The Right Opinion
In Praise of Discrimination
I'm scared.
I fear that even if the Supreme Court overrules most of Obamacare (or did already, by the time you read this), Republicans will join Democrats in restoring "good" parts of the law, like the requirement that insurance companies cover kids up to age 26 and every American with a pre-existing condition.
Those parts of Obamacare are popular. People like getting what they think is free stuff. But requiring coverage to age 26 makes policies cost more.
Even Bill O'Reilly lectures me that government should ban discrimination against those with pre-existing conditions. Most Americans agree with him. Who likes discrimination? Racial discrimination was one of the ugliest parts of American history. None of us wants to be discriminated against. But discrimination is part of freedom. We discriminate when we choose our friends or our spouse, or when we choose what we do with our time.
Above all, discrimination is what makes insurance work. An insurance regime where everyone pays the same amount is called "community rating." That sounds fair. No more cruel discrimination against the obese or people with cancer. But community rating is as destructive as ordering flood insurance companies to charge me nothing extra to insure my very vulnerable beach house, or ordering car insurance companies to charge Lindsay Lohan no more than they charge you. Such one-size-fits-all rules take away insurance companies' best tool: risk-based pricing. Risk-based pricing encourages us to take better care of ourselves.
Car insurance works because companies reward good drivers and charge the Lindsay Lohans more. If the state forces insurance companies to stop discriminating, that kills the business model.
No-discrimination insurance isn't insurance. It's welfare. If the politicians' plan was to create another government welfare program, they ought to own up to that instead of hiding the cost.
Obama -- and the Clintons before him -- expressed outrage that insurance companies charged people different rates based on their risk profiles. They want everyone covered for the same "fair" price.
The health insurance industry was happy to play along. They even offered to give up on gender differences. Women go to the doctor more often than men and spend more on medicines. Their lifetime medical costs are much higher, and so it makes all the sense in the world to charge women higher premiums. But Sen. John Kerry pandered, saying, "The disparity between women and men in the individual insurance market is just plain wrong, and it has to change!" The industry caved. The president of its trade group, Karen M. Ignagni, said that disparities "should be eliminated."
Caving was safer than fighting the president and Congress, and caving seemed to provide the industry with benefits. Insurance companies wouldn't have to work as hard. They wouldn't have to carefully analyze risk. They'd be partners with government -- fat and lazy, another sleepy bureaucracy feeding off the welfare state. Alcoholics, drug addicts and the obese won't have to pay any more than the rest of us.
But this just kills off a useful part of insurance: encouraging healthy behavior. Charging heavy drinkers more for insurance gives them one more incentive to quit. "No-discrimination" pricing makes health care costs rise even faster. Is it too much to expect our rulers to understand this?
Of course, the average citizen doesn't understand either. When I argue that medical insurance makes people indifferent to costs, I get online comments like: "I guess the 47 million people who don't have health care should just die, right, John?"
The truth is, almost all people do get health care, even if they don't have health insurance. Hospitals rarely turn people away; Medicaid and charities pay for care; some individuals pay cash; some doctors forgive bills. I wish people would stop conflating the terms "health care," "health insurance" and "Obamacare." Reporters ask guests things like: "Should Congress repeal health care?" I sure don't want anyone's health care repealed.
Reporters also routinely called Obamacare health "reform." But the definition of reform is: making something better. More government control won't do that. We should call politicians' insurance demands "big intrusive complex government micromanagement."
Let the private sector work. Let it discriminate.
COPYRIGHT 2012 BY JFS PRODUCTIONS, INC.
DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS.COM
13 Comments
Rod in USA
Wednesday, June 27, 2012 at 9:37 AM
Great article, John. I agree with most of the points an in general, I want the entire piece of legislation repealed and replaced with less regulation, free-er markets, tort reform, ad insurance across state lines. I agree that one of the issues with O-care is that people will not buy insurance when they are young and healthy so a mandate "seems" necessary. But you cannot order someone to buy something and especially not when you know that it is in effect merely a wealth transfer (ordering someone to pay for services received by another through cost sharing).
I think it is problematic though as the one issue I have is compassion for people who truly cannot help themselves, such as an epileptic who canot work or the elderly. John is right that there are vehicles to cover those situations.
Repeal it now. I
wjm in Colorado
Wednesday, June 27, 2012 at 10:48 AM
the average citizen doesn't understand either No Kidding!!! The indoctrinated sheeple just want free stuff. Allow them to die, you bet, I don't want any freeloading sloth to get any attention financed by productive citizens. I don't want them voting, eating, sleeping, or existing on my dime. The Moochers can die! Let them go to Cuba and enjoy that Island Paradise.
Jim in Alabama
Wednesday, June 27, 2012 at 10:52 AM
Some thoughts on ObamaDon'tCare. We all waiting for the Supremes to pronounce the Constitutional impropriety of the Feds requiring someone to buy something. But it seems that boat's already sailed. How many trillions have been spent by them just using our taxes "requiring someone to buy something". As for Reporters asking guests things like: "Should Congress repeal health care?" Given enough time they'll come to that. It would solve everything. It would allow us to send our doctors to the Third World where they're deserved and where Medical Tourism could lift them all out of poverty. The evil Health Insurance Industry here would be Kaput. People would have to start eating right if they wanted to be healthy. And the Population Bomb would be permanently defused. I can almost see John Kerry hopping on a private Jet to Club Euro Med, waving at the reporters and telling them that its Americans Patriotic duty to pay the undertaker.
Robert in NEW Mexico
Wednesday, June 27, 2012 at 10:55 AM
Just in case some of your audience doesn't understand, everyone will die-not just the 47 million without health insurance.
It doesn't get any more fair than that.
At some point anyway,. the question always becomes, "How much does it cost to die of that disease?"
wjm in Colorado
Wednesday, June 27, 2012 at 11:44 AM
True, EVERYBODY dies eventually. Does Anyone Die Healthy? A perfectly "healthy" person, hit by a train, dies from blunt force trauma. Death always is caused by something, and awaits us all. I don't want the Government limiting my choice in the matter. If you can afford the operation, it should be available, and that is only provided by the free market. Government Control results in death panels and rationing, as we can see practiced in Great Britain. Chairman Obamao wishes that for America, but would exempt himself from the program. That should raise more eyebrows than is does, the useful idiots are many.
Howard Last in Wyoming
Wednesday, June 27, 2012 at 11:25 AM
If vehicle insurance was like the medical insurance Barry and the Republican Big Shots (you can't call them leaders) want, your insurance company would pay for oil changes, brakes, belts, etc.
Major Stu in Peru, IN
Wednesday, June 27, 2012 at 12:09 PM
On the other hand, everyone would pay the same premium rates as multiple offender drunk drivers. Why should they be discriminated against?
Brian in Northwest Arkansas
Wednesday, June 27, 2012 at 12:41 PM
The other thing the useless idiots don't realize is that, when tax dollars are used to subsidize insurance, YOUR behavior becomes MY business, as my tax dollars are being used to treat you for the effects of your poor choices or behaviors. When we all have skin in the game, we all should have a say, would you not agree?
JG in Oklahoma
Wednesday, June 27, 2012 at 1:31 PM
Another case well stated John. Very well stated indeed.
If we want REAL reform in the healthcare and health insurance industries we need to unwind Medicare and Medicaid. And it can be done in a fair and equitable manner, minimizing harm to those who currently depend on it and those who have for years paid into it and are on the threshold of receiving it.
The "unwind" would have to be structured on a year by year basis to eventually wean the population off of this unfortunate and costly government teat. At the same time we instruct, encourgage and provide tax incentives for people to set aside money in their own Health Savings Accounts (HSA's) where they spend their own money for the small stuff and reserve their actual "health insurance" for the big stuff - catastrophic health issue occurences such as cancer, traumatic injuries, etc.
Isn't that the purpose of insurance to begin with? To guard ourselves against the big expensive surprises life occasionally hands us, but which we can't pay for out of our own pocket? Last time I checked my car insurance still doesn't pay for oil changes or routine maintenance. But, it will cover a major fender bender... And that's just what I need it for.
JD in Arkansas
Wednesday, June 27, 2012 at 1:49 PM
I would submit that the single greatest "reform" would be for the individual to own their own account and have it follow them from job to job and state to state. By the time medicare was to kick in you'd have a huge chunk of money and would not need medicare or the state. As it is now, I change jobs all that insurance money is just gone as far as the individual is concerned. Something more like an individual HSA would work much better. While young you'd rarely use it and your contributions into it would grow as any other type of long term investment.
JD in Arkansas
Wednesday, June 27, 2012 at 1:51 PM
This would also allow more competitiveness in the market as the individual would see the cost and would be using their own assets to pay it.
Pete in CA
Thursday, June 28, 2012 at 2:20 PM
For most of my life I was among that 47 million uninsured. I didn't skateboard down steps or off roofs, I didn't try to jump cars with my dirt bike, I didn't try to dive off the roof and do a backflip into the pool. I used what used to be called common sense in self preservation. The wildest thing I did was two tours in Nam with the Marines.
As to using "community rating" to determine costs due to gender differences, how about we use rates paid by lumberjacks, skydivers, high-steel workers, and other highest risk conditions to compute all base premiums. If it fair for one group to subsidize another, what would be unfair about most subsidizing few?
As for obesity, as long as medical "science" is allowed ignore one parameter and modify another on every willy-nilly whim, I don't think they should be even considered in rates. My personal experience with a mid-life (48 yo) growth spurt took me from being classified "underweight" to "obese" in a matter of a few years. I still pumped iron and could make a good showing in 5 and 10 K races and complete 15Ks until I reached 66 and my knees began to complain. Our bodies have a lot in common with each other, but we are still not a "one size fits all" society, not matte how hard "experts" and government want to push us to believe we are.
sunforester in left coast
Saturday, June 30, 2012 at 10:41 PM
Health care is not a right, it is a personal need that you can take care of yourself with your own money. If you want access to health care, all you have to do is buy it. Our government has interfered so much in the business of health care that we haven't had anything resembling a free market for it in generations. It is only through the free market that we the people will enhance our wealth, reclaim justice and regain our freedom.
Now that Justice Roberts has delivered our health care system into the hands of those whom we elect, we are finally in a position to choose how our future health care system will look. Will we voluntarily give up our freedom in November to those who desperately wish to tax us into submission and enforce an unjust redistribution of wealth, or will we seize hold of our freedom by tossing them out on their ears and reconstituting our free market?
What is fair and just is paying our own way honestly for our personal needs. If we are fat and sick, we should indeed pay more for our insurance and our health care than those who are not. We do not need the corruption, entitlement and injustice that our political elite encourages to win the votes of the fat and sick eager for a free ride.
We need to return to the free market, where corruption has little room to hide. We need to return to the free market, where we pay only for our own health care, not the health care of countless privileged others who lie that it is fair to take our money for their personal needs.