Colorado Medicaid expansion: Denver Business Journal spreads myth of unsinsured cost-shift
Medicaid, through low doctor payment rates, increases insurance premiums. This amount is much more than the amount uninsured people increase premiums when they do not pay part of all of their medical bills. Continue reading
Your health care: Don’t trust the Colorado Trust
Mandatory insurance isn’t about personal responsibility or reducing cost-shifting. It’s about using politically-controlled health plans to advance political control of your medical care. Continue reading
San Luis Valley Regional Medical Center spreads flawed justifications for mandatory insurance
Gena Akers of the San Luis Valley Regional Medical Center writes that requiring people to buy politician-approved health plan “works” because “free-riders are not allowed, therefore no cost-shifting.” This common justification for mandatory insurance (a.k.a., the individual mandate) is dubious at best and misleading at worst. Continue reading
Colorado underestimates Medicaid cost, scales back program
Colorado Medicaid grossly underestimates costs of expanded eligibility, & limits eligibility to the program. The underestimate shouldn’t surprise anyone – it’s typical of government estimates. Continue reading
Hickenlooper’s veto of SB 11-213 insults low-income parents
Published in the Boulder Daily Camera: Maintaining current Child Health Plan fees would not only be an injustice to taxpayers, but also an insult to eligible parents. The fees imply that parents value enjoying life’s amenities more than their own children’s health.
Mitt Romney, mandatory health insurance, & the phony free-rider justification
“[I]f the individual mandate’s purpose is to prevent free riders from shifting the cost of their emergency care to others, all it should require is … insurance to cover a trip to the emergency room. Instead, both RomneyCare and ObamaCare require everyone to be covered for numerous benefits going far beyond emergency care.” – Jeff Jacoby
Health care updates from Cato Institute
The latest health care commentary by Cato Institute scholars on: Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, mandatory insurance as elitist, unconstitutional, and based on phony justification.
3 Colorado health orgs spread mandate misinformation
The Colorado Consumer Health Initiative joins the Colorado Medical Society and the Colorado Trust in spreading what’s effectively the “big lie” in support of mandatory insurance: the cost-shift from the uninsured.
Mandatory insurance vs. personal responsibility
Mandatory insurance is not about “personal responsibility.” It’s about forcing you to pay for others’ medical care by making you to buy more insurance than you’d like. If those who use the “responsibility” argument were honest, they’d want to repeal Medicaid & other government programs that force one person to finance the medical care of others.
Should you trust the Colorado Trust?
Colorado Trusts’s CEO repeats a common health care falsehood: that the cost-shift from the uninsured’s outstanding medical bills justifies mandatory insurance. While the cost-shift increases premiums, the amount is small compared to cost-shifting from mandatory insurance and Medicaid.
