Obamacare: When You Want Someone Else to Pay Your Doctor Bills

President Barack Obama holds a Homeland Security Council meeting to discuss H1N1 flu in the Cabinet Room May 1, 2009, including Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Official White House Photo by Pete Souza
“We have met the enemy, and he is us.”
Earth Day poster – 1970
I discovered the problem with our healthcare system – We want someone else to pay for our healthcare! We want $50 monthly insurance premiums and zero out-of-pocket costs. To the chagrin of the entitled, this is an impossibility. Insurance is a zero-sum game – it merely transfers healthcare costs from one person to another(s). The total of all healthcare expenses must equal the total of all health insurance premiums paid, plus any co-pays and deductibles. For every person whose health care costs exceed their premiums paid, there must be another person(s) whose premium dollars paid, exceed their healthcare costs. There is no money tree growing on the back lawn of the White House.
One of the issues with Obamacare was the requirement that no applicant be denied coverage or required to pay a higher premium, based on preexisting conditions. While many believe that is the right thing to do, it is, in fact, creating the very problem mentioned above – wanting someone else pay for my healthcare. For every high health cost person added to the insurance ranks, the rest of us need to pay higher premiums to cover the increased cost to the system (my personal premiums and deductibles have increased over 100% following Obamacare, and 40% this year alone). While we made insurance more affordable to the high health cost individuals, we made insurance less affordable for the rest of us.
We need to decide if health insurance is a right, or an option. Except when purchased through an employer, no other type of insurance, be it life, disability, etc. has guaranteed issue without regard for one’s health. While health care costs can financially ruin a family, the premature death of a breadwinner, or even worse, the disablement of said person can lead to far worse financial outcomes.
So, how is this health insurance problem solved? Either we go to universal healthcare, or, we increase the penalty tax on those that do not have coverage, to an amount equal to the least expensive healthcare plan available to them. The latter option increases the premium dollars placed into the system to offset the higher costs of providing insurance to those who experience higher than average claims. Unless we remove significant costs from the healthcare system, any solution other than these two is just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
Another option, being floated around the Trump administration, is the use of Health Savings Accounts. I can see this working if we create catastrophic coverage plans – policies with $20k, $50k, or even $100k deductibles. Redirecting current funds spent on insurance premiums to our personal HSA accounts would allow use of those funds to pay for our own health costs. What? Pay our own health costs? What a novel idea. Then, we might just get serious about taking on the real enemy – us!
Prior to establishing Insight Wealth Partners in 2010, Wayne spent 16 years as a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ practitioner and Senior Financial Advisor with Ameriprise Financial Services. During his distinguished career he earned many awards including being selected by his peers as Advisor of the Year. His areas of expertise include comprehensive financial planning and investment management. Prior to becoming a wealth manager, Wayne spent 10 years in the manufacturing industry where he achieved ever-increasing levels of responsibility in manufacturing management and plant engineering at the best-in-class organizations, Frito-Lay, Inc. and Ecolab Inc.
Wayne graduated from the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana in 1984 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemical Engineering. A member of the Financial Planning Association, Kingdom Advisors and Crown Financial Ministries, Wayne has also traveled extensively throughout Europe and Asia teaching Biblical financial principles to business and church leaders and individuals.
Wayne lives with his wife, Julie, and two children in Allen, Texas where he enjoys golf, sailing, scuba diving and the study of stewardship. His stewardship blog can be found at www.amusingsteward.com
Trending Now on Affluent Christian Investor
Sorry. No data so far.
The Affluent Mix
Biden Oblivious To Illegal Immigration Issues... August 2, 2021 | Frank Vernuccio

Rob Arnott On Bubbles, Inflation, And Once-In-A-Generation Investment Opportunit... August 2, 2021 | Jerry Bowyer

The Federal Reserve’s Massive Theft Of Stability... August 2, 2021 | Jim Huntzinger

What To Do About This Difficult Market? August 2, 2021 | David Bahnsen

Letter On The Politicization Of Corporations... July 26, 2021 | Jerry Bowyer

Peak Of The Fake Bull Market July 26, 2021 | Michael Pento

Woodrow Wilson’s Administrative State vs. Gold... July 26, 2021 | Jim Huntzinger

Dividends, Energy, And Crypto July 26, 2021 | David Bahnsen

Whose Side Are You On? July 26, 2021 | Frank Vernuccio

Media, Left Ignore These Dangers July 19, 2021 | Frank Vernuccio

Mark Skousen On FreedomFest And How To Measure The Whole Economy... July 19, 2021 | Jerry Bowyer

Quantifying The Quantitative, Or Making Easy The Easing... July 19, 2021 | David Bahnsen

The Gold Standard Means A Rising Standard Of Living... July 19, 2021 | Jim Huntzinger

Book Review: Brian Domitrovic Reveals The Monetary Genius Of Arthur Laffer... July 19, 2021 | John Tamny

Steve Forbes: Time To Worry About Inflation, Not Hyperinflation... July 12, 2021 | Jerry Bowyer

UFOs Rescue Biden July 12, 2021 | Frank Vernuccio

Read This Classical Economist’s 200 Year Old Warning About Paper Money... July 12, 2021 | Jim Huntzinger

How Central Banks Murdered The Markets July 12, 2021 | Michael Pento

Everything There Is To Know About The Stock Market... July 12, 2021 | David Bahnsen

AT&T CEO: We’re Ill Equipped For Politics, And We’re Spending A Lot Of ... July 6, 2021 | Jerry Bowyer

Internet Bias Distorts National Conversation... July 6, 2021 | Frank Vernuccio

The Halfway Point Of 2021 July 6, 2021 | David Bahnsen

Join the conversation!
We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, vulgarity, profanity, all caps, or discourteous behavior. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain a courteous and useful public environment where we can engage in reasonable discourse.