Originally posted by: Hayabusa Rider
Who decides who can afford what? What happens if people have income, but not the cash flow because of current debt? If someone making 60K has less disposable income than someone else making half that because the balloon their mortgage hit or children's educational expenses eat up the paycheck, will they now have to declare bankruptcy to comply with the mandate? I know a family who has had crappy luck and don't have savings or much else despite the fact that they are earning over 100k. What about them? The bills don't go away.
Think about what is going on here...the discussion is not about whether or not the people who are swimming in debt will get health care; it's about how they can avoid being fined for not purchasing insurance. Suppose the family in your example managed to scrap up the premium for some high-deductible insurance policy, what is the likelihood that they would be able to actually use? IOW, how likely is it that they would seek the routine care that would comprise the deductible? And in if they actually had a medical emergency -- something that used up the entire deductible in one go -- what's the likelihood that debt would send them into bankruptcy? How does any of that make them healthier?
As with most of what is being discussed, this provision works against what should be the primary objective of reform:
To ensure that every legal residents can obtain medical treatment when he needs it without bankrupting himself or the nation in the process. Anything less than that is nothing but a bailout for one industry or another.
Lost in the Shuffle: The Overarching Goals of Health Reform
1. Financial barriers should not stand between Americans and preventive or acute health care that they sincerely believe will address concerns over a troubling medical condition, in a timely manner, before that condition grows into a critically serious illness.
2. Having received needed health care, no American family should be so financially devastated by medical bills that it cannot meet routine daily living expenses ? for example, make utility or mortgage payments on time or finance the education of the family?s children.
3. The future growth in national health spending should be constrained to fall significantly below currently projected spending growth, which has the United States devoting about 40 percent of its G.D.P. to health care by midcentury
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