It seems that too often in the course of rash political solutions common sense economic thinking just gets ignored.

In order for the health care risk market to perform as needed the system needs many young people to sign up for the misnamed and misguided Affordable Care Act.  Yet the bill is filled with incentives to discourage that result.

First they mandated numerous coverages that can only serve to increase the cost of health care.  Mandated preventive care, mandated birth control coverage and other requirements will only serve to increase health care costs.  Theoretically, better preventative care would lower costs but in practice it does not.  Quality health care does cost money and it is foolish to pretend otherwise.

Secondly, by focusing on the provision of health insurance, rather than the cost of health care itself,  and pushing routine expenses into the costly administrative structure of insurance this only increases the cost of health care.  Instead of correcting the distortion of distancing the consumer from the service this bill only widens it.

Third, by allowing the young to remain on their parents’ health care coverage up to age 26, they have removed a large segment of the youth that they need to buy their own insurance.

Lastly, by their ignorant attempt to manipulate the risk curve, reducing the multiplier difference between the cost of risk between the oldest and the youngest by half, this  bill reduces the cost for those they need the least, and increases the costs to those they need the most.  Since the young who are facing the worst job market in a decade are now required to bear the lion’s share of this cost shift and the mandates, it should be no surprise that they are saying no and that the risk pool is much more adverse to the insurance companies.

The end result is that health care is much more expensive and less available as those who benefit from the neutralization of pre-existing conditions are more than offset by those whose policies have been cancelled.

The first rule for health care providers is to “first do no harm”.  The same should be required of health care policy.

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