What if it isn't covered?

Obamacare requires most health insurance plans to cover the cost of what is determined by HHS to be preventative health care. This mandate is popular because it is considered free and there are many people of the opinion that preventative health care should be cost free to the end consumer, some holding that opinion even if the end consumer has no health plan coverage. The notion of ‘free’ health care exists as the triumph of good intentions over logic and reality. And in a society more concerned with intentions than reality this nonsense will likely persist.

There are innumerable reasons why there is no such thing as ‘free’ health care and it should be obvious as health care services are tangible goods. Every regulation the government passes designating certain aspects as being cost-free increases the cost of coverage and actually hurts some people. Preventative care is only preventative to people who will have those health problems designated by the government. Paying for those services out of an insurance policy removes coverage for other services. Those with health problems not considered significant enough to mandate coverage for will suffer for it financially and health-wise. Just because certain ailments may be considered to be statistically irrelevant to government bureaucrats doesn’t make it so to real, actual people.

Government only knows how to apply anything in broad strokes, with federal government’s the broadest. Health care is a very individual decision and government mandates removes the individual from that decision. With no responsibility for an intimate decision and no knowledge of the real actual costs associated with it the citizenry will only become more ignorant of the health care market which will only lead to increased cost and no mechanism for individual needs to be met. Obamacare means hoping that if one ever requires some kind of health care that it is considered necessary by the government.