Health Insurance 101

Over the course of the years, decades and centuries I have found I need to spell out some elementary facts for the newbies who come here unenlightened.Health care is not like most commodities, say for example cheese or oven mitts. People who make remarks to the effect that it ' s a violation of their liberty to make them buy health insurance or tell them what the minimal contents of their insurance must be and how would you feel if the government forced you to buy cheese and it had to be cheddar only think they ' re being clever.If you want to drive a car, the government requires you to buy insurance and tells you what that insurance must at a minimum cover. Think about that for a moment and also notice that just about nobody objects to it. True, you don ' thave to buy a car, but the difference is that you do have to live.So what happens when somebody who doesn ' t have health insurance falls off a ladder or has a heart attack? The ambulance takes said person to a hospital where they receive services which, if they don ' t really cost $75,000 probably cost more than you can afford to pay. Which means the rest of us get stuck with the bill, one way or another. Furthermore, if you ' d had insurance and been getting primary care you might not have had the heart attack in the first place.As with motorcycle helmets, it is not merely and exclusively your own safety and well being that are at issue, in which case many people would agree that the nanny state should leave you alone. Y...
Source: Stayin' Alive - Category: American Health Source Type: blogs