Health Care Debate

There are a lot of problems with our system of health insurance. There are also many complexities. But, at bottom, the health insurance problem in the United States can be reduced to three very simple propositions.

1. Millions of people in this country are too poor, or too sick, or too old, to afford health insurance at the rate that insurance companies would charge them for a policy on the free market.

2. We would all be better off, in numerous ways that I won't list - others have listed the benefits ad nauseam - if everyone had a health insurance plan that provided ample coverage, at a price they could afford.

3. The only way to accomplish this is to convince or force those of us who are rich enough and/or healthy enough to afford health insurance for ourselves and our families, to pay the premiums of those who can't afford them.

No. 3, in a nutshell, is what Democratic politicians are trying to pull off. They are asking, or seeking to compel, young, healthy and wealthy people (including the insurance companies themselves), to chip in more than they currently do - either through additional taxes to finance subsidies for poor families, or through mandates that force young people to purchase insurance coverage that they are less likely to need, and thus to want, or through regulation that forces insurance companies to insure individuals at rates not reflecting their true risk, or through all of these measures in combination - in order to pay the premiums of those of us who are too poor, or too sick, or too old to afford them.

Other things are happening in the Health Care bill. But that is its essence. Anyone who tells you otherwise is blowing smoke.

There are lots of interesting questions regarding this effort. But, from the perspective of a political philosopher, the most interesting question is whether this is a legitimate exercise of the government's coercive power?

I'll comment on that question later, but I'd love to hear what others think.

Joe H.