Shutdown Over Skyrocketing Health Care Costs, But Wrong QuestionIt's Not Who Should Pay, But Rather Why Tolerate Unnecessary Costs
We should begin imposing some personal responsibility on the tiny minority of Americans responsible for more than half of the costs of Medicaid, and too much of the costs of Obamacare. . . Require those who currently enjoy Medicaid and Obamacare insurance at taxpayer expense to either quit smoking, or to pay the huge costs which their smoking now imposes on the overwhelming majority of American taxpayers who do not smoke, suggests public interest law professor John Banzhaf. . . One way to do this, as recommended by the NAIC, would be to require smokers to pay the excess costs their habit now unnecessarily imposes on taxpayers in order to keep their current health insurance coverage; just as smokers have always been required to pay more - at least a portion of their fair share - than nonsmokers for their life insurance; in many cases also for their home and/or car insurance. It's been said that we should never let a crisis go to waste. So, instead of simply debating whether taxpayers should be forced to pay some $1.5 trillion in order to end the current shutdown, we should also begin debating why we continue to permit a tiny proportion of adults to impose huge unnecessary medical care and other costs on all of us, and whether it's about time to require them to assume some personal responsibility for their own health or bear their far share of the resulting unnecessary costs. Perhaps Republicans can insist upon personal responsibility for smokers on the public dole as part of a deal for a temporary extension of Obamacare subsides with fixed phaseout dates and other conditions (e.g. changing income cutoffs and other conditions, work requirements, etc.) to end the shutdown, suggests Prof Banzhaf. http://banzhaf.net/ End
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