Ohhhhhhh, another conservative is "SCARED" of the ACA!!
File this one under: false equivalency/total denial of the problem.
Poor, poor John Stossel; he has Teh FEAR!
I'm scared.
I fear that even if the Supreme Court overrules most of Obamacare (or did already, by the time you read this), Republicans will join Democrats in restoring "good" parts of the law, like the requirement that insurance companies cover kids up to age 26 and every American with a pre-existing condition.
Those parts of Obamacare are popular. People like getting what they think is free stuff. But requiring coverage to age 26 makes policies cost more.
Even Bill O'Reilly lectures me that government should ban discrimination against those with pre-existing conditions. Most Americans agree with him. Who likes discrimination? Racial discrimination was one of the ugliest parts of American history. None of us wants to be discriminated against. But discrimination is part of freedom. We discriminate when we choose our friends or our spouse, or when we choose what we do with our time.
Above all, discrimination is what makes insurance work. An insurance regime where everyone pays the same amount is called "community rating." That sounds fair. No more cruel discrimination against the obese or people with cancer. But community rating is as destructive as ordering flood insurance companies to charge me nothing extra to insure my very vulnerable beach house, or ordering car insurance companies to charge Lindsay Lohan no more than they charge you. Such one-size-fits-all rules take away insurance companies' best tool: risk-based pricing. Risk-based pricing encourages us to take better care of ourselves.
Car insurance works because companies reward good drivers and charge the Lindsay Lohans more. If the state forces insurance companies to stop discriminating, that kills the business model.
1.) Is the car insurance or flood insurance industry 20% (or higher) of our GDP? NO.
2.) "No-discrimination insurance is welfare" and is "hiding the cost". Duhhhhh, the barely functional system where we have 47 million UNinsured people showing up at hospital emergency rooms for their (delayed) health care is welfare. The hospital passes the cost on to paying customers and their insurance companies. THIS is a hidden cost and is one of the problems that needs to be remedied.
I'm not clear as to whether the ACA allows insurance companies to charge more for cig smokers, obese people, etc. this may be tied in with the number of employees in a given company. I do know wal-mart and other companies are pursuing charging smoking employees more for health coverage. this is discrimination-- but of course clueless, partisan hacks like Stossel conveniently ignore this.
http://reason.com/...
http://www.prweb.com/...