IS FORCING CITIZENS TO BUY HEALTH CARE INSURANCE THE AMERICAN WAY?

To say that the topic of health care insurance has been in the news lately is a sizable understatement– as is noting that Obamacare is somewhat controversial. So I take up this topic for my column this week with some trepidation.

First of all, let me make a less-than-profound statement: Health care insurance is good. Everyone should have it to at least partially cover routine medical care as well as major emergencies. Especially major emergencies. And especially for families. I hope you will agree that these statements are non-political. I hope you will also agree that the following statement is also non-political, maybe even an “inalienable right” kind of thing: NOBODY LIVING IN AMERICA SHOULD BE FORCED TO BUY HEALTH CARE INSURANCE AND BE FINED IF THEY DON’T! But having said that, some level of government assistance should be available to help poor people who cannot afford to buy health insurance.

I don’t know when health insurance was invented but, whenever that was, it is likely that “responsible” citizens with adequate incomes immediately realized that it was a good idea. But others, for one reason or another, did not particularly buy into the idea of paying for insurance today to cover something that may or may not happen in the future. Those citizens included the millions of young and healthy men and women who considered themselves invincible. Also included were millions of citizens who were simply irresponsible, those who could afford health care insurance but who just didn’t bother to buy. And, of course, poor people, working or not, often did not have health insurance unless it was provided by their employers.

As I understand it, the primary purpose of Obamacare was to ensure that the last group of people listed above– those who cannot not afford health care insurance– could get covered. I don’t think that is a bad idea in concept. In fact, I think that this is (or should be) another one of those non-political statements– I think most Americans support government action to try to achieve this goal. In fact, wasn’t that sort of the goal of Medicaid, an already-existing program?

Okay, assuming that this really was the primary goal of Obamacare– and not some underlying conspiracy like redistribution of wealth (gasp!)– why didn’t Obama and the very smart people surrounding him simply develop another entitlement program, find tax money to pay for it– and that would have been that? Whammo bammo! (I can hear some of you screaming at your computer screens about how expensive such a program could be. But just think about where we are now with Obamacare!)

But nooooo. For some reason, rather than just concentrating on the stated goal of Obamacare, they concocted a huge, convoluted, overly-complex Rube Goldberg kind of program that– while it does provide free health care insurance to poor people– it also messes with millions of folks WHO ALREADY HAD HEALTH CARE INSURANCE. And it even messes with those who DON’T WANT to buy health care insurance! What were the Obama people thinking?!

Seems to me that just providing free health care insurance to poor people would be complicated (and expensive) enough. But just imagine the idea of a bunch of bureaucrats sitting around in a conference room at the White House saying something like “and then we’ll FORCE everybody else to buy health care insurance– and we’ll FINE their asses if they resist! Any chance that we can elevate failure to have health care insurance to a criminal offence?” Such a meeting might seem unthinkable. But except for my satirical reference to “criminal offence,” that is what happened! The idea of FORCING Americans to buy health care insurance and FINING them if they don’t started somewhere.

So why should anyone who pays attention be surprised that Obamacare is now turning out to be a moving train wreck? Millions of responsible citizens who, for years, had health care insurance policies they were happy with are losing those policies– NOT because of “churn” in the insurance industry, but because of the new law! That is no small deal! In fact, it is a very BIG deal! Proponents of the law argue that the people who are losing their policies were stupid enough to buy “substandard” policies and that they will be able to go to the Obamacare website and get better coverage at lower cost. Whether or not that argument is true (and initial reports suggest that it is way not true), THAT IS NOT THE POINT!. These people were frigging insured! How DARE the government come in and disrupt these people’s lives as part of some not-thought-out effort to provide free health care to poor people! Why not just figure out a way to provide free heath insurance to poor people (expansion of Medicaid?) and leave everybody else alone?!

Somebody should be going to jail here!

I don’t even want to spend any time talking about the website. But I will. What a fiasco! Years in the making at a cost of millions of dollars! And it still is not up to speed. Not even close. In addition to continuing problems even getting on the site and signing up, there are now reports that many of those who think they are signed up for health insurance are not– and they will find that out when they try to get medical care after the first of the year. There are also continuing security problems. Website-users providing personal information even have to agree to a statement that they have no expectation of privacy! I’m not making this stuff up! This criticism is not about politics, it’s about competence and trust! Would you even consider hiring the designer of this website to repair your computer?!

Those who know me know that I was fortunate enough to be able to spend a number of years in the Bahamas, including time shortly after Bahamian independence in the 1970s. Do you remember Government Day in high school? We all got dressed in our ill-fitting suits and went down to City Hall and “took over” the government for a day. That’s the way it was in the Bahamas right after independence. A bunch of guys with no government experience got dressed up and went down to the capital building for Government Day– and just stayed– and passed laws and misappropriated taxpayer money and all the other stuff that government officials do. Sorry to say it, but this is how Obamacare looks these days. And no matter what our politics are, we are all, as Americans, embarrassed by this so-amateurism performance.

Over the years, I have been in a situation in which I didn’t even think about buying health care insurance because I was young and invincible. I have also been in situations where I wanted to buy health care insurance but couldn’t afford it. Of course, my health care was covered in the Army and I had health care insurance when I worked in the corporate world– and now, in retirement, I have Medicare– which I paid taxes for years to pay for.

But there was one time in my life when I was “forced” to buy health care insurance. I went back to graduate in mid-life and while there, I met a beautiful young woman. As graduation approached, I asked her to come back to Florida with me. She said yes, but she had a “demand.” She said we had to have health care insurance. What a strange request, I thought. But she was very beautiful and, after graduation, I would have an income– so whatever. It wasn’t long, however, that I realized that she was the smartest woman in the world. I started peeing blood and the doctors said I had a cancerous tumor in one of my kidneys. I assumed that I was going to die because that’s what people who have cancer do. But they took out the offending kidney and that was it. No chemo or any other kind of continuing treatment. The tab was something ilke $30,000– and our health care insurance paid for most of that.

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Dennis Reeves Cooper founded Key West The Newspaper in 1994 and was editor and publisher until his retirement last year.