Fix Fenders not People!

Interesting:

Matt Friedeman Show – 10. PRE-EXISTING CONDITIONS President Obama has repeatedly said that “no insurance company will be allowed to deny you coverage because of a pre-existing medical condition.” That sounds wonderful until you apply common sense, which is in short supply in Washington. What if we made a law that allowed you to buy car insurance after you got into an accident and that required the insurance company to pay for the damage? Wouldn’t many people just wait for an accident before buying insurance? Why wouldn’t many Americans wait until they were sick to buy health insurance?

Amanda Terresi of Liberty on the Rocks (which I wrote about last week)
The idea is that it is health insurance. The concept of insurance is that you get it before you become sick or before something happens to you. It is equivalent to not having any car insurance, hitting a tree, and calling Geico and saying you want to sign up.

OK, so same playbook, different voice. Both arguments against allowing pre-existing illness to be covered are based on these illnesses driving up the costs for everyone. OK, that is a fact, but should not be a concern. The idea behind health care reform is to have everyone covered. The viewpoint expressed by this little “c” christain and liberty only libertarian is that coverage should be denied for anyone that would drive up the cost for them.

So my question to these two individuals and anyone who shares their view, is this. If we do not include them, how will they receive care? This attitude of “well it sucks to be you” is not one that I find flattering, especially with all the horn tooting and drum banging about how much of a Christian nation we are. We have put our heads in the sand and ignored the elephant in the room for too long. Why? Because if it does not directly affect me, I can ignore it.

It is true, that no one dies in the gutter, so why all the fuss to change it? Because the way care is delivered is after the fact (people wait too long) or it is through emergency room which are mandated to provide care and either close or pass on the cost to the state and to us with health insurance. My point is – we already pay now for those not insured.

OK, my views are a bit biased because I am a public health graduate. I have bought into the idea that a healthy society is a more productive society and is better for my health and family overall. But health care is a business and those that now control it do not want to see any change in what is a pretty lucrative for them. In the mean time, lack of universal care causes treatable illnesses to go unchecked, decreases entrepreneurship, forces families into bankruptcy, or forces one to forgo care to provide for other members of the family.

Our current system sucks. Stop fighting it all out and require that it cover all (everyone in – everyone pays), is not dependent on an employer or having a job, and meets a level of care agreed upon by those in the know (based on science – not marketing or hype). Other countries do it and do it well. Why we don’t is based mainly on our greed, the “why should I give up and/or pay for those that have not secured it for themselves?” Which is then supported by the attitude of “It sucks to be you?”

And liberty for all, unless you have a pre-exsisting illness

I was going to take a different approach this month and write about positive people or people that lead an honest and humanistic life. But, nooooooooo, I gotta hear a comment that just begs for a response.

Amanda Terresi of Liberty on the Rocks, a libertarian social group, was interviewed regarding Obama’s health care speech last night on NPRs Morning Addition "Groups React To Obama's Health Care Speech"

The idea is that it is health insurance. The concept of insurance is that you get it before you become sick or before something happens to you. It is equivalent to not having any car insurance, hitting a tree, and calling Geico and saying you want to sign up.

Lady, you are an idiot.

To deny those with pre-existing illness the opportunity to receive care because they are asking to get into it late in the game shows a real lack of sensitivity let alone an ignorance of how insurance is supposed to work.

Pre-existing illness is not the equivalent of how car insurance works. I am supposed to have car insurance, and if I am denied, it becomes nothing more than an inconvenience or I can play the odds and go without. But if I have an illness and am denied coverage, my options are to be rich enough to take care of it myself, poor enough to have the government pay for it, find a generous benefactor, go without, or go bankrupt.

Our present system offers very little security to those that are dependent on the whims and humanity of their employer and health insurance provider. If I hit a tree without insurance I end up with a messed up car, but if I get a heart attack without insurance, my care will be paid for by someone – you in the form of higher premiums or by the government in the form of taxes. That is the bottom line. Or, I suppose you can say “it sucks being you” and just let me die.

At the beginning, the payouts will be greater than the take. After a while, it will balance out as the “healthy” pay more in then the sick. That is how insurance is supposed to work. I pay into a car insurance pot that I have never used in 30 years. I do this to protect myself in case I need it. All that money given is used to pay for others that because of bad luck, stupidity, or an act of God needed to use it.

We need a health insurance program that everyone pays into, that is guaranteed to provide the necessary health care one needs, and is affordable. This is doable, but as long as the Amanda’s of the world want to think about only themselves, we will continue to have piss-poor health and unnecessary bankruptcies.

You do not preserve liberty by denying life or the pursuit of happiness to those unfortunate enough to be sick. There is no choice but to include everyone into the fold. To do anything less is to say their life is not worth the cost. And that my good Amanda is unacceptable in the America I want to live in.