Who is going to pay for health insurance for those individuals who ...

All I can give you is my personal experience.

Here in Indiana we have something called "The Healthy Indiana Plan" which provides subsidized health insurance for the working poor (that's the short version, google the thing if you want all the details). Someone such as myself pays up to 5% of his/her monthly income towards a health insurance policy. The state (in this case, Indiana) pays the rest of the actual monthly cost of the policy. So yes, the money to pay the difference between 5% of my income and the actual cost comes from state taxes.

Does it save money? In some cases yes. For example, instead of my spouse's diabetes being untreated and him needing to be hospitalized, going blind (it has affected his vision), suffering from unhealing wounds, and so forth up to and including dialysis, amputations, etc. he gets his daily medications without interruptions and regular appointments with a doctor. In his case his health has improved greatly - he's lost weight and kept it off, he's having fewer UTI's, minor wounds are healing better, he gets vaccinations as needed to keep him healthy, and so forth.

The alternative is for him NOT to get proper care, then the money to pay for his hospitalization/dialysis/amputation/whatever comes from state taxes... but all of that is a damn sight more expensive than his current care. Either way state tax money is used to pay for medical care. There is no escaping it, short of truly leaving people to die in the gutter. So... if you must pay out of tax money which makes more sense, paying $6k a year to subsidize insurance/care or paying for a $30,000 amputation or $60,000-$120,000 a year for dialysis?

In my case it cost them - you see, I'm basically healthy so I went a few years without seeing a doctor. When I got insurance I had a bunch of things to catch up on, from vaccinations to getting regular check ups. It's been acknowledged in this state that when someone goes from no insurance to insurance there's usually a money-bump as they get "caught up" on the preventive stuff they've let slide. Arguably, it wouldn't have hurt me to skep the doc these last few years but we only know that because we know I'm not having a problem. Without check ups stuff can get missed until it's really expensive.

Going forward will subsidizing my medical care be money-saving in the long run? Damnifino - I do know I'm pretty happy with the current policy I have even if I can also list off some flaws with it as well. For darn sure I'm more likely to go see a doc for something minor-but-might-be-major rather than waiting until I'm positive it's an actual emergency. So how do you prove a negative? Did going to see the doc for sniffles prevent pneumonia or not? How could you prove that? Is it really cost-effective for the state to subsidize an annual mammogram for me?

I, for one, think that in the long run society will save money by making sure people have access to medical care without being financially broken or having to wait until it's life or death. I also think that that "money bump" when people first get insured is a real thing and opponents of Obamacare are going to seize on it.

Source: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=677226

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