Biotech Values

[medchal]

OT?  Mandated health care:

Most of the people who discuss the Massachusetts experiment with mandated health insurance seem to ignore or forget the salient fact about that experiment:  Massachusetts (like every other State in the Union) was already providing health care to all, as mandated by the Federal government.  This mandate could not be evaded or modified.  The requirement that every citizen of that Commonwealth purchase health insurance was simply an attempt to insure that everyone who could participate in paying for the health care he was already receiving did do so in fact.  Romney used to press this point vigorously, but I haven't heard much about it lately.  Possibly he got tired of repeating it to the blank stares of those who preferred quibbling over the many facets of the Massachusetts law, and what should or could have been done instead.

It is quite a different thing for a similar program to be instituted by the mandating authority, which has no superior authority to which it must answer, and which could set limits to the extent to which the disregard and/or recklessness and/or simple monetary self-interest of some of its citizens would be ignored when making decisions about the provision of health care to those citizens.  The final authority on these matters (the Federal government) should have some meaningful standards as to situations in which particular kinds of care might be denied (heaven forbid, I suppose).

I don't live in Massachusetts and will leave the discussion as to how this all worked out to those who are in a better position to observe the result.  Nevertheless, the requirement to purchase health insurance, and the penalties which could or should be reasonably imposed for failure to comply, are quite different when considered from the standpoint of a State or that of the Federal government.

The argument about the cost of non-compliance with the mandate rather reminds me of a long-ago situation where a woman in our community died, rather suddenly, shortly after she was diagnosed with some malignancy.  The woman worked, and her husband was a business owner.  They lived pretty comfortably, but I (along with everyone else in sight) was suddenly presented with a request for money to help pay for the funeral.  I said, "Surely her life insurance would cover the funeral."  "No," was the reply, "you see, she and Joe didn't believe in insurance."  At the time, I was paying out of pocket a pretty hefty amount for mid-six-figure policies on myself and my wife, with my then-young children particularly in mind.  I did not contribute, as I believe one must be willing at some point to accept responsibility for, and the consequences of, one's "beliefs", assuming that is the proper term.  I think that now, being asked to subsidize the sudden illnesses of voluntary non-participators in the latest health insurance scheme, falls into the same category--and there is no doubt in my mind that that is exactly what will happen.