Lettin’ ’em die
As much as my old Libertarian soul hates the idea of embiggening the Gubmint, I find that the idea of letting the U.S. Federal Government take over Americans’ healthcare is vastly superior to a system in which the private health companies go out of their way to deny people benefits.
The This American Life crew…has a segment in this weekend’s episode on rescission of health insurance policies – insurers’ established practice of looking for ways to invalidate policies once it turns out that the insured actually needs significant medical care… The story describes a couple of particularly egregious cases, such as a woman who was denied breast cancer surgery because she had been treated for acne in the past, and a person whose policy was rescinded because his insurance agent had incorrectly entered his weight on the application form.
If the healthcare insurance providers are willing to operate under regulations that require them to pay benefits to their customers, then great. If they insist they can’t make any profit that way, then basically they’re saying “we make our profits by letting people die.” To which I respond: eff ’em. I’d much rather deal with a government bureaucracy than a private bureaucracy that stands to benefit by my death.
Andrew has more:
Everyone gets treatment in emergencies and the uninsured get treatment the rest of us pay for in higher premiums. So the basic point remains: does this form of socialized medicine make more sense than socialized medicine which brings everyone into the system, and tries to find ways to lower costs?
Categories: politickin'
