82Marine89
04-15-2010, 08:57 PM
One of the more charming things about Big Government is when professional politicians create a problem then expect the citizen to fix it. The so-called "free ride" in health care is one such problem. Congress itself created the "free ride" in 1986 with EMTALA, the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act. This law requires hospitals to give emergency care to everyone in America. The "free ride" comes in when uncompensated costs of treating the indigent are shifted to insurance companies, individuals who pay out-of-pocket and taxpayers who make up for the bad debt write-offs hospitals claim. Bottom line: Congress didn't provide funding for its EMTALA mandate.
So Congress put the "individual mandate" in Obamacare, which requires all Americans to buy health insurance, which fixes the "free ride" problem.
But because Obamacare (the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010) didn't repeal EMTALA, the "free ride" will continue. Deadbeats will still be able to avail themselves of emergency room services and costs will continue to be shifted. And since Obamacare expands Medicaid roles, cost shifting will shift into overdrive. (The real solution to the "free ride" is for public programs to pay the same as private payers.)
The "individual mandate," however, is a tax, and candidate Obama promised never to raise taxes on the middle classes. Surely Obama wouldn't renege. At National Review Online, Jonah Goldberg writes:
In September, Obama got into a semantic argument with ABC's George Stephanopoulos, who noted that requiring all Americans to pay premiums for a government-guaranteed service sounds an awful lot like a tax. "No. That's not true, George," Obama said. "For us to say that you've got to take a responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase. What it's saying is . . . that we're not going to have other people carrying your burdens for you."
Congress could easily end cost shifting by either repealing EMTALA or by paying for the free ER work they shanghaied hospitals into. (Stephanopoulos acquitted himself well in the interview. See the video of it below.)
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Link (http://www.gopusa.com/commentary/guest/2010/jh_04151.shtml)
So Congress put the "individual mandate" in Obamacare, which requires all Americans to buy health insurance, which fixes the "free ride" problem.
But because Obamacare (the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010) didn't repeal EMTALA, the "free ride" will continue. Deadbeats will still be able to avail themselves of emergency room services and costs will continue to be shifted. And since Obamacare expands Medicaid roles, cost shifting will shift into overdrive. (The real solution to the "free ride" is for public programs to pay the same as private payers.)
The "individual mandate," however, is a tax, and candidate Obama promised never to raise taxes on the middle classes. Surely Obama wouldn't renege. At National Review Online, Jonah Goldberg writes:
In September, Obama got into a semantic argument with ABC's George Stephanopoulos, who noted that requiring all Americans to pay premiums for a government-guaranteed service sounds an awful lot like a tax. "No. That's not true, George," Obama said. "For us to say that you've got to take a responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase. What it's saying is . . . that we're not going to have other people carrying your burdens for you."
Congress could easily end cost shifting by either repealing EMTALA or by paying for the free ER work they shanghaied hospitals into. (Stephanopoulos acquitted himself well in the interview. See the video of it below.)
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Link (http://www.gopusa.com/commentary/guest/2010/jh_04151.shtml)