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And who is going to eat the costs when the fines are cheaper? People can only take so much.
This is the design of the ObamaCare system. Nuke the insurance companies - only the government is left to be your single payer insurance program around 2016.
Someone tell me how this WON'T happen.
The purpose of Obamacare is to promise to give people something, by using insurance companies to redistribute from the politically unfavored to the politically favored. The government is broke, so it's now redistributing money it can't even get its hands on. When this fails, do you REALLY think the government suddenly find more money? Not a chance.
Bingo, an insurance policy is a contract...that's why the application is attached to the end of it....the application is part of the contract...that's why if you lie on it, it's fraud and it can be rescinded. ObamaCare does not allow companies to drop (except in the case of fraud), which is the way it was already.
Everything else you said is dead on. When people say ObamaCare is working just fine, they don't realize it hasn't started wotking yet and relies on it being paid for some how. This is where the failure is, not the website..that's just an added problem they managed to scree up already.
You do realize that any contract signed under coercion is not valid, right?
Actually, that's not true. I worked in a hospital and saw the huge amount of charitable write offs.
Which puts us exactly where we are today -taxpayers pick up the bill because citizens choose to be irresponsible. There is no such thing as a "write off" - we, who choose to be responsible, always end up paying. After 2014, with the ACA, there is NO EXCUSE for anyone to not have insurance coverage for themselves and their families. If they don't have it and they can't pay for treatment, they shouldn't get treatment.
It is impossible to "insure" against an injury or illness you already have.
That's like getting car insurance, on a car you've already wrecked. Or fire insurance on a house that burned down yesterday.
As many people have pointed out, any insurance company needs lots of healthy people who aren't going to get sick, to sign up and pay, so they can pay for the people who DO get sick or injured.
They way they get healthy people to sign up, is to promise them they will pay for any major condition they might get IN THE FUTURE. People who want security against a sudden catastrophic bill, consider that a pretty good deal, and they sign up.
People who want to be paid for treatment of an injury or illness they already have, don't want insurance. They want a universal-payment plan of some kind, that has no resemblance to genuine "insurance".
I have a question: If you want payments for treatment of a condition you already have, why do you turn to an insurance company for it? That's not the business they're in, and has nothing to do with them. It's no different from walking into a bank and asking them to pay for your operations, or walking into the house of a guy who has been saving for years to buy his own house and has a couple hundred thou stuffed in a mattress, and asking HIM to pay for your operations. Those people have nothing to do with your illness, just as insurance companies have nothing to do with it, and asking them to pay for it is ludicrous.
If you want to set up a universal-healthcare-payment pool, fine. Go ahead and set one up. But why ask the guy with a mattress full of cash to pay, or an insurance company, or a bank? They have no reason to, have never done anything like it, and will just give you puzzled looks before they invite you out the door.
It is impossible to "insure" against an injury or illness you already have.
Bingo!
To be forced to cover those things is forced "charity". It seems to defy the very definition and purpose of "insurance."
"Insurance" is intended to cover unforseeable future events. An HMO, is more comprehensive, covering regular doctor visits for prevention of catastrophic events. Those policies also cost more. (Kaiser Permanente, for example).
But for an insurer to cover known health issues (pre-existing conditons) changes the game entirely. Those things are going to cost more, and are going to have to be paid for up-front. No longer is it a "risk," but a fact. But, ObamaCare is designed so that everyone else pays for one person's "pre-existing condition." That is wrong.
Those on medicare and medicaid do not have to sign up. Those on medicaid are on welfare so why would they sign up for ACA and then pay a monthly premium?
No. If your income is low enough when you apply via the healthcare exchange, you are automatically enrolled in Medicaid. Income limits were raised under the ACA to put more people into Medicaid.
The problem is we should be having more healthy/unsubsidized people enrolling to help pay for those placed on Medicaid or heavily subsidized. Without that, the program will implode.
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