Virginia Gun Owners Forum - VGOF

Kreutz wrote:A mandate without subsidized policies would be best for the taxpayer AND the health care system. Maybe one day!

Does not compute.

A mandate by definition requires that everyone purchase health insurance, right? However, even with a mandate some people will have better health insurance than others (unless you mandate a single level as well, aka "single payer" systems), it's just that everyone will have something or pay a fine for the "privilege" of having nothing. This leaves two outcomes:

1.You simply get what you paid for and if you didn't pay for the plan that covers <insert treatment you need> you won't be getting that treatment. I.e. people will still be turned away if their plan doesn't cover something; you get what you paid for unless someone voluntarily gifts something to you. Those that elected to pay the fine would have zero coverage; those that avoid the system also have no coverage. This is no different than a free market solution where you get whatever treatment coverage you paid for, but without the obvious freedom crushing mandate...which is practically admitting that the state owns your body.

or

2. You provide care above and beyond what some people have paid for and have a subsidized system. E.g. those that paid the fine get coverage which they didn't pay for and you still are subsidizing them. You can't bring in people who were disqualified under the current system because they represented a significant increase in risk to the insurer and expect that prices won't rise for the rest of us who already have coverage because we weren't that risky.

Furthermore, if you mandate a single level you will either have third world standards for health care (lowest common denominator) or subsidized health care. A mandate doesn't fix a d@mn thing other than give the state the ownership and control of your person and it most certainly can't create a non-subsidized system (i.e. in alternative 1 you simply get what you paid for, which makes a mandate useless).

Edit: Insurance by definition and regardless of type is a form of aggregated probability subsidy. That's ok when it's voluntary, but it's down right tyranny when you enforce it with the sword.