2008
Universal Health Insurance: Just Don’t Get Sick
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By Alan Caruba
Okay, let’s say that President Obama or Hillary is in office and Congress has passed a bill that requires everyone to have health insurance. Gas is up over $4.00 a gallon, food prices are sky high, and, if you’ve recently graduated from college, you are paying off loans at $1,000 per month.
If you’re a homeowner, you have a mortgage, property taxes, and a stack of other bills. You’ve got to decide between paying the mandated premium or being able to drive to work, buy food, holding onto your home, or keeping the bill collector from your door.
All of a sudden, mandatory health insurance doesn’t seem like such a great idea. In fact, your big worry is that Social Security will be able to send you a monthly check and that Medicare and Medicaid won’t go flat broke before you die. Trustees for these massive entitlement programs just announced Social Security will be depleted by 2041, while Medicare goes bust eight years from now in 2019.
According to a March 18 Policy Analysis published by the Cato Institute, health care consumers are annually spending “more than $1.8 trillion dollars for overall health costs, more than what Americans spend on housing, food, national defense, or automobiles.”
Moreover, “because of the way health care costs are distributed, they have become an increasing burden on consumers and businesses alike. On average, health insurance now costs $4,479 for an individual and $12,106 for a family per year. Health insurance premiums rose by little more than 6 percent in 2007, faster on average than wages.”
The news gets worse. “Moreover, government health care programs, particularly Medicare and Medicaid, are piling up enormous burdens of debt for future generations. Medicare’s unfunded liabilities now top $50 trillion.”
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