The Undeserving Poor

Whenever I'm up against Middle Class morality, they say, 'You're part of the undeserving poor, so you can't have it.' -- Alfred P. Doolittle

Health care insurance is too important to be left to the private sector.

   Secession talk is in the wind again, fanned by fear of excess federal involvement -- control, in the minds of secessionists -- and prime among the federal fear factors is health care. 
   Now that the election is over, however, some conservatives are already changing their views on health care insurance.
   Even Fareed Zakaria, prominent conservative editor and TV host, and an admitted devotee of the free market, has said that health care should not be left to free market principles.
   You can choose to buy an expensive car, he noted, "but you can't choose to have a heart attack." When you need health care, you need it today, he said. In a free market, Zakaria pointed out, those who can afford health care insurance will buy it, while those who cannot afford it will do without.
   Moreover, the reality is that insurance companies will provide coverage only to healthy people -- who don't need health care. Those who are sick, are likely to become sick, or have pre-existing conditions, are routinely rejected. Result: They go to hospital emergency rooms, as suggested by recent candidates. But that's the most expensive form of health care, and the cost is picked up by the hospital, which passes it on to other clients in the form of higher rates. In turn, these costs result in higher insurance premiums, and eventually higher rates to taxpayers, who help to support hospitals.
   Thus, many of the uninsured poor get their health care through ER visits, but contribute little or nothing and do not get the benefit of appropriate care.
   As Zakaria has pointed out, insurance only works if everyone is part of the program.
   Meanwhile, if a state secedes it will be a localized responsibility to provide health care insurance-- or not -- for its citizens.
   If they can afford health care, they will get it. If not, they will die.

   America then becomes a nation divisible by wealth, with liberty, justice and health care for those who can afford it.
   Not for all.