Project Reason | How much do you pay for health insurance?

Skipshot - 15 March 2013 09:11 AM

So once again my Tea Bagger dad was pontificating about how Obamacare will ruin America and anyone who takes advantage of it is a leech and taker who just wants someone else to pay for their health care.? It finally came to me, he is a retired military officer who has never had to pay for health insurance out of his own pocket, so I asked him how much he thinks employer subsidized health insurance for my family of four costs.? He said somewhere around $300 - $400 a month.? When I said it was $1300 a month he was shocked.? So, maybe people who can?t afford health insurance and take their medical needs to the emergency room where the cost is borne by the taxpayer aren?t lazy free loaders who won?t get off their ass and find a better paying job.

It looks like the Tea Bag Party has a perception problem.

Of course, health insurance isn?t $1300 for every family, some are able to afford only the lowest cost insurance, but since my dad does have auto insurance he won?t pay the state minimum for auto insurance because he knows he?d be on the hook for the massive difference should he be at fault in an accident, and could lose much of his assets.? Sort of like what happens when people with cheap insurance get sick beyond the coverage and they end up bankrupt covering the difference.

Send this to your Dad and let him know he has it backwards. Obamacare is anything but socialist. If your Dad doesn?t like free riders, then he should love Obamacare:

full article
http://www.policymic.com/articles/10565/obamacare-protects-the-free-market-why-repealing-it-would-mean-a-return-to-socialism

Socialists and liberals dislike the Affordable Care Act because there is no single payer government run option. The ACA cuts socialist programs and it?s free market approach is too centrist for them.

Conservatives believe the ACA is the most liberal, socialist creation in mankind?s history and that Obama has sown the seeds for American apocalypse.

Polls show high approval of most individual parts of the law. When asked about the entire law together people hate it. Political misinformation campaigns have convinced people that socialism is taking over America.

I will address the socialism argument first and then address some of the other critics concerns.

Where did we come from before the ACA?? And where are we now?

Prior to the Affordable Care Act the costs of uninsured free riders skipping their medical bills were socialized. Rather than going bankrupt, hospitals increase the prices for the insured. Hospitals split the losses with the government. The government then taxes you higher to socialize the losses.

For example, uninsured diabetes patients were showing up in costly hospital emergency rooms for insulin when health crises arose rather than going to cheaper primary care doctors. Many couldn?t pay those bills.

Before the Affordable Care Act, the system was socialistic, and losses were distributed throughout America.
Repeal of the Affordable Care Act is a call for a return to that socialist system.

Socialism is - a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, or capital, land., in the community as a whole. [Dictionary.com]

The ACA ends the spreading of costs for unpaid bills through the community (socialism) to you that led to higher health insurance payments and higher taxes. It does this by using a method that Mitt Romney pioneered as governor of Massachusetts, which now has 98% of its residents insured. Romney even ran his first presidential campaign on his method for fixing the free rider problem.?
How does the ACA?s reduction of socialism benefit you?

The costs of free riders nails your wallet in more than one way. Your insurance premiums are higher because the costs are embedded in the services you use that your insurance company covers. Your taxes are higher because the government pays for a portion of these unpaid bills and you and all tax payers are the only source of government money. The ACA removes this socialization of costs and will save you money.

How much??

Annually, you, or your employer pays about $1000 more in insurance premiums to pay for losses that free riders brought to the system. You pay about $1000 more in taxes today. So, in total around $2000 a year comes out of your wallet because of the socialist system of the past that the Affordable Care Act replaces.

What will your costs be without free riders sucking money out of your wallet?

How will employers benefit if they pay thousands and thousands less for their hundreds of employees because they aren?t paying free riders who don?t work for them??

This could leave employers with more money in the bank to raise your pay, or hire more workers.

Repealing Obamacare returns to a system where you and your employer foot the bill for the uninsured.

Repealing Obamacare costs you at least $2000 a year.
What other socialism does the ACA cancel?

Medicare Advantage was a public-private partnership that was supposed to lower health care costs by having private insurance companies involved. The costs ballooned.?

By slashing this socialist program entirely and moving people into the more efficient Medicare system, the Affordable Care Act saves about $380 billion over a decade.?

This and other major cuts makes the ACA deficit neutral. The CBO reports that it may reduce the deficit a total of 100 billion dollars over this decade and by as much as a trillion dollars in the next decade.

Calling for a repeal of the Affordable Care Act is a call to add this socialist program back to the system and move people out of the more efficient Medicare.

Because I don?t want to move back to the Socialist system that existed before Obamacare I will address some of critics other concerns.

How does the definition of socialism apply to the private insurance?? How is private insurance improved?

Private health insurance

The purpose of private health insurance is to collect payments from everyone and then to spread the costs through the insurance pool, across the community as a whole, when people get sick. Private health insurance is a socialist approach.

When private companies provide the insurance this applies the traditions of America?s mixed market economy.? Health insurance is a socialist idea. Delivering it by companies is a capitalist idea. So, private health insurance is a socialist/capitalist system.?

When the ACA moves more people into the private health care system they are reducing government socialism and increasing private socialist/capitalism.
Repealing Obamacare means paying for more people through government programs.

Keeping Obamacare means using free-market health insurance exchanges to drive down prices of private insurance.

Addressing the critic?s worries who want to repeal the ACA and return to Socialism

Cost of the Law

Yes, the numbers look large. A price tag of $1 trillion sounds like a lot. Where were Republicans complaining when we spent $1 trillion in Iraq? This is about spending money at home.? Maybe Democrats are more concerned with spending money to the benefit of Americans than they are about blowing people up in the Middle East.

To pay for the law, Democrats slashed programs of lower priority and government socialist programs that weren?t efficient like Medicare Advantage. As stated above, there were so many programs cut that the ACA reduces the deficit by a total of $100 billion over ten years vs. the myth that it will increase the deficit.?

What do we spend now? Annually, health care costs are 23% of all government expenditures. That totals around $890 billion. Over ten years, with increased retirement of baby boomers, the total costs are about $11.2 trillion.? That includes the $1 trillion the Affordable care act spends to reduce costs and cover 30 million more Americans.

In a system where $11.2 trillion is spent in a decade, is it a tremendous amount to spend $1 trillion on cost cutting measures that reduce the deficit by $100 billion?

Tax penalties applied elsewhere

Critics fear that the government could make tax penalties to compel you to do other things like eat broccoli. But, the comparison is not sound. Inactivity in the broccoli market does not lead to the free-ridership of eating broccoli.

In health care, inactivity does lead to free-ridership. If someone goes to the grocery store (vs. going to the hospital) and they eat broccoli while standing on Aisle 3 they are stealing and will go to jail. When people refuse to pay for medical service because of inactivity - where they have not bought insurance or saved for these risky times - the costs are just passed on to you.?

You should not fear the costs being passed on to the free riders and be excited about you paying for them.

If the Affordable Care Act is repealed you will then be responsible for paying the costs of the uninsured.? Socialism returns and sucks money out of your wallet.

Ron

Source: http://www.project-reason.org/forum/viewthread/26156/

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