For obvious reason, I agree with the sentiment here that people should not be forced to buy health insurance if they don’t want it. However, I have a quibble with one part:
The federal government perverts costs with its Medicare and Medicaid programs: Recipients of this largess have no incentive to save money since someone else pays their bills.
In fact, the incentives run the opposite way as patients demand more procedures and tests while magnifying problems I resolve out of my medicine cabinet into emergency-room runs. Doctors who get away with charging Medicare hundreds for diagnosing Grandpa’s indigestion would charge me the same.
I’m just gonna say it: where are these people who willingly go to the emergency room for obviously minor issues?
Good call! If you view Medicare and Medicaid as subsidies on behalf of the poor and the elderly, in other words, as advertised, then this might make sense. IMO, there’s a better case to be made that the subsidies are on behalf of the providers — just follow the money and you will see who is receiving the largess. The incentives are mostly on the provider’s end, and though there’s plenty of real and anecdotal evidence for this (I have a dozen or two personal stories I could tell), it seems like the folk tale that you pointed out here is the the one that gets all the traction.