The House is about to socialize your medicine, and your life.

[Rupert Pupkin]

Originally Posted by Danzig

they don't have the same benefits. but how can you turn away an emergency, regardless of who they are? they're still a human being-you can't just let them lay outside the door, can you?

I agree with you. I don't know how we could turn someone down with a true emergency. For this reason, one could make an argument that everyone should be forced to have insurance. In that way, people who have insurance and pay their monthly premiums would not be forced to pay for people who don't have insurance and get free medical service when they come down with a serious illness.

I don't know what the laws are in other states, but in California people are forced to have auto insurance. It is the law and it makes sense. It makes sense because if someone has an accident and they are at fault, they need to be able to pay the damges that they caused. If they didn't have insurance they probably would not be able to pay the damages.

Medical insurance is somewhat analagous to that in the sense that people need to have insurance just in case of an emergency. Otherwise, everyone else gets stuck with their bill. As Danzig said, one of the reasons hospitals are so expensive is that they need to charge us a fortune to make up for the people that get free service.

I don't what the answer to any of this is. Some people truly can't afford insurance, so how can you force them to buy insurance? What about the issue of serious pre-existing conditions? What insurance company would want to give insurance to a person with a serious pre-existing condition? If an insurance company knows for sure that they are going to lose a fortune on a person, why would they insure the person? Insurance companies are not charities. They are businesses.

Anyway, there is no simple answer to any of this and that is why nothing has been done on the issue for so many years. Nobody can agree on what the best way to tackle this issue is. I honestly have no idea what should be done. I don't think the current system is great but I'm not sure that we could come up with a new system that is better.