Re: Tea Party converges on Supreme Court for main event in healthcare debate

At 02:39 PM 3/27/2012, you wrote:

I agree with the Justice Department:

"The Justice Department says the decision to go without insurance has
an enormous effect on the economy because the cost of unpaid medical
bills is shifted to taxpayers and people with insurance. The
individual mandate simply regulates how and whether people pay for
healthcare services they will inevitably need, the administration
says. "

The "reformers" are quick to point out that people without insurance go to emergency rooms for medical care and sometimes don't pay their bills, shifting the costs to the rest of us. But Shikha Dalmia notes that uncompensated care accounts for less than 3 percent of the country's total medical bill. To save $40 billion a year, we should spend more than $100 billion a year and lose more liberty? No thanks.

One reason for uncompensated care is that emergency rooms are forbidden to turn away patients (even in non-emergencies) who have no means of payment. Who imposed that prohibition? The government, of course. That may sound humane, but one unintended consequence is a likely contraction of charitable care. Why set up facilities for the indigent if they can turn up at any emergency room?

Again we see Mises's Law at work: Intervention begets intervention. Government action creates problems that politicians then use to justify more government action. Undoing the first intervention would help solve the problem, but politicians have little incentive to move in that direction.

The Goal Is Freedom
The Mandated Health Insurance Outrage
How can they make us buy coverage?
Sheldon Richman
Posted November 20, 2009
http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/tgif/the-mandated-health-insurance-outrage/