None of those uninsured people can pay for their medical bills anyway is the way I see it. They go to the ER last minute, once it is so painful that they can't put it off anymore, get charged tens of thousands of dollars for a procedure that would have been way easier to manage if they'd had insurance to take care of it before it got bad, and then never pay it, ever. The government is already picking up the tab on that. That's not even the main problem though. The main problem is the actual cost of the healthcare. Did you know there are vials of antivenom that can cost in excess of a million dollars? Just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time and getting bit by a snake. Pretty much all of the price tags on anything medicine related are OUTRAGEOUS, and the same is true for the colleges. 50-60 years ago people were able to afford to pay their loans out of pocket. People don't make enough money to keep up with how much all of this costs.
Sorry for the long post. Hopefully someone will find it beneficial.
There are a number of reasons why the government shouldn't be involved in health care or insurance, except to take action against force or fraud committed between consumers and providers. The founding fathers codified the structure of the federal government via the Constitution, which sets the limits of said government. It does not grant rights to the people. The people, using their natural rights, created a federal government, not the other way around.
The natural rights of the people predate all governments in all of their forms.What is the primary difference between private organizations/businesses and the government?
Government has the right to use force to accomplish its proper aims. The federal government has the right, delegated by the citizens (a collection of individuals), to use force to defend this collection of individuals. I, as a citizen, have delegated to the federal government the use of my right to self defense in order to form an army to protect me against those I can't effectively defend myself against.
Good government is based on the natural rights of the individual, not on majority rule. Majority rule is two wolves and a sheep deciding what's for dinner. Or, if you prefer a real-world example of majority rule: it's is when the majority decides who has to be the slaves. In our earlier history, the people with lighter skin decided that the ones with darker skin would be slaves. This majority continued to illegitimately force its will on the minority for many decades via Jim Crow.
One test of whether or not a law is legitimate--I first heard it in "The Law" by Bastiat--is to "see if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime."
Applying this question to health care and insurance, is it legitimate to use the government to take money from person A and give it to person B for the purpose of providing health care or insurance for person B? If I have a doctor bill for $10,000, could I legitimately (or even legally) go to your house and force you to give me the $10k so I can pay the bill? No.
If I pay $1200 per month in health insurance premiums, can I go to your house every month and force you to give me all or part of of the $1200? No.
If I as an individual can't go to your house & legitimately or legally demand money for these things, could I go to the police force and ask them to go to your house and demand the money in my behalf? No.
Because I, as an individual, do not have the right to go to your house and demand money I have not earned, I cannot delegate such a right to the government.When people decide that a given good or service is so important that the government has to get involved in providing it, problems invariably result. Usually the biggest problem is that the government does not allocate resources as efficiently as individuals do and the cost rises.
You mentioned the cost of things like health care and education. The costs have risen because of government regulation and other involvement. And what is government's solution to the problems created by too much regulation? More regulation, of course! Insurance regulation has reduced competition, for example, by restricting the states where companies can sell their insurance products. Fewer options (reduced supply) in a state results in higher prices in that state. If you're an individual who sells insurance in Texas and you decide you want to sell in OK, I have no right as an individual to prevent you from doing so. The federal government shouldn't have the power to do so, either. If you want to offer or refuse coverage for birth control, I don't have the natural right to force you one way or the other. Neither should the federal government.
So far I've focused on the legitimacy of government involvement in things like education and health insurance. The economic reasons for their escalating costs are interesting and could occupy a lot of space on a message board :-) but the simple explanation is this: the more money that's thrown at something, the more expensive that something will become. If a third-party person or entity with deep pockets is paying all or part of the bill (including the costs associated with providing loans), the product or service will get much more expensive.
There's a whole lot more I could say but the post is already too long for a message board. If I get replies I'll respond as appropriate.
