The Reason Some People Are Uninsured Is Because Health Insurance Is Expensive
And the reason health insurance is so expensive is because the government won’t keep its hands out of the industry. I really liked this opening paragraph from Phillip J. McGinnis writing for the Delaware Voice:
The reason we have uninsured in Delaware, and the nation, is affordability. The affordability issue can be tracked to mandated benefits required of all state-regulated health insurance policies.
I’ve covered the issue of insurance mandates before. What they are, basically, are laws requiring insurance companies to cover certain types of illnesses or procedures. A politician essentially tells an insurance company “If you want to offer insurance in our state our policies have to cover these procedures.” Which may sound nice, but the problem is that a lot of the procedures/illnesses mandated for coverage aren’t things most citizens have a problem with, yet because the insurance companies are forced to cover them they drive up the price of insurance.
For instance, some states require coverage for things like port wine stain elimination, hair prostheses, acupuncturists, drug abuse treatment and pastoral care. But what if you don’t want any of those things? What if you’re not going bald? What if you don’t believe in acupuncture? What if you don’t abuse drugs?
Too bad, you have to pay for that coverage anyway.
Think of it this way. Say you’re shopping around for a new car. Unfortunately, you can’t afford one because the politicians in your state have decided that the minimum quality of automobile that can be sold is a Cadillac. But you don’t want or need a Cadillac, you just need a little hatchback to get you back to work. Well too bad, according to the government. Because they know what’s best for you.
This is exactly how it works with health insurance plans. By mandating certain types of coverage the government forces you to buy a “Cadillac” health insurance policy when really all you maybe need is a metro policy.
What’s worse is that after the government inflates prices with these mandates they turn around and use those inflated prices, and the fact that some people can’t afford them, as an excuse to subsidize the purchase of health care. Thus further exacerbating the problem by taking more money from taxpayers and thus leaving them unable to afford their own health care.
