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Authored by: TemporalBeing on Tuesday, July 03 2012 @ 12:36 PM EDT |
The other side is: can the government tell
free loaders not to
freeload? Can it decide
to solve a free loader problem that it hurting
others by
taxing the free loaders to encourage
them to stop free
loading?
Except they aren't really freeloaders. They're people
that typically have to pay the whole bill themselves and end up in bankruptcy as
a result, in part due to paying inflated bills because of how the insurance
companies operate.
And the government does already use taxes
to
encourage people to fix their houses so that
they aren't such energy hogs,
etc.
There's a big difference between providing incentives for
participating, and taxing for non-participation.
For example, home improvements
require the home owner to spend money first (participation), then they get a tax
credit (incentive) for doing so. Same for energy efficient vehicles - spend
first, then get some money back in a tax credit.
However, in this case, often
the people can't afford it in the first place, so they are not spending money on
it. Forcing them to pay higher taxes as a result is not going to resolve the
afford-ability issue. They'll just owe the government more, and end up in
bankruptcy for earlier and more often (now dragging the IRS courts down
too).
If Congress wanted to make it about afford-ability and encourage people
then they would do it just like all other incentive programs - provide a tax
incentive for participating - spend the money on health insurance and you'll get
a certain amount back, thus reducing the costs for everyone (temporarily - until
health insurance companies raise the rates to adjust for it).[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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Authored by: Wol on Wednesday, July 04 2012 @ 11:33 AM EDT |
Or on their own will cause death, suffering, and poverty FOR OTHERS.
In this particular case, it's fairly easy to show that the uninsured cause
injury to other people (my vaccine example, someone else's Emergency Room as
opposed to preventive example, etc etc).
It's fairly clear cut in this case that providing basic insurance for everyone
will reduce the future cost for all the "well behaved" citizens of
today.
Cheers,
Wol[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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