No suelo enlazar a Ann Coulter, femme fatale de los (neo)conservadores americanos con un estilo bastane agresivo, pero esta vez acierta demasiado en su crítica al intervencionismo en la sanidad y los planes de Obama (pdf) de extender la cobertura centralizándola aún más: Take Two Aspirin And Call Me When Your Cancer is Stage 4. Recordemos que en Estados Unidos hay sanidad pública para los mayores (Medicare), para las familias con menos ingresos (Medicaid), y deducciones fiscales que incentivan a las empresas a contratar seguro médico para sus empleados. En relación con el seguro médico incentivado por el Estado y lo que deben cubrir por ley, Coulter dice:
[A] young, healthy person has a choice of buying artificially expensive health insurance that, by law, covers a smorgasbord of medical services of no interest to him ... or going uninsured. People who aren't planning on giving birth to a slew of children with restless leg syndrome in the near future forgo insurance -- and then politicians tell us we have a national emergency because some people don't have health insurance.
The whole idea of insurance is to insure against catastrophes: You buy insurance in case your house burns down -- not so you can force other people in your plan to pay for your maid. You buy car insurance in case you're in a major accident, not so everyone in the plan shares the cost of gas.
Just as people use vastly different amounts of gasoline, they also use vastly different amounts of medical care -- especially when an appointment with a highly trained physician costs less than a manicure.
Insurance plans that force everyone in the plan to pay for everyone else's Viagra and anti-anxiety pills are already completely unfair to people who rarely go to the doctor. It's like being forced to share gas bills with a long-haul trucker or a restaurant bill with Michael Moore. On the other hand, it's a great deal for any lonely hypochondriacs in the plan.
En la entrada Obama y la (no) reforma de la sanidad en USA destacaba las propuestas de Arnold Kling para reformar la sanidad estadounidense, extraordinariamente costosa.
