A woman named Martah has breast cancer and needs $60,000 worth of chemotherapy. She’s declined by insurance companies because she has a pre-existing condition.

Is this fair?

Some conservatives say, “Yes.”

Are We Encouraging Handouts?

What if I told you that Martha and her husband made more than $100,000 in combined salary and had no children.

• They lived in a larger house than you.
• They drove nicer cars than you.
• They wore expensive clothes and had expensive furniture in their house.
• They posted pictures of their annual vacation to Cancun on their Facebook pages.

And yet, they never bought health insurance. They could afford it, but chose not to.

Now, Mary has breast cancer and wants you to pay for it (through your insurance premiums going up).

Yes, Mary and her husband are NOW willing to pay $300 a month for health insurance…in order to get $80,000 in medical treatment.

Is that fair?

How to Prevent More Socialism

One way to prevent people from not buying health insurance (when they can easily afford to) and to prevent people from not saving for retirement (when they can easily afford to) is to look at their tax returns going back to their 20s and see what their behavior was.

If they made lots of money and did not buy health insurance or save for retirement, they won’t qualify for “healthcare for all” or expanded Social Security.

Another big problem with making health care affordable is that young people don’t buy it because they are likely to be healthier and not need medical care until they are into their 40s. Without this huge group of Americans supporting the system, it can’t work.

One way to encourage young people to start buying health insurance is to tell them that private health insurance companies can charge higher rates to people for each year they can afford health insurance but don’t. That means, every year you don’t buy health insurance, the more you’re going to have to pay when you get older.

By the time you’re in your 30s and have children and a mortgage and school tuition to pay for, you just won’t be able to afford health insurance. And that’s your fault.

This is why we need to means-test entitlements.

This Won’t Affect the Struggling

No one is saying that the poor should be punished. People who work full-time and make a low wage can barely afford to pay their living expenses, much less buy health insurance and save for retirement.

Aggressive means testing of entitlements simply means that when we identify people who have spent large amounts of money on cars and clothing and vacations and expensive furniture instead of health insurance and retirement savings don’t get free money later in life.

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