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Argument: Most uninsured simply can't afford it; it's not a choice
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Supporting quotations
Kao-Ping Chua, "Arguments and counterarguments about universal health care". AMSA. Retrieved May 30th, 2008 - "It's the uninsured's fault that they're uninsured. •8 out of 10 of the uninsured work or come from working families. They play by the rules, work hard just like the rest of Americans, and yet they can't get insurance from the employer because it's not offered, or they can't afford it if it is offered. Is that their fault? •Is it really anyone's fault that health insurance is so expensive that they can't afford it? The high costs of health care are due to influences beyond any one individual's control - they are influenced by society-wide trends towards increased use of technology, high administrative costs of our healthcare system, and a strong profit motive in the health insurance industry that drives up the cost of premiums."
The uninsured should take more individual responsibility to get insurance. It’s not our responsibility to give them insurance. • A small percentage of the uninsured can afford insurance but choose not to obtain it. Most of these are young, healthy individuals. Should these people go to the ER or become hospitalized, their medical bills may become so great that they can't afford to pay it, in which case the hospital often writes off all or part of their bill as "uncompensated care." In so doing, government and individuals with private insurance end up subsidizing the cost of care for these people, who essentially become "free-riders" off the system. • For the vast majority of the uninsured, however, inability to afford health insurance, and not a conscious choice, is the reason they are uninsured. It's fine to say that people should take individual responsibility if they can afford to carry out that responsibility. Since this is not the case for the majority of the uninsured, it becomes ridiculous to argue that the problem of uninsurance can be solved with simple individual responsibility.
The uninsured are lazy and free-ride off the health care system – why should I care about them? • If we had a system of universal healthcare, in which all Americans were able to access the healthcare system when needed, there would be no need for uncompensated care. This should appeal both to those who dislike free-riding as well as well as to the uninsured, most of whom don't have any other choice but to take advantage of uncompensated care."
