I am not opposed to people receiving proper healthcare. As I said before, if you don’t have your health, you won’t have life much longer, and I am adamantly against anything that threatens natural life. In that respect, I am in 100% agreement with the Catholic Church.
I say "natural life", because I do not believe in taking extraordinary measures to prolong life – we’re all going to die and meet our Maker eventually. It is not spiritually healthy to have an attitude of "cling to life at ALL costs". We should not fear death, but rather understand it as a transition or transformation from one life to the next. This is one of the fundamental flaws with embryonic stem cell therapies and research: it is "MY life at all costs.. even at the cost of the lives of the unborn!".
By extension, this is precisely what is wrong with the newly-passed healthcare reform act – it is essentially creating a right where one does not exist, and it is at someone else’s expense. No one has an inherent right to a specific product, but that’s what is being advocated here. Health insurance is a product. I am not born with a policy by WellCare or Prudential any more than I am born with a gun by Smith & Wesson or Remington. I have a right to BUY those products (as well as the obligation to their proper use, not abuse), but not a right to automatically be given one.
Many have been fooled by the notion that the associated costs are only going to be applied to "the rich". This is wrong for 2 reasons. The first is: "healthcare insurance at ALL costs – especially YOURS". This part is discriminatory, and it is confiscatory. It does not promote unity and solidarity, but rather it stokes the fires of the "us vs them" class-warfare mentality that has a rotten history throughout the world (e.g., the French Revolution, the Bolshevik Revolution, anyof the South American "liberation theology" revolutions, etc.) It also supplants an existing (and valid) right with a false right: it replaces "the right to private property" (cf., "Thou Shalt Not Steal", and CCC 2402-2409 ) with "the right to universal healthcare insurance", i.e., "the right to take the private property of some (without just compensation) and turn it into communal property".
The second reason this is wrong is: the poor always suffer, and this healthcare law will ultimately cause yet more suffering. When Jesus told Judas, "the poor you will always have with you," he was not excusing us from caring for the poor, but rather He was acknowledging that there will always be suffering and poverty, until He comes again. This healthcare reform act will not remove or reduce suffering or poverty – but it will transfer some of it, and it will spread it around. That is because of "The Law of Unintended Consequences". (This is assuming no conspiracy theories, such as they passed this intentionally aware of the consequences I will list.) These consequences are two-fold.
First, when you attempt to transfer wealth, you will find that the wealthy will find loopholes. An example of this was 2 years ago, when the state of Maryland imposed a new "millionaire tax" – a new upper tax bracket on those with incomes of more than $1 million per year. Instead of increasing their state tax revenues, they found that tax revenues actually decreased, because 1/3 of the million-dollar income earners left the state. They just sold their houses, changed their residency to another nearby state, and continued to earn their million-dollar incomes, without being taxed for it. The same thing will happen here with this healthcare plan: "the rich" will find ways around the additional taxes on their businesses and personal incomes (they’re getting hit twice in this bill if they own a business, which most of them do!) They’ll either move their money or move themselves to avoid having their personal property be confiscated from them. The amazing thing is: this healthcare reform act allows them to do just that! It gives them 2-4 years to move money, move house, or find other loopholes, before all of the taxes will be imposed. Additionally, this act provides loopholes for specific health insurers (e.g, WellCare stock went up 3.7% the day after passage of the bill – why? Because they are mentioned, by name, as being exempted from certain provisions of the bill that other insurers would still have to follow.)
So, if the rich don’t foot the bill, who will? Everyone else, including the poor, who thought they were getting something from the rich.
Second – and this is where the biggest hit to the poor will come from – the health insurers (except for those with favorable mention in the bill, *ahem* WellCare *ahem) will soon be raising their premiums even higher than they were before. Why? Because they will get 32 million more clients. Those making above a certain income will be forced to carry health insurance and have to pay the premiums (so you have a captive audience, which means it only makes sense to soak them, since they have to pay anyway). But additionally, the health insurers will now have to pay for the care of all these millions of additional people who were not covered before – people who "need" care. Let’s face it – when something is given for free (or someone else is footing the bill), all of a sudden, you *need* that thing more than you did before. If you go out to dinner, you look at the righthand-side of the menu first. But if someone says, "don’t worry about it – my treat!", you don’t care about that side anymore, so you’ll get anything that looks good. The same thing will happen with healthcare (and has already happened in every single country that has socialized medicine). The insurers, fully aware this will happen, will raise their rates, so they can stay in business. Either that, or they will close up shop (take their money and run), which lowers supply which creates scarcity of options, which raises prices.
And who will be paying those higher prices? Everyone, including the poor, who thought they were getting something for free.
That is why I am against this healthcare reform act. It reduces personal responsibility. It breeds contempt and excuses theft-by-taxation. It will raise the costs of healthcare. It will also reduce the quality of healthcare because highly-profitable pharmaceutical businesses and high-income doctors (i.e., specialists and those who are at the top of their field) will close up shop or significantly reduce their costs (and quality). (Who do you think are the high-income earners who will be taxed the most? Doctors and those in the healthcare industry – the ONLY industry that was not heavily impacted by the credit crisis and Great Recession.) These higher costs (passed on from employers to their employees), lower quality, closed businesses, and re-located investors will all adversely affect the main reason people are uninsured: unemployment. And unemplyment ALWAYS hits the poor and minorities the hardest. You think the economy sucks now? You ain’t seen nothing like the Depression of 2013.
Oh yeah! I almost forgot. It also uses my tax dollars to help people kill their babies (while forcing Catholic doctors and hospitals to perform those abortions or forcing Catholic pharmacists to fill orders for RU-486), while not providing many of them the insurance that would have covered their costs of carrying the baby to term.
Does that clarify my opposition (no – hatred!) of this healthcare "reform" act?
Can I get an "Amen"?
God bless America – what’s left of it…
Orthodoxy 
Why do you imagine that the rate of moral hazard (i.e., people using more services just because they are “free”) is going to be higher among the newly-insured than it is among those who are already insured? Why would insurance premia go up?
And why do you avoid any mention of what must be the major benefit of compulsory healthcare insurance: the avoidance of adverse selection?
No Amen from this reader.
Because, for the most part, those who are not insured are so because they are uninsurable, i.e., the premiums would be exorbitant, due to the liklihood of higher need of services. Hence, if they are suddenly included in the pool of the insured, they will be using the benefits of the coverage at a higher rate than those already in the pool. Since health insurers (like any other insurers) are in business to stay in business (i.e., the profit motive), they would have to raise premiums in order to remain solvent.
One way this could be resolved without raising the rates extra high for everybody would be if those with pre-existing conditions were assessed a surcharge (similar to life insurance costing more for tobacco users that for non-users). Unfortunately, this is not legal under the wording of the current healthcare reform act. QED: rate will be higher.