The individual mandate of ObamaCare will force us citizens to use insurance as the conduit of payment for routine health-care. It will further erode the doctor-patient relationship. The third party stands in the way between doctor and patient.
The Byzantine nature of ObamaCare is to benefit the rent-seeking classes, not the consumer. Lobbyists and consultants of the health-care industry wrote the bill. In contrast, regarding the lawmakers who voted on the bill, most of them never read it! While the bill itself was over 2000 pages long, the regulations currently being written up by Kathleen Sebelius are even longer! (This means plenty of money for attorneys' fees in business law.)
ObamaCare takes power away from the consumer, who is coerced to make the insurance company his landlord over his own health-care. This will hurt the middle-class the most. The rent paid to the insurance company is a most regressive type of "tax." While the poor and the illegal immigrants (who are exempt from the mandate) will receive government subsidized health-care, the middle-class will bear the brunt of the burden. The premiums will be a huge percent of income for a typical John Henry; whereas for a wealthy person, it is only a miniscule percent of income.
ObamaCare also discriminates against people in their 50's, who will be forced to purchase policies three times more expensive than peope in their 20's. Yet (with the exception of smoking), it will prohibit insurance companies from rewarding people with lower premiums for living a healthy lifestyle (i.e. keeping their weight down, exercising, eating right, avoiding drugs and alcohol, not engaging in promiscuous sex, etc.)
Thus, the typical 55 year old is obese, has type-II diabetes, doesn't exercise, drinks heavily, smokes cigarettes, consumes super-sized soft drinks, eats greasy french-fries, etc. Therefore, his health-care costs will be quite high. But another 55 year old may be exercising regularly, avoids fast-food restaurants, doesn't smoke or drink, lives a chaste lifestyle, etc. But because he's in his 50's, he is forced to pay super high premiums to subsidize the couch potatoes of his age group. This isn't right. *See note below.
With auto insurance, you get rewarded for your lifestyle choices (i.e. no speeding tickets, no DUI's, no reckless driving citations, etc.) If ObamaCare were to be applied here ... those driving habits would be declared as "preexisting" conditions. (Good drivers would then be forced to pay the same high rates as the reckless drunks.) Likewise, ObamaCare for Autocare would mandate that insurance underwrite for our auto repairs and gasoline, too! People would purchase gas guzzlers and go on long joy rides. Whoopee! ... the gasoline is "free." With "no skin" in the game, costs will go up for the insurance companies. Then the premium rates will skyrocket. Eventually, there'd be rationing -- especially when the government imposes price controls upon the industry.
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*Note ... ObamaCare does have a wellness program (via "The Safeway Amendment"), but it is only available to corporations that are self-insured and willing to implement it. The rules governing this program are quite complex, requiring the expertise of an attorney in business law. For those employees who participate in such programs ... they will have their premiums cut in half if they succeed in losing weight, get their blood pressure & cholesterol levels under control, and if they exercise regularly. (Under ObamaCare, the opportunity to join such wellness programs will be quite limited. Independent contractors are thus ineligible. The majority of Americans will have no such access, either.)
