Someone please tell Democrats Obamacare is not like car insurance
By
Jack Hellner
Thank goodness that after eight years of Obamacare, a federal judge has ruled that Obamacare is unconstitutional. The impetus was Donald Trump and Republicans giving back freedom of choice to the people by getting rid of the individual mandate.
I repeatedly hear from Democrats that Trump and Republicans are attempting to sabotage health care. That is exactly what the Democrats did when they forced Obamacare on the American people. They sabotaged the existing health care system by destroying competition when they passed a bill no one had read.
The public has heard over at least nine years that forcing people to buy health insurance is constitutional because states compel people who drive to buy car insurance. Somehow journalists, who claim to report facts, don't explain the difference between the auto insurance mandate and Obamacare. It has to be because they, like almost all Democrats, have an agenda to push, and the agenda is to destroy the private health insurance industry and move toward government control.
Here are just some of the obvious differences between auto insurance and Obamacare.
When it comes to buying auto insurance, states compel only people who drive, not anyone who might drive sometime in the future. In Obamacare, the state forces 100% of people to buy insurance because sometime in the future, they might need it.
With auto insurance, if you have a 45-year-old Chevy Vega or a $400,000 Rolls-Royce (with no loan), you can buy just liability insurance if you want. With Obamacare, you have to buy Rolls-Royce insurance, whether or not you want or need it.
With auto insurance, the individuals and insurance companies can put all sorts of limits on the policies to control the total exposure. With Obamacare, there are no annual or lifetime limits, which means that insurance companies (especially small and medium-size companies) have little ability to control risk, and there is absolutely no incentive for drug companies, hospitals, clinics, labs, and doctors to control costs.
With auto insurance, companies can charge more for men, who might drive more or get in more accidents than women, which makes sense, because their claims cost more. With Obamacare, insurance companies are not allowed to charge women more, even though their claims can be significantly higher, because they are the ones who have babies.
In auto insurance, the old don't have to subsidize the young, while in Obamacare, the young are required to subsidize the old.
In auto insurance, if you are an alcoholic, are a drug addict, have heart problems, get lots of tickets, or have pre-existing conditions, the insurance companies can choose not to sell to you or charge high premiums. In Obamacare, insurance companies aren't allowed to control the risk.
Some states have also passed tort reform to limit risk. With Obamacare, the Democrats thought paying off rich trial lawyers who donate to them was more important than controlling costs.
If Democrats wanted to control costs and help more people get health insurance, they could have expanded Medicaid a little, enhanced high-risk pools a little, reduced existing mandates, and put in tort reform. Instead, everything they did was meant to intentionally reduce competition and move toward government-run health care. The goal was obvious.
Journalists willingly repeated the obvious lies about keeping your doctor and lower premiums when Democrats were hawking the bill to the public. When Trump and Republicans were trying to get rid of the individual mandate, journalists in conjunction with other Democrats just repeated the talking point over and over again, with no evidence, that insurance premiums would skyrocket if the mandate was gone. I would love for them to explain why insurance premiums skyrocketed while the mandate was in place.
In 2019, the mandate is disappearing, and suddenly insurance costs are stabilizing for the first time in years. It is not a coincidence. Anyone with a simple knowledge of economics knows that if there is more choice on the insurance to buy, more competition in whom to buy from, and fewer mandates, the cost is more likely to be under control. The insurance companies no longer have a captive audience.
I would think journalists would be cheering that consumers are saving money and have more choice, but they aren't because they, like other Democrats, want government control.
Thank goodness Hillary is not president, because we would have continued the cascade of the destruction of the private health insurance industries and the millions of jobs either directly or indirectly affected. Cities that have significant numbers of people and families employed by the private sector would be greatly harmed, but the communities around D.C. would be enriched more than they already are. That is the goal of Democrats, including most journalists.
