Is non-compliance the answer?
I recently discussed how sheriffs in Colorado and elsewhere are refusing to cooperate with oppressive new laws, in their case farcical gun-control laws. Can we find similar inspiration in other fields?
Yes. Consider the medical industry.
Despite the Supreme Court decision okaying some of Obamacare’s key unconstitutional assaults on commerce, judicial battles over the new law are still being fought. More to our point, many doctors scheduled to be manacled by Obamacare have been refusing to slap on the cuffs.
A survey by the New York State Medical Society finds that 44 percent of respondents won’t work with Obamacare clients; another third are unsure what they’ll do. The doctors perceive the chaos and uncertainty of the new regulations and expect low fees.
Dr. Sam Unterricht, president of the Society, says, “This is so poorly designed that a lot of doctors are afraid to participate.” Others are participating only because obliged by organizations that employ them. Perhaps those doctors loath to becoming cogs in the galumphing Obamacare bureaucracy will find ways to extricate themselves from their organizations. Maybe they will emulate the respondent who says that from now on he will accept only cash for his services.
Another survey respondent says: “The solution is simple: Just say no.”
Are these non-cooperating docs motivated by fear of Obamacare’s destructive impact? Or are they moved mainly by uneasiness about the color of ink at their bottom line? Or, just possibly, are they expressing principled concern for their rights and freedom?
All of these, I hope.
Whatever the case, though, they’re following the right prescription.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
8 replies on “Best Obamacare Prescription”
The bottom line is the economic reality of the free market system, and part of the VOLUNTARY system to cause the proper and efficient allocation of labor, goods and services.
It causes persons to be concerned about the quality of their competitive offerings, the price they ask or insist upon, their profession and their freedom. It is all a seamless web which motivates good and proper decisions and actions, while it punishes and drives out of business those who cannot meet the standard. No mandated system or artificial constraint or manipulation can match the martkets efficiency and flexibility, or long prevail against it.
A doctor’s refusal to participate if the remuneration is too small, or the overheads and restraints are too great is correct and laudable, and their right. Involuntary servitude, even to the government, has been prohibited.
Workers in a single payer system normally organize into unions to create a countervailing power. God help us all if SEIU organizes the health care industry, and the only source of pay is from the “eternal wellspring” of government funds (taxation).
Talk about unintended, and catastrophic, consequences! The progressives should be very careful what they wish for.
I refuse to cooperate with government. Every time government touches me, it hurts. I’m tired of it. So now by not being able to afford health insurance, and now at almost double the price I balked at before, I am now to be punished? What? What about all those years I did not have it? Is this going to be retroactive? Congress loves retroactive stuff…
So I expect to be in jail within 5 years. Nice, huh? Taking productive business owners and tossing them in jail for non-compliance of a never-was-designed-to-succeed-program is a pretty hurtful move on government’s part.
Molon Labe!
My only hope is that millions of others will not comply either…
Atlas is shrugging.
I wish someone could help us out of this mess, why are so many people braindead in this country?
Politicians love to regulate because it generates campaign cash and power over the industry it regulates.
Overcoming that desire won’t be easy. State level politicians also like regulating health insurers, and their contributions to and negotiations with federal politicians are designed to keep it that way. The federal government politicians are now more involved in the money changing hands. And they like the cash/power they get as a result.
Only when we start electing politicians who don’t sell us out will this change.
I won’t be voting for Democrats or RINOs in coming elections. They are all for “regulation” of us.
Dirty little secret: I pay out of pocket for Dr visits & tests. Tests cost about 1/3 of what the insurance companies are billed. anyone else smell a scam?
John M, count me, a consumer, among those who refuse to comply. I won’t buy coverage that is more than I need and I pay my doctor in cash every time I go. This year, I’ll be drastically reducing my withholding, to avoid paying the penalty.
It may be a coincidence, but my doctor is leaving his practice and taking a teaching position in a hospital. Fortunately for me, he can still be my doctor in his new position. Not all of his patients were so lucky.