Universal Healthcare - Obamacare

Yesterday I mentioned "Obamacare" on my general ranting about views and whatnot.Taking a step back my view about the role of government is that it should have a tendency of getting out of the way.

1. What I do with my money is my own business.
2. What I do with my body is my own business.
3. What I do with my land or possessions is my own business.
4. Whether I choose to have or not have guns is my own business.
5. Who I fall in love with is my own business.
6. What I say is my own business.
7. Rights that you have I should have as well.
8. I have ultimate responsibility for my own actions.

It's my way or the highway.Up until my rights intersect with someone else's rights. That is the point where we, as a society, start to make laws. Laws regulate the rules of interactions between people.This is a very libertarian view of the world.

- = -

Now, onto Obamacare.With the worldview up there we shouldn't have it. If I choose to have insurance and I get sick then I get the treatment I had been paying for before. If I choose not to have insurance then, well, I might die.This brings up two problems in my book.

1. We, as humanity, should not have people dieing in the streets.
2. Doctors, as part of their education, take the Hippocratic Oath.

If you, perchance, take ill and go see a doctor, they are bound by oath to try to make you better. The doctor, like the rest of us, has a family to feed and bills to pay. Just giving away your skills doesn't put food on the table.The system, as it stands at this exact moment (pre-Obamacare) is that the hospital will continue to pay the doctor. The hospital looks to be eating the cost. Looks can be deceiving. The costs are borne by everyone else using the facilities. The people with insurance wind up covering everyone who doesn't have insurance anyway.This violates #7. This is not fair to me. Why am I paying for you when you didn't get insurance?That's where it becomes complicated.Sick people will still get services. Even healthy people can get sick unexpectedly.Doctors still get paid.I pay more. That is not fair.The notion that everyone needs insurance does nothing but level the playing field for everyone. Since care is provided anyway, and we can't just have people die in the streets, mandating that everyone participate in the system is actually quite fair.Once you mandate that everyone have coverage, you need to ensure that everyone can afford coverage. You can't have someone with cancer priced out of the market. (See also: doctors will do stuff anyway) Having a prohibition denying coverage based on preexisting conditions lets everyone into the system.It just follows from the Hippocratic Oath.