SB 922: State Health Department and Insurance

Virginia Senate Bill 922, which passed the Senate by a clear majority, is another maze of links authorizing the state health department to manage an insurance plan:

http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?131+ful+SB922ES1

Some Tea Parties are for it. Some are against it. Personally, I say it's another step away from a fiscally responsible, sustainable health care plan.

In view of an interesting e-mail exchange I had yesterday, I want to share this. I, personally, should be exempt from Obamacare, both because my cash income is still incredibly low (youall are welcome to do something about that) and because I object to it on religious grounds. And I'm fully qualified, if driven to it by Obamacare, to organize a church, with meetings and ministers and all, that has a rule against members participating in large-scale gambling schemes such as insurance. That is not what drives this web site's opposition to Obamacare. It's not just about me-me-me and how can I sit on more of my money.

I want to pay more taxes--not because I want more taxes to be collected, but because I want to be earning more money on which to pay taxes. And I want those taxes to be used to cover any medical treatment that may benefit any genuinely needy person. I think we as a society have some chance of achieving that goal if we pay only for the actual treatments that help keep people alive. I think we have no chance if we try to finance a universal insurance gamble.

This web site has previously chortled at the inadequacy of some legislative reactions to Obamacare (e.g. in http://priscillaking.blogspot.com/2013/01/hb-1314-identical-policies-that-dont.html). To be fair, as a Marshall partisan said yesterday, these may be perceived as steps in the direction of a more sustainable solution to the medical care problem. Right. I see anything that involves the insurance industry as a step away from a sustainable solution. Maybe you don't.

I say SB 922 is another inadequate effort that, if enacted, will only lead us into another fiscal morass, which is probably why Senator Carrico voted against it. I say this is a democracy and youall have a constitutional right to be wrong in any way that does not commandeer any support or participation from me. But if we lose a lot of public money on an insurance boondoggle, it will be much harder to create a sensible system that pays fair prices for actual medical help.