. I opted out of the risk pool for 15 years, and paid 3 medical utilizations by check. During that time, I paid medicare taxes.

For further skepticism, check out MA's Car Insurance rates.

That said, if Congress get on the stick and allows people to purchase health insurance across state lines (circumventing the insipid state mandates), it actually could work.

From a cultural prespective, the really interesting thing is that it shows how dynamic the US still is.

We have innovated HSAs (a very good idea), other CDHC (consumer directed health care) concepts, and now we are looking into ways to get "free riders" to contribute (jury is still out)...

all to avoid the stupidity of Single Payer health care.

Meanwhile back in France (the nation Blago, Topinka, and Meeks want us to emulate) the idiocracy is rioting over a minor change in an absurd hiring law.
__

In closing, a good post on the topic is here

Bill Baar 6:40 AM  

This is coerced savings. Just as 401ks and IRAs are coerced savings. It's also coerced spreading of the risk pool for healthcare.

It the sense that socialism means the Gov makes you do something you don't want to do, i.e. save and insure; it's socialism.

The Republican - Conservative part of it is the assests that result from coerced savings are yours. The choice of coverage is yours. Couple this with HSA and you have another asset that's yours.

I'm excited because I think Mass is an example of a creative conservative at work. I don't think this would have happened without him.

I don't know what the outcome will be but that's what States do: serve as laboratories for ideas.

I still have a copy of Hillary's Health Plan. I'll never forget sitting at a luncheon hearing Ira Magaziner explain it.

Compare that classic liberal plan with this.

My College kid soon to graduate will save for a spring trip to Cancun but not save for Health Insurance.

If she we're poor should could go onto Medicaid. It's the crowd out having fun where I go socialistic and say gov ought to be forcing you to buy insurance instead.

Anonymous,  8:01 AM  

Great idea Comrade Baar!

Extreme Wisdom 8:16 AM  

IF this is such a great idea (and I'm holding out the possibility that it may work), then why is Charles Murray's idea of giving every American $10,000 (in exchange for zeroing out ALL OTHER programs) even better.

Murray basically posits that you earmark the first few thousand of the $10K for health and retirement security, and the rest is for the person to do what they wish.

Bill Baar 8:21 AM  

I've never been a libertarian.

I'm a Hamiltonian. There is a place for active government and if people won't save for retirement or health, I'm all for incentives or laws to make them do so.

I like to see individuals own the assets. I like to see some choices and individual decisions.

But I have no problem with the government saying individuals obligated to save for their own retirement and healthcare.

I'd like to get Business out of this business all together.

Bush's Social Security Ownership accounts did strike me as a Red Program worthy of Bill Haywood and the IWW.... I posted that on the Kane County Dem web site I think...

Anonymous,  11:34 AM  

I have no problem with throwing people in jail for not having automobile insurance. The insurance they are forced to have pays for my vehicle if they hit me and are at fault. They are not in any way, shape or form required to have coverage for their own vehicle by the government. Their loan agency may require it though.

My wife was recently hit by a woman who did not have insurance. The woman hit our car then drove off. My wife pursued while calling 911 and reporting her. We found out she had no insurance which was the likely reason she drove off.

Our car had little damage and we are not even going to turn it in or have it repaired but we both took time off to go to court to testify if need be. She plead guilty to no insurance, leaving the scene and improper lane usage. $825 plus convictions on her recoord. She should have just gotten the insurance.

Requiring health insurance is not exactly the same thing so throwing people in jail over it does not seem as reasonable. I'd support no jail time with the right for the medical profession to refuse to aid the uninsured without upfront payment.

Bill Baar 11:46 AM  

I don't think jail time is quite in the Mass picture. There are other ways of doing this....

People who go without Health Insurance still get health care...someone else just gets stuck with bill. Just as when you get hit by an uninsured motorist...your insurance pays.

It's just as wrong.

Anonymous,  12:19 PM  

It's amazing that no one actually read the Boston Globe article linked to in this post, which quite clearly states that the penalty for failing to obtain health insurance is NOT jail, but fines. Let me repeat that: NO ONE WILL GO TO JAIL. Not a single person.

But don't let facts get in the way of your ludicrous paranoia about creeping socialism!

P.S. Just noticed that Bill had in fact caught on already. Let me therefore amend my opening to say "very few commenters" rather than "no one."

Jeff Trigg 2:20 PM  

Thats funny. The article doesn't say no one will go to jail. It says the penalty is a $1000 fine. And what happens when people don't pay misdemeanor fines? They go to jail, just like the 20-30% of arrests each month in Peoria County for parking tickets. That is a fact. Plenty of people will go to jail for this.

Anonymous,  3:51 PM  

Bill-

I would like to point out that my insurance would only pay if I have uninsured/underinsured coverage. I do but if I had not and the damage severe enough, I would have had to cover it myself. In the event, I did not have the funds I could try litigation but that will likely get me little to no money anyway.

I also agree with Jeff when he states that while true the penalty is a fine. Unpaid fines eventually result in jail time.

Bill Baar 4:21 PM  

I'll dig around for the number of people doing time for as uninsured motorists in Illinois. I don't think there causing at Vandalia.

Anonymous,  9:12 AM  

Fine dodgers don't typically serve time in IDOC. They serve out their 30 day, 60 day, 180 day, 364 day sentences in county facilities.

Don't be obtuse, intentionally or otherwise.

Bill Baar 5:11 AM  

whow Gish... bit of an authoritiarian yourself here.

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