DEAL OR NO DEAL?

It was an ah-ha moment this week when I pieced the following question together. Why on earth would we want or need to have the healthiest segment of our population in the health care system?

Speaker Pelosi made is sound very magnanimous, that America's twenty-six year-old “children” are now covered, and no doubt, there are those in the 18-26 age bracket who have serious health issues and costly care.

But the vast majority of 18-26 years old men and women are very healthy. I know I was. I visited an emergency room once for a stupid accident I caused (my thumb lost an argument with a fan). Other than that, I didn't even have a doctor. It wasn’t something I was worried about. And with a very low household income, I wouldn’t have bothered with a doctor unless it was a REAL emergency. Doctors became important to us when we started having babies, and babies do need doctors.

My guess is that my situation is pretty true universally among those the government now deems “children.” The healthy don’t mess with health care.

According to The National Conference of State Legislatures: “Young adults age 19 through 29 are the largest growing age group in the country at risk of being uninsured. Young adults account for about 13 million of the 47 million Americans living without health insurance. That amounts to approximately 30 percent of the U.S. population between the ages of 19 and 29 being uninsured.”

Every time we hear the number of uninsured it fluctuates dramatically, but let’s assume the 13 million figure above is correct, give-or-take. Now let’s do some easy math: 13 million “children” now insured by federal mandate means that these healthy kids, who will likely have little need for doctors or hospitals, will now pay-in about $3,000 a year. Multiplied times 13 million and we add a tidy $39,000,000,000 to the cash-strapped coffers.

That was my ah-ha moment. The political reason behind insuring the healthiest portion of our population has less to do with compassion than it does with confiscation, to the tune of $39 billion. They will be paying in, hardly drawing on, and thereby subsidizing (a.k.a. socializing) the system for everyone else.

Oops wait a moment, my kids are not responsible for that coverage — I am. Guess I won’t be putting more in the 401k. Guess I won’t be remodeling that kitchen. No vacations once the kids leave home. Nope, I’ll be responsible for my twenty-six year-olds’ health insurance, all of them.

Such a deal, no?