This has been a debated topic for years and now may be on the verge of becoming a reality. Interestingly enough those who don't work, refuse to work or simply refuse to purchase health insurance on their own will financially crash the government and put a nail in the coffin of individual liberties.
I am going to give some societal background and work back into healtcare... Facts are that in this age fewer and fewer want to claim responsibility for their own actions or lives and would rather have control passed onto a bungling bunch of bobbleheads, aka the congressional body. People seem to have forgot that life is full of risk, anything that offers gain involves risk, that is the price of free choices. But then people found out that free choices may require them to become informed and knowledgable or find someone who is in any area they are looking to make choices... examples include investments and insurance. Lets look at investments.
The first thing an investor is told is that any money invested is "at risk", or has the potential to be lost. This includes any retirement funds, stocks and bonds, CD's or anything else that pays dividends or records interest. Now people are all about the positive interest or dividens but ""oh no!" it can't go negative"... obviously their can be no positive without the negative otherwise everyone would do it. So for those crying about the crash of their investments well their are no guarentees on investments and NO ONE should be bailed out for their own decisions, take the responsibility for freedoms of choice. If you don't I assure you the government will do it for you as they have tried to now.
I do feel for those that have experienced some of this intervention in their 401k and other retirement programs run through their employing corporation. How many have only one "choice" on who to give their money for their 401k? You see the government is like those corporations saying, "give us your money to invest and you can put it with this company that we have chosen for you, or else you can't invest and we won't match any investments"... isn't it more American to be able to choose with whom you'd like to invest rather than being told your ONE CHOICE? This will be health care.
Now let's have a look at insurance, health insurance inparticular. I have held many positions with companies that did not offer health care, "What was I to do?!". Well, I will tell you what I did... I went online and shopped around for insurance offered to individuals that didn't have health insurance and found that many companies offer many types of health insurance for individuals and families. I purchased a plan. It wasn't too bad, in fact better than some of the plans offered by corporations, and it was affordable even for someone making around 20k per year. So it often isn't that people can't find insurance, it's that they don't want to feel like they are paying for it. For many it is a mental thing, as long as it comes out of a paycheck it doesn't feel like they are paying for it. Now the debate comes in that health insurance should be cheaper that what it is, and the only way for it to be cheaper is for hospital costs to be cheaper...
Diving into this one point is true health care would have to be reformed unless you simply look at it from a business perspective, but more on that later.
Back to hospital costs... so hospital procedures cost too much, well much of this is due to those without jobs or simply not wanting to purchase health insurance or illegal immigrants walking into hospitals for care of all ailments ranging from a head cold to surgeries and getting the care for free. So it isn't that they don't get care now already, hospitals have to care for uninsured, the problem is that someone has to pay for it.
All those that have no job or no home or are illegals can't be tracked down to pay for it and so the costs are tacked onto patient procedure costs on for those people that can be tracked down. Now health care is double or triple what it would have to be, insurace costs have to go up to cover the bills and people don't want to pay the premiums for insurance coverage. (This leaves fewer people to purchase insurance and actually also increases premium rates for those that do purchace coverage... a side note.) It is a vicious cycle and one that can't be solved even with what the socialists believe possible and I will explain the concept. So onto potential health care reforms...
The general idea behind socialist health care is that everyone pays into one "pot", that of the government insurance program. With everyone putting money into this one pool it, WITHOUT HAVING A CHOICE ABOUT IT MIND YOU, the government can use the money to pay out a little bit at a time to those that need it for their bills. Seems like it might be a good idea since not everyone is sick at the same time right? Well it isn't a good idea. I'll tell you why... have you ever noticed, those of you with health insurance, that bills are always more than you can pay in one lump sum. This is of course for the reasons I already listed, but then why would it work any different on the government level with all the people in the country involved? It would because workers would pay for all the other leechers of society much the same way all the taxes are paid by only half the people in this country, kind of what you already do now anyway. The only thing that could truly change anything is to lower the procedural cost, artificially mind you, through a government pricing system.
Anyone that has taken economics might no a bit about creating artificial pricings... it is done for many commodities and goods, argueably good or bad for a market economy, but a service is a competition industry in a market economy and setting artificial pricings can only do one thing, eliminate competition. That seems good, maybe? But no, by eliminating competition in a market system you no longer have hospitals or doctors striving to be the best, the exact reason why we have the best health care in the world. With no reason to be the best, health care quality dramatically decreases, available technology and the advanced developments cease, and everyone suffers together as one society in this socialist plan. Simply do the research, it is evident in all the nations that have a socialist style health care system.
The much tougher decision is to look at this problem from a strict business aspect and eliminate hospital care
