The only really good argument against Obamacare I have read...

[fpb]

...mainly because it acknowledges two things: first, that American healthcare is the most expensive in the world; and second, that "insuring the uninsured is a moral imperative", the point is how to do it. http://townhall.com/columnists/CharlesKrauthammer/2009/11/27/kill_the_bills_do_health_reform_right?page=full&comments=true

Comments

[mindstalk.livejournal.com]

Conversely, the rest of us have little reason to believe that someone who has chosen to remain uninsured won't turn up at the emergency room demanding care if they turn out to need it. "I know I'm risking my life and won't ask for help if I'm wrong" isn't a credible committment.

[cerebresque.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'll ask for help at the emergency room if I'm wrong.

But since if I do turn up at the emergency room, which I very well might, I will be handed the large bill for whatever care I do receive (which is significant, but is by no means the entire menu), which will be processed through the normal collections procedures should I decline to, or not be able to, pay it, and which I am in every ethical sense of the word obliged to pay... well, then, much as it would suck to be me if I have my risk assessments wrong, I fail to see what makes it anyone else's damned business, quite frankly.

[mindstalk.livejournal.com]

The nature of modern medical care -- especially delivered via ER -- is such that there's a high chance you wouldn't be able to afford the bill, at which point you declare bankruptcy and walk away. (And if not you personally, certainly many of 'you' following this strategy.) Thus it becomes our business, following from our initial commitment to provide care to everyone who urgently needs it, even if they don't have proof of ability to pay. (As might happen to someone who was well-insured, but mugged and lacking any proof of this at the time his body was picked up.)

[cerebresque.livejournal.com]

Does this, then, not reflect a fatal flaw in the committment you are attempting to undertake?

[mindstalk.livejournal.com]

Only for a rather idiosyncratic value of "fatal".