Three Arguments For Obamacare—Are Against Obamacare

The current arguments from Obamacare proponents revolve around three elements of the law.

The first has to do with preventing discrimination against individuals with pre-existing conditions. Still, health care isn't free. Someone has to pay for it. Pre-existing conditions do afflict a great number of people in our country. No question about it. Yet health insurance companies exist and maintain themselves by pooling risk with reserve funds, in part betting on the lesser likelihood of something bad happening to a client.

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Insurance companies, which require too little in funds or take on too much in terms of liability, find themselves overwhelmed with costs and go out of business. Then no one would have insurance at all. An individual with a pre-existing condition will automatically require disbursements from the insurance company. Those individuals will incur a larger cost right away from the insurers and the insured. Someone has to pay for those costs. For that reason, most insurance companies do not take on clients with pre-existing conditions, because they have a 100% certainty of drawing from the insurance pool. The solution to this "discrimination" is not to bankrupt insurance companies, but rather focus on the reason why health care costs are spiraling out of control in the first place. Let's talk about the third-party mediators, the insurers themselves, who permit clients to pay a set sum then take as much as they want. Because individuals are not assessing nor taking on the true costs of health care, they do not shop around, they do not engage in wise economic practices to get whatever care they need. Furthermore, why don't hospitals simply supply a guide which explains the costs? Even though legislation requires something to take place, that does not mean that the supply will be there. Law demands, but the supply of needs, goods and services cannot be met with force. Free trade, agreement to transaction, and a reasoning mind which respects costs and benefits will engage individuals to take on their health care costs without it costing them everything. The argument a number of liberals are advancing to protect Obamacare from itself focus on the "good" points of the law. The first element, which smacks of social justice, would prevent health insurance companies from declining to cover individuals with pre-existing conditions. Why is it that individuals have to seek insurance in the first place to deal with pre-existing conditions? Where is the price system which permits hospitals to compete, which allows patients to choose the best care at the best price? The second argument of Obamacare proponents rests on the provision which permits children to remain on their parents policy until their twenty-sixth birthday. Yet this benefit begs a bigger question: How many parents have been able to hold onto their health insurance in the last four years? How many parents will probably lose their insurance coverage because companies cannot afford to cover individuals with pre-existing conditions? Health care premiums are rising at an accelerated rate. Health insurance companies are dropping coverage for clients or they are withdrawing from the health insurance industry in the first place. More parents are losing health insurance, and so will their children. Now, the moral element of this argument requires more focus. Why should we promote the dependence of young adults on their parents? Would it not be better for young adults to graduate into strong, well-paying jobs, and that they would be able to purchase their own health insurance? Then there is the legal/financial aspect of this law. How many individuals who still rely on their parents health insurance still live with their parents? How many of these young adults are still listed on the parents' tax returns as dependents? These "good" elements are turning out to be not so good, after all. Then there is the final argument, that Obamacare would cut insurance premiums. President Obama promised many times that his plans would lower health insurance premiums by $2,500 per year. He promised these savings as a Senator, he promised these savings as a Presidential candidate in 2007 and in 2008. He made these grand promises on the vetting, speaking trail throughout the first two years of his presidency. He continued to hammer these promises through his Democratic colleagues in the House and the US Senate. The same legislators took this message to their constituents throughout 2010. Many of those Democrats never returned to Washington after the election of 2010. Many thanks to Avik Roy for compiling these clips, which cover seven years of the precarious, unlikely, and now unlikeable tenure of President Barack Obama.