Thread: No "Health Insurance"?

No "Health Insurance"?

by Thomas Sowell

September 03, 2007 02:00 PM EST

During the first 30 years of my life, I had no health insurance. Neither did a lot of other people, back in those days.

During those 30 years, I had a broken arm, a broken jaw, a badly injured shoulder, and miscellaneous other medical problems. To say that my income was below average during those years would be a euphemism.

How did I manage? The same way everybody else managed: I went to doctors and I paid them directly, instead of paying indirectly through taxes.

This was all before politicians gave us the idea that the things we could not afford individually we could somehow afford collectively through the magic of government.

When my jaw was broken, I was treated in an emergency room and was given a bill for $50 -- which was like a king's ransom to me at the time, 1949. But I paid it off in installments over a period of months.

Like most young people, I was lucky enough not to have any heavy-duty medical expenses that would have required major operations or a long hospital stay.

That is still true for most young people today, which is why many people in their twenties do not choose to pay for medical insurance, even when they can afford it.

They know that, in an emergency, they can always go to an emergency room. And today the idea that you ought to pay for that out of your own pocket is considered almost quaint in some quarters.

It is not uncommon -- especially in California, with its large illegal immigrant population -- for hospitals to have to shut down because so few people pay for the emergency room care they receive.

There are, of course, people with huge medical bills that they cannot possibly pay. Believe it or not, that also happened back before the modern welfare state.

Some hospitals -- whether public or private -- could absorb such costs, with the help of donors. There were people with polio living in iron lungs, which is why rich and poor alike gave money to the March of Dimes.

But that is very different from hospitals being stiffed every day by emergency room users whose only emergency is that they want to keep their money to spend on fun, instead of on doctors.

The biggest of the big lies in the "health care" hype is that a lack of insurance means a lack of medical care. The second biggest lie is that health care and medical care are the same thing.

Doctors cannot stop you from ruining your health in a hundred different ways, so statistics on everything from infant mortality to AIDS are not proof of a need for government to take over medical treatment.

Few people show the slightest interest in what has actually happened in countries with government-controlled medical care.

We are apparently supposed to follow those countries' example without asking about the months that people in those countries spend on waiting lists for medical treatments that Americans get just by picking up a phone and making an appointment.

It is amazing how many people seem uninterested in such things as why so many doctors in Britain are from Third World countries with lower medical standards -- or why people from Canada come to the United States for medical treatment that they could get cheaper at home.

Government price controls on pharmaceutical drugs are more of the same illusion of something for nothing.

People who are urging us to follow other countries that control the prices of medications seem uninterested in the fact that those countries depend on the United States to create new drugs, after they destroyed incentives to do so in their own countries.

Since it takes more than a decade to create a new drug, a politician can be elected president by hyping price controls on drugs, spend eight years in the White House, and be living in retirement before people start to notice that we no longer get the kinds of new medications that successively conquered deadly diseases in the past.

To find out more about Thomas Sowell and read features by other Creators Syndicate columnists and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com. Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305. His Web site is www.tsowell.com.

http://www.theconservativevoice.com/article/27703.html

Thank-you...I have friends in both Canada and Australia....they have to have a "Supplemental" policy otherwise they could die waiting to get in to the Doctor...so...we would be paying for this Govt coverage....and then have to have a "secondary" coverage so we can get treated,...so we are paying twice...
In my prior job in Ca...the "young ones" did not take out the company issued insurance...cause they had to pay an amount each month.... they said that they could get by with no insurance...they would just file bankrupcy if they had anything major...they had no house to loose etc..
So the reason so many people are without insurance is by choice..

Trial lawyers are driving up the cost of everything. I hate to fault higher education, but all of Western Society is in a terrible downward spiral due to excessive growth in the professional sector. We have far more college and graduate school grads than we can reasonably accomodate. Therefore we rely on an artificially swollen economy to find places for them and pay their oft times exhoritant salaries.

We need to once again place honor and distinction upon craftwork and trades. The Bible does. It will be much tougher for the US to have a viable export economy in the 21st Centiry, but I think we need to find what it will take.

True, medical costs have gone up, but so have lifespans and quality of life. I think that as medical care improves there should be fewer disabled people in our system--draining money off when they could be working.

OK. NOT EVERYONE CAN AFFORD TO PAY FOR HEATHCARE, OR EVEN TO GO TO A DOCTOR. THE INSURANCE INDUSTRY WOULD LOVE TO MAKE US BELIEVE THAT PEOPLE DONT BUY HEALTHCARE BECAUSE THEY CHOOSE NOT TOO. THIS WOULD BE LAUGHABLE IF IT WASNT SO SAD.

THE ARTICLE MENTIONS THAT IN CANADA THEIR ARE LONG WAITING LINES AND YOU DIE WAITING FOR CARE. OH PLEASE....WHERE ARE ALL THE DEAD CANADIANS?

AND HOW IS HEALTH INSURANCE THAT WE HAVE IN THIS COUNTRY SO GOOD? IT COSTS A FORTUNE. IF YOU GET SICK THEY TRY THEIR BEST NOT TO COVER YOU EVEN THOUGH YOU HAVE BEEN PAYING THEM SINCE FOREVER.

I HAVE PERSONAL EXPERIENCE WITH THIS. A FRIEND. HE PAID HEALTH INSURANCE THROUGH HIS UNION FOR 21 YEARS. TWENTY ONE YEARS.

ONE DAY HE FOUND OUT HE HAD CANCER AND HAD TO HAVE SURGERY AND TREATMENT. HE COULD NOT WORK FOR 5 MONTHS DURING THAT TREATMENT. HE WAS ON DISABILITY.

BECAUSE HE HAD TWO DAUGHTERS TO SUPPORT, THE DISABILITY WENT TO SUPPORTING THEM WITH VERY LITTLE LEFT OVER. HE COULD NOT CONTINUE TO PAY HEALTH INSURANCE AND HIS UNION DID NOT COVER IT SINCE HE WAS NOT WORKING. THE TAXPAYERS PAID FOR HIS TREATMENT.

THEN WHEN HE STARTED WORKING AGAIN, HE WAS INSURED AGAIN. SO AFTER ALL THE MONEY HE PAID TO THAT INSURANCE COMPANY, THEY DID NOT COVER HIS ILLNESS AND TREATMENT, THE TAXPAYERS DID THAT.

DOES ANYONE HERE THINK THE TAXPAYERS SHOULD HAVE PAID FOR THIS TREATMENT? I THINK THE INSURANCE COMPANY SHOULD HAVE PAID FOR IT.

AND GUESS WHAT? DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT IT IS LIKE TO FIND OUT YOU HAVE CANCER AND THEN HAVE TO FIGHT WITH YOUR INSURANCE COMPANY AND WONDER HOW YOU ARE GOING TO GET TREATMENT FOR YOUR LIFE THREATENING ILLNESS?

THE INSURANCE COMPANIES COLLECT AND THEN THEY FIGHT TOOTH AND NAIL NOT TO PAY. ANYONE WHO THINKS THEY HAVE HEALTH INSURANCE BECAUSE THEY ARE PAYING PREMIUMS, ARE JUST NAIVE. THEY HAVENT BEEN SICK AND WONT FIND OUT UNLESS THEY GET SICK.

BECAUSE IF YOU REALLY GET SICK AND CANT PAY YOUR PREMIUM, YOU ARE NOT COVERED. YOU END UP IN THE PUBLIC SYSTEM. IF YOU HAVE A HOUSE, YOU LOSE IT. IF YOU HAVE SAVINGS, YOU LOSE THAT. NO ONE CARES. OH YOUR DOCTOR CARES, BUT CANT DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT.

WHAT WE NEED IS A SYSTEM NOT BASED ON THE JOB. BECAUSE IF YOU GET SICK AND CANT WORK, YOU WILL NOT BE COVERED UNLESS YOU CAN AFFORD TO PAY THE PREMIUM WHEN YOU ARE NOT WORKING. HOW MANY HERE CAN PAY THEIR PREMIUM IF THEY ARE NOT WORKING?

WE NEED A SYSTEM THAT COVERS EVERYONE WHETHER THEY ARE WORKING OR NOT. BECAUSE MANY TIMES SICK PEOPLE CANT WORK. OK I DONT LIKE THE IDEA OF SOCIALIZED HEALTHCARE THAT MUCH. BUT IN REALITY IT IS THE ONLY WAY TO PROTECT PEOPLE WHEN THEY ARE ILL. AND ANYONE WHO TELLS YOU DIFFERENTLY IS PROBABLY AN INSURANCE COMPANY.

IT COSTS A FORTUNE.

So if you take my wallet out of my pocket, pay any price asked for your medical treatment out of it because it's not your money, costs will somehow be controlled?

Do you really think I should pay YOUR doctor against my will? Isn't that stealing?

Quote:
IT COSTS A FORTUNE.


So if you take my wallet out of my pocket, pay any price asked for your medical treatment out of it because it's not your money, costs will somehow be controlled?

Do you really think I should pay YOUR doctor against my will? Isn't that stealing?

COSTS CONTROLLED? COSTS ARE NOT OUT OF CONTROL. HEALTH INSURANCE PROFITS ARE OUT OF CONTROL AND SO ARE CORPORATE PROFITS OF HOSPITAL CORPORATIONS AND PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANIES, NOT TO MENTION MALPRACTICE INSURANCE COMPANIES.

DONT TELL ME YOU ACTUALLY BELIEVE THE BUNK ABOUT HOW THE HEALTH INSURANCE COMPANIES CANT MAKE ENDS MEET DO YOU? WITH THE MONEY GOING INTO HEALTH CARE EVERYONE CAN GET MEDICAL CARE. EVERYONE.

AND MONEY COMING OUT OF YOUR POCKET? YOU GET HEALTHCARE FOR THE MONEY OUT OF YOUR POCKET. AND IF ALL THE MONEY COMING FROM YOUR POCKET GOES TO HEALTHCARE INTSTEAD OF TO INSURANCE COMPANIES, THEN YOU GET MORE HEALTHCARE FOR YOUR DOLLAR OR YOU PAY LESS MONEY.

THE INSURANCE COMPANIES WANT TO STAY IN BUSINESS AND MAKE THEIR PROFITS, SO THEY LIKE US BELIEVING THAT MEDICAL CARE IS SO EXPENSIVE, LAWSUITS ARE SO EXPENSIVE...BLAH BLAH BLAH. BUT WHAT IS SO EXPENSIVE IS INSURANCE COMPANY PROFITS, AND INSURANCE COMPANIES WANT TO KEEP IT THAT WAY.

I'll think on what you've said. I'm for eliminating middle men for sure. However, I'm not ready to believe that government can perform what you seem to be asking of it, and it is certainly not government's job to provide healthcare.

I HEAR YOU. I DONT HAVE MUCH TRUST IN GOVERNMENT EITHER. BUT I TRUST THEM MORE THAN INSURANCE COMPANIES OR ANY OTHER CORPORATION. AT THIS POINT MOST OF THE MONEY SPENT ON HEALTHCARE DOES NOT GO TO PATIENT CARE, IT GOES TO VARIOUS CORPORATIONS.