2013
Chris Conover
Forbes.com
” … Let’s be clear: by design, this law can work if and only if enough young people are willing to pay premiums far higher than are actuarially fair in order to subsidize workers my age who on average earn far more than the young workers who are subsidizing them. Even if one takes into account that Millennials in the long run eventually will become old themselves and benefit from these subsidies, Obamacare still is an extraordinarily bad deal that effectively would force today’s 18-year olds to pay 18 percent more for their medical care over a lifetime than if each generation paid its own way.”
Does any of this make sense? For decades Americans who have employer provided coverage have been paying a premium based not on age, but on the type of coverage they select. In some cases the employee premium is based in part on salary and in recent years some adjustment for healthy lifestyle. In no case have I ever heard of older workers paying more for health benefits than younger workers. In fact, I think they would call that age discrimination. The fact is all insurance works by pooling risks with low risks subsidizing poor risks. If that were not the case your premiums would equal your claims each year.
Isn’t it true that the insured who pays $400 a month for coverage and uses no health care is subsidizing another person paying the same premium and uses $1,000,000 in benefits; regardless of age?
Isn’t it true that a retired worker who lives only a month after retiring and thus gets no benefit from his pension has subsidized the worker who lives to 100? Life’s not fair.
How can each generation pay its own way with health care? Of course Millennials will some day be old and in turn be subsidized by younger Americans, if not through Obamacare then certainly through Medicare just as younger American’s payroll taxes and income taxes are subsidizing seniors today.
These arguments criticizing Obamacare are red herrings.
QUINNSCOMMENTARY 
Read, learn and understand before you post nonsense, Bob. The PPACA IS NOT government run anything. The only “government” involvement stops insurance companies from ripping off unaware consumers. The PPACA IS NOT “socialized medicine”. People enrolling purchase insurance from the private sector. You know not whereof you speak.
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Very well said, Mr. Quinn, and I would like very much to read more positive articles on your blog regarding improving healthcare insurance in America. You are very knowledgeable on this subject and I am sure that you decry 40 million people who have no healthcare insurance. Publish your proposed solutions to your criticisms of the PPACA. Become an active force for solving problems and not a mimic of the right wing House which only obstructs progress on everything that is good for our nation.
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I think your focus on health insurance is misplaced. The real issue is changing the health care delivery system and to do that we must change the mindset of Americans about health care; more is not better, higher cost is not higher quality, your doctor is not always right, taking a new pill is not always the best solution, etc.
I go back to the days when all insurance covered was hospitalization and physician in-patient services and yet we didn’t have half the problems we have today. The average person doesn’t think they should pay anything for health care; witness free this and that under Obamacare, things that should not be insurable risks in the first place.
Insurance is a financing vehicle, not health care and the ultimate responsibility for health care bills rests with the patient not an insurer although few people would see it that way. I dealt with employees, physicians, patients and hospitals for nearly fifty years and heard amazing stories of all kinds. We are a long way from solving anything. The next issue will be when new enrollees realize that they exchanged “affordable” premiums for high out of pocket costs and we will hear horror stories about that. It’s not that most people can’t afford most routine care, it’s that they choose to spend their money in more pleasurable ways. Like the poor spending $700 a year on lottery tickets or women spending $700 a year on their nails and on eating out, etc., etc., who wants to spend $700 on a MRI when it could buy a new flat screen TV? (But it’s the same $700, is it not?) one is affordable and the other is not … Or so we are told.
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Well lets face it the so called affordable health care legislation simply “turns everything on its head”when it comes to what was and what will be. I heard a health insurance pundit say that for every person receiving coverage at a lower premium, 50 others will be receiving plans with higher premiums (in many cases much higher). I do not know how accurate this claim is but from its inception it was obvious to me that what was promised( including the effort to cover the additional 30 or so million having no coverage at all) could not be delivered absent some munificent, money printing, tax increasing Santa Clause representing the Federal government.
This is why I view Obama Care like that reality show” I almost got away with it”. However, the promise of health care utopia for all has been exposed despite the half truths,manipulation and” magician like” miss-direction. They would have us believe that if you like your Santa Clause “you can keep him”. Many (myself included) see OC as nothing more than an attempt by the Democrats and Federal government to enlarge itself including its power over the rest of us. Perhaps I am revealing my cynicism if not paranoia.
If we think about it what other piece of legislation- having so profound consequences for so many people has been passed without bi-partisan support? Even the CRA of 1964 enjoyed greater bi-partisan support than OC.Unfortunately the “founders” in their benevolent wisdom could not have seen this one coming.
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