With a girl’s softball lob of a pitch that barely rolls across the plate, our President has single-handedly destroyed the Affordable Care Act and handed the members of the GOP a “political” win. How? Because you don’t understand the purpose of the “Individual Mandate.” The GOP screams emotionally that it’s not right to hold a gun to your head and “force” you to purchase health insurance if you don’t need health insurance. Really? Then what is insurance at it’s most basic? It’s a casino and the House always wins* but you buy insurance anyway. Everyone buys insurance hoping never to need insurance so the lucky people breath a sign of relief and the unlucky people sigh and proclaim “It could have been worse, at least we’re insured.”
The problem with health insurance is that you can disguise a “need” for health insurance and avoid purchase until you “need” health insurance. If you tried to do this at a casino, you’d be banned for life.
This is what the Individual Mandate does for the insurance industry:
Provide a level playing field. Every one of us buys health insurance. Most of us stay healthy. A few of us become ill. Seriously ill. The health insurance industry within limits specified by the Affordable Care Act makes their profit for providing a service.
What the President has done by Executive Order is remove the level playing field by removing the mandate for everyone to purchase health insurance. The GOP therefore has created a self-fulfilling prophecy by creating a situation where the health insurance premiums must now sky-rocket. Why will health insurance premiums rise? Because health people no longer “must” buy health insurance.
With executive order, Trump tosses a ‘bomb’ into fragile health insurance markets
