We might as well call health care what it actually is
Oct 26, 2016, 11:13 AM | Updated: Oct 27, 2016, 7:50 am
It’s the latest October surprise — health insurance premiums are going up. Not in every state, but in enough of them to let Donald Trump claim some vindication.
“The rates are going through the sky. We all knew that. I knew it before it was passed,” Trump said.
“Obamacare” needs more healthy young people to sign up. But they’re not. Sick people are the ones signing up and health care analysts could see it coming.
Related: ‘Obamacare’ users to see an average 13.6 percent rate increase next year
“The program has effectively become a magnet for people with serious medical conditions to move from other insurance into this program where they can get bigger subsidies…” one analyst said.
Because insurers can no longer turn you down for a pre-existing condition you can sign up, get treated, and then drop the insurance.
Once upon a time – in what some might call the good old days – companies wouldn’t sell you health insurance if you were already sick, any more than you could insure a house that’s already on fire. And many hospitals wouldn’t treat you if you couldn’t pay. So there was a pretty strong motivation to get yourself insured.
But today, no one would dream of going back to that system – not Democrats, not Republicans.
And whether you repeal and replace Obamacare as Trump promises, or you keep it and fix it as Clinton promises, there’s only one way that you can have a health care plan that covers everybody. And that’s if everybody pays.
You can call it a mandate, you can call it a tax, you can call it macaroni. But we might as well call it what it is: Arithmetic.
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