Obamacare will end us all (apparently)

It cracks me up when fellow EMS people who oppose and dissent about "Obamacare" also bitch about transporting the uninsured during the same conversation, apparently with no realization that we all pay for them either way.  The only alternative is giving providers the right to refuse service based on ability to pay.  Emergency medicine is the only business that can't do that, hopefully because we are a civilized society and value life at least slightly more than money.  The PPACA does a lot of different things in an attempt to get more people insured, and I think that's a grand idea.  A national healthcare system, or at least totally socialized health insurance might be a better idea.

So, if insurance was mandatory, and every citizen had some form of insurance, then reimbursement for healthcare services at the EMS and in-hospital level would about double as far proportion of of payers.  People would be able to seek preventive care, so overall healthcare costs would decrease while private practices and outpatient services would see more business.  Those able to pay would no longer have to carry the weight for the non-payers, so fees for service would  be able to decrease, and private insurance premiums could go down.  Insurance companies would be in greater competition and have more business, so insurance premiums would go down moreso.  Hospitals everywhere would not have to lay-off hundreds of people citing financial reasons (but still might do it out of greed).  Ambulance companies could improve wages and benefits.  In-all the general idea is universal access to healthcare, because we ought to give a shit about our fellow man.  The results are cheaper health insurance, more jobs, and more business activity in healthcare to stimulate the economy.  So the bad part is...calling it socialism?  Well, it already is, or rather a hybrid socialist-communist system trying to masquerade as capitalism (which I addressed a couple years ago: http://medicjake.blogspot.com/2010/03/wasnt-it-socialism-already.html).  Like I have already said, if you want a truly capitalist system then that means refusing service and watching people die in the hospital parking lot.  I'm not necessarily trying to be right, or even persuade people.  I just don't think people are thinking about their views, rather than just feeling them, or just dissenting for attention (he says in a dissentious blog post...).