Free Healthcare Isn’t Free

[courtesy Google Images]

The New York PostObamaCare’s imploding even without repeal

“It’s looking like ObamaCare won’t survive even if Congress can’t repeal it.  The nation’s largest health insurer, UnitedHealth Group, said that it’s losing too much—$425 million—from policies sold on the health exchanges, and may have to pull out by 2017.

“If a major publicly-traded insurer bows out, others may follow and destabilize the entire individual market.”

“UnitedHealth CEO Stephen Hemsley: ‘We can’t really subsidize a marketplace that doesn’t appear at the moment to be sustaining itself.’”

What’s beating ObamaCare?

Demographics.

“The long-feared ‘death spiral’: Not enough young, healthy folks are signing up for these plans, so insurers are losing money despite the hefty federal subsidies for the coverage. They’re raising premiums to even things out—but that drives even more young folks away, so that only older, less-healthy customers remain, driving new losses . . . .”

Last month (October), the Obama administration itself predicted 2016 enrollment in ObamaCare would be less than half of what the Congressional Budget Office had predicted just seven months earlier, in March.

Lessons?

1. All the President’s horses and all the President’s men can’t con American youth into buying ObamaCare policies today that they’re unlikely to need for another 30 years.

2.             If ObamaCare fails and you can’t personally pay for your own health care services, you might not be able to get any such services.

3.             In order to avoid relying on others to provide medical services, we must each learn to become personally responsible for our own health care. If you want to avoid paying to see a doctor, you’d better assume responsibility for staying healthy.  It’s up to you to control your diet.  It’s up to you to exercise, etc.

A lot of money could be made if someone invented a machine that could provide relatively inexpensive medical diagnostics for the most common diseases.  I’m thinking of a machine about the size of a desktop computer that had blood pressure sensors, some sort of non-invasive capacity to measure critical chemical imbalances in the individual’s body, a data base to follow our diets and exercise regimens, and the necessary software to give us a daily assessment of our most common health problems.

Extra credit lesson:  America’s youth are unable or unwilling to support America’s senior citizens.  They’re not going to sign up for ObamaCare just to subsidize grandma and grandpa.  I don’t blame them.

If you’re a senior citizen (as I am) and you’re counting on America’s youth to support you in your old age (I’m not), you may be in for an unpleasant surprise.  You may soon be forced to support yourself or at least pay for your own health care in your “golden years”.