Some huge problems I see with Obamacare.
So as I have been looking more into the decision and what exactly the passing of the law means, I came up with a couple things that really bother me about it. (putting aside the mandate effectively forcing me to pay for something I don't want to)
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The freeloader problem: The proponents of the bill often claim that the bill will discourage freeloaders from leeching the health care system and pass the costs onto the taxpayers. This would be done by adding the penalty or tax or whatever you want to call it onto their taxes. The thing is, nearly half of the US doesn't pay income taxes. They are also the ones most likely not to purchase health insurance.
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Rising Insurance premiums: One of the main points of the bill was that Insurance companies cannot deny coverage to those with preexisting conditions and they cannot charge more to people with preexisting conditions. The problem is that this provides an incentive to not purchase health insurance until I need it. The whole reason insurance works is because healthy people pay into it without using the money they put in. If healthy people stop paying insurance premiums, the insurance company won't have enough money provide the services it must. This leads to only one possible solution: hiking insurance premiums up on EVERYBODY to cover the cost. Hell, prices have already started to rise.
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Supply and Demand: This is simple economics. What the bill does is increase the access to health care for millions of Americans. The problem is, who is going to treat the millions of new patients looking for blood tests and other routine medical procedures? The bill does nothing to increase the amount of doctors available to people. In fact doctors are leaving privately owned practices in favor of bureaucratically run hospitals.
Well there's the end of my musings. What do you guys think?
Posted Jul 10, 2012, 7:49 AM UTC