Posted by
Curt Ferguson on Wednesday, July 15, 2009 12:00:00 PM
I wrote to my Congressman today, and following is roughly what I told him. I encourage readers to contact their Senators and Representatives as well, and you can borrow any ideas you like from mine.
My family is among the estimated 40 million Americans without health insurance...and let me be very clear: I don't want health insurance! My family takes responsibility for our own medical care, and since we pay out of our own pocket we use it only when it is actually necessary, or when we feel it is worth the price (braces for the kids, for instance). We participate in a voluntary needs-sharing organization (you should become familiar, if you aren't, with Samaritan Ministry, Medi-Share, and others like these) to help us cover extraordinary needs, so we will not become a burden on the taxpayers.
The problem with medical insurance, and even worse with government-funded medical care like Medicaid, is over-consumption. This is a result of two facts of human nature:
- When people have no personal responsibility to pay for what they buy, they buy more than they otherwise would.
- People who don't pay for their own care often choose to engage in riskier lifestyles and activities (antecdotal evidence documented HERE) and then need more medical care than people who know they will bear the cost of their own lifestyle and activities.
This over-consumption is simply not fair to responsible people. To force--either through forced pooling of costs through mandatory health insurance participation or through extraction of tax dollars through a government-funded plan--people who are careful in their lifestyle and activities and who use services sparingly to pay for the decisions of others is simply immoral and unjust.
Would you make everyone pay green fees for people who choose to golf? the dinner tab for those who prefer expensive restaurants? for a boat for those who go to the lake on weekends? Of course not, that would be unjust and immoral. (On the other hand, that is where socialism is leading, and many elected officials would probably not bat an eye at doing so!) Then why force people to bear the costs of others' health-related choices?
We (my family) choose to live a healthier, lower-risk lifestyle and bear the burden of our own health care costs (with a "safety net" of the medical sharing group in case of disaster). We do not want to be forced into sharing the expenses of others who choose different paths: everyone should bear the cost of our own decisions.
Don't be bullied down Obama's path! Any Health Care reform should create more private competition and personal accountability, not government subsidy or mandatory pooling of risk. Any reform should make the buying decision closer to the payment responsibility.
This is not really a complex issue. We have made it a complex problem, but that is pretty much par for the government-intervention course. Let's head back toward the right path, instead of accelerating down the wrong one!