Criticism[edit] Unearned entitlement [edit] Yaron Brook of the Ayn Rand Institut

Question

Criticism[edit]

Unearned entitlement[edit]

Yaron Brook of the Ayn Rand Institute has argued that the birth of Medicare represented a shift away from personal responsibility and towards a view that health care is an unearned "entitlement" to be provided at others' expense.[97]

Robert M. Ball, a former commissioner of Social Security under President Kennedy in 1961 (and later under Johnson, and Nixon) defined the major obstacle to financing health insurance for the elderly: the high cost of care for the aged combined with the generally low incomes of retired people. Because retired older people use much more medical care than younger employed people, an insurance premium related to the risk for older people needed to be high, but if the high premium had to be paid after retirement, when incomes are low, it was an almost impossible burden for the average person. The only feasible approach, he said, was to finance health insurance in the same way as cash benefits for retirement, by contributions paid while at work, when the payments are least burdensome, with the protection furnished in retirement without further payment.[98] In the early 1960s relatively few of the elderly had health insurance, and what they had was usually inadequate. Insurers such as Blue Cross, which had originally applied the principle of community rating, faced competition from other commercial insurers that did not community rate, and so were forced to raise their rates for the elderly.[99]

Medicare is not generally an unearned entitlement. Entitlement is most commonly based on a record of contributions to the Medicare fund. As such it is a form of social insurancemaking it feasible for people to pay for insurance for sickness in old age when they are young and able to work and be assured of getting back benefits when they are older and no longer working. Some people will pay in more than they receive back and others will receive more benefits than they paid in. Unlike private insurance where some amount must be paid to attain coverage, all eligible persons can receive coverage regardless of how much or if they had ever paid in.

1. Do you believe the rationale for Medicare as stated by Robert Ball in the second paragraph is still valid today? Why or why not?

Explanation / Answer

Definately, the thoughts and rationale's given by Mr. Robert Ball are still valid, healthcare is an unearned entitlement, it means that each and everyone of us has right to have good health, irrespective of social income inequalities. In the soceital tree it is the senior citizens that required the health insurance the most, but the question here is that at what cost ? Many private insurance company's are charging higher premiums, which become unaffordable for this group after retirement, so government should intervene by opening new schemes for this age group, providing health insurance at affordable cost, because to provide good and affordable health care is the very concept of a welfare state.

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