First off...poor people are eligible for medicaid, so as long as they apply for it, they get it. 2nd, middle income people can get insurance if its important to them. But they would rather have an SUV with a 600$ per month car payment, a deluxe cable package at home and credit card payments of $400 per month because they like to eat out alot and pay the monthly minimum on their credit card. If they wanted health insurance...they could afford it, but they would just have to cut out some luxuries. But they want to keep the luxuries and have someone else pay for their insurance. As for children...well I'm in California and when i was shopping for insurance for my child at kaiser, they wanted something like $170 per month. After asking around kaiser if there was anyway to get it cheaper i found out they had this thing called "healthy families" or healthy children or something like that where it only cost $8 per child and you get it as long as you dont qualify for medi-cal(californias version of medicaid) When looking at it, i found that if you make as much as $110k the insurance goes up to $15 per month per child. You will find that many hospitals have programs like this as long as you look for it. So they seem to have two pricing systems...the first one is the expensive one where they quote you the price and you pay it...if you balk enough or ask around enough, they will tell you about the cheaper one. I dont like that people are forced to buy a product and health insurance is a product. Some people dont buy health insurance becuase they want to use that extra money to live a nicer lifestyle. Thats their choice and thats their gamble. So why should they get to live a nicer lifesytle and i lose some of my lifestyle because they are too cheap or bad with money buy their own health insurance? The only thing i think that should be reformed about health care is that anyone sick should be given credit to get treatment if they really want it. Let people go into debt to get treatment if they want it. I think you will find that some people would rather die though than spend money to get better. So if they feel that way with their money, should we feel the same with ours?
So if i come over to your house and take 500 bucks out of your wallet so i can go to the doctor, that would not be considered abuse?
No they dont,an example Having a limited income is one of the primary requirements for Medicaid eligibility, but poverty alone does not qualify a person to receive Medicaid benefits unless they also fall into one of the defined eligibility categories(diabled,aids,blind ,pregnent etc) Even under the broadest provisions of the Federal statute the Medicaid program does not provide health care services, even for very poor persons, unless they are in one of the designated eligibility groups
So many mis informed people such as yourself who thinks that anybody poor can get Medicaid and that anybody who wanted to buy health insurance could do so is what is making health care reform so hard to pass.If what you posted was in fact true i would have no problem with the health care system BTW,you pay for the un insured and under insured now.Most bankruptcies are due to medical bills,when those bills don't get paid guess who pays through higher health care premiums ? When the un insured go to the emergency room and rack up thousands of dollars in medical bills and don't pay,guess who pays ?