SPIN:  "Free riders take money from insured people."

TRUTH: The term "free rider" can mean several things. The Massachusetts law refers to "free rider" as meaning employees who will not accept insurance from their employer and, yet, use medical services. 

A broader usage refers to anyone who uses government-funded medical care, and usually ascribes to the idea that uninsured people who can afford health insurance use emergency rooms with the intention of getting free care. 

From the "employer-as-free-rider" angle, it must be understood that the law is written so as to severely punish employers if their employees use medical care for any reason - not just work related. In fact, if an uninsured employee or any uninsured member of his or her family presents for medical care, no matter what the problem is, the employer will be penalized. This can cost an employer up to $50,000 annually on top of the $295 annual fine per uninsured employee (this is called the "Free Rider Surcharge") and has the potential to lead to reduction in workforce or cherry picking for younger, thus, presumed-healthier employees. It can also quickly lead to business closure and/or debt as well as discourage uninsured employees,  fearful of losing their job, from seeking necessary medical care. 

How will they know who your employer is? Hospitals and providers are required by law to obtain a patient's employment information before they may receive 

any care. This is then data-matched and enforced. See this helpful article from the Boston Business Journal.

The often vilified individual "free rider" is the fabled, well-off, uninsured skinflint who relies on emergency rooms for all medical care or the "young invincible" who skateboards his way to medical catastrophe. This person is a myth.  

This is a miniscule portion of health care spending yet is employed as a successful propaganda tactic in order further the reactionist rhetoric toward the necessity of a commercial health insurance mandate. See the truth of the uninsured here.

Even the Cato Institute asks: 
"Is Free Riding Really the Problem? "

"Supporters of the individual mandate rely heavily on the problem of uncompensated care. People who lack health insurance nevertheless receive health care in this country, because hospitals and health care providers are unable or unwilling to turn them away. When recipients don't pay for their care, the rest of us end up footing the bill one way or another. Individual-mandate advocates contend, plausibly enough, that we should make the free riders pay for themselves.

But how big is the free-rider problem, really? First, we should note that not all free riders are uninsured. In fact, people with insurance consume almost a third of uncompensated care. Second, not all care received by the uninsured is paid for by others. Analysts at the Urban Institute found that the uninsured pay more than 25 percent of their health expenditures out of pocket.

So how much uncompensated care is received by the uninsured? The same study puts the number at about $35 billion a year in 2001, or only 2.8 percent of total health care expenditures for that year. In other words, even if the individual mandate works exactly as planned, it will affect at best a mere 3 percent of health care expenditures."

Anyone who has ever paid out of pocket for a prescription, doctor visit, lab test, etc. should know that cash payments always cost considerably more than what insurance companies pay to the provider.

This is called "cost shifting" and is a legally enforced benefit to the insurance companies over the individual. 

SPIN: "People who do not get insurance are just stubborn and gambling with catastrophe and like it that way".

TRUTH: Or, perhaps, they find coverage too expensive and are preoccupied with paying for things such as the roof over their heads, food, heat and property taxes. Generally speaking, no one wants or likes to be afraid that they won’t be able to have access to or afford medical care if they get sick.

SPIN: "Both Republicans and Democrats are correct in thinking that a mandate is the only way to achieve health care.” 

TRUTH: Actually, the Republicans haven't had a whole lot to say about health care costs except that they favor "free market solutions." Even Mitt Romney, who crafted the Massachusetts plan, said that it wasn't a model for the nation. Among the Democrats, Hillary Clinton favored a mandate and talked about garnishing the wages of those who fail to comply. Ted Kennedy fully supports and has advocated for the Massachusetts model from the start. Actually, he worked with former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney to obtain the 1115 Demonstration Waiver. His current draft for the national plan that came out during the week of June 8, 2009 closely resembles the Massachusetts plan as does Senator Max Baucus's bill. Actually, the Baucus/Grassley bill is the Massachusetts plan on steroids. Both will cause many of the same problems described on this website but on a much larger scale. There is no question on which side these lawmaker's bread is buttered. Senator Baucus is just one among the  vast array of state and federal legislators. See lobbying expenditures by the health care industry here. 
See "Tracking Your Representatives' Health Care Cash" here. You might be surprised (and disgusted, too!)

Then candidate Barack Obama took a cautious approach to the question of mandates for adults noting that we needed to ensure that coverage is affordable before we insist people buy it, but he would mandate health insurance for children and provide government-subsidized coverage for those who could not afford to buy insurance on their own.

Now, President Obama has done a one-eighty and now tells us that the “insurance companies are on board” and will cover all pre-existing conditions if the insurance is mandated - everyone enrolled in a plan. This is  proof that insurance and drug companies are "running scared". And, he has left national health care reform, more or less, in the hands of the 111th Congress. He has also mentioned several other vague schemes - all of which have significant gaps. As of mid-June 2009, he was willing to compromise for Republican support by establishing member-owned insurance cooperatives.... any port in a storm. This is just more double-talk, meant to confuse anyone who might inquire. Once again, popular media has an important stake in propagating the line, as there are untold millions of advertising dollars to be lost by telling the truth.

Aside from the fact that the proposed methods currently on the D.C. table will not provide equitable coverage for all Americans, estate recovery affecting citizens 55 and over will be an elephant in the parlor as this is a Federal requirement for every state that receives Medicaid funding. Based on the runaround in Massachusetts for the past three years regarding this important topic, other subsidized health insurance plans under a national health insurance law may be subject to this practice, too. We consider this to be a deal-breaker. Read more about the estate-recovery runaround here, or be ready to be taken.

The end truth that is that there is no room for politics in the doctor's examining suite, and yet that is exactly what is happening. 

Those who would stand to lose from adoption of a sensible, national health system have more money to use against those who would benefit from it's adoption. See OpenSecrets.org for some telling and shocking facts about your own representative.

To those who are simply against national, equitably funded, non-profit medical care: 
"Prejudices, it is well known, are most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been loosened or fertilized by education; they grow there, firm as weeds among rocks." - Charlotte Bronte

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