Another modest proposal

The dust has not fully settled around the health care law and the Supreme Court’s decision, but the screaming has died down a bit so I thought I’d throw my two cents out there.

I don’t understand the argument that it’s wrong to force people to have health insurance. We have long forced people to carry car insurance, or pay an uninsured motorist fee. Seems to me that’s exactly what we’re asking folks to do with health insurance. Why is that a problem?

I don’t get it, but I’m willing to work with the mostly-Republican opposition to the individual mandate. How’s this for a compromise: ok, you don’t have to carry health insurance, and you don’t even have to pay a fine. But you’d better be able to pay your medical costs, or you won’t be medicated, operated on, sewn up or made well on the public’s dime.

You see, therein lies the problem. Every state has laws that say a hospital cannot turn away a patient because she doesn’t have money to pay the bill. The patient gets fixed; the public pays the bill. Why? We don’t do that with any other product; why is health care so special?

Imagine walking into a Toyota showroom and demanding to be given a new Prius even though you have no money, or demanding a new refrigerator from Sears with no way of paying for it.

It doesn’t work that way.

But in health care, it does. You’re sick, you go to the hospital, you get fixed. By law, money doesn’t enter into the equation. Let's change that.

Let’s agree with the Republicans: no one has to have health insurance, but, to be clear, that means no one gets treated if they can’t pay for it.

And while we’re at it, let’s demand folks take responsibility for their own actions. Why should health insurers have to pay to repair damage a smoker did to his lungs, or a diabetic did to his feet by refusing to diet? Why should a hospital have to spend good time and money treating a bullet wound in Mr. Stupid who was cleaning a loaded gun? Why should they have to call in a plastic surgeon to fix up the face of a driver who wasn’t wearing a seat belt?

I’m with you, my Republican friends: the government has no business telling us what to do. Let’s bring back personal responsibility!