Tea Party candidates and Republicans all over the country have been making political hay saying that if they are elected they will work to repeal the new law that eventually will require all Americans to carry health insurance.
They call the law "socialist," berate it as "Obamacare" and allege that the federal government should not be able to require Americans to buy anything.
If so, the converse, that Americans should not have to pay for services for anyone but themselves must be true.
If the converse is true, then hospitals and clinics should be prohibited from shifting costs from people who cannot or refuse to pay for medical treatments they receive to those who pay individually or whose medical insurance plans pick up the costs of treatment.
Yet, in today's system, costs for treating the uninsured or underinsured fall on the insured or private-pay patients.
If so-called "Obamacare" is unAmerican, then what in the world is the system that forces those with insurance to pay for those without? Or what's right about forcing taxpayers to pick up the bill through property taxes that support indigent medical funds in Idaho?
To protect "free-market" medical care, should emergency rooms turn away injured patients who cannot pay? Can society really contemplate sending home patients who will die without treatment? Do we really want a society divided between healthcare haves and have-nots?
Repealing health insurance reform would be dangerous to everyone's health, both physically and financially.
