John Garamendi: “The fundamental nature of insurance is you gather a large population of healthy, not-so-healthy, and perhaps some very…”

“The fundamental nature of insurance is you gather a large population of healthy, not-so-healthy, and perhaps some very sick people into a large population, and the cost is spread across the entire population. What we may be ceding here in this particular proposal is the unravelling of that fundamental insurance concept with young people, healthy, not bothering to buy insurance, staying out of the market; and then, eventually, when they become ill, they will get back into the market, leaving everybody else to pay for it. There is another piece of this shifting of cost that did occur prior to the Affordable Care Act--significantly reduced, as a result of it-- and that is the uninsured still get sick. The gentleman mentioned the emergency room a while ago, and for the most part, in America, a person can get to an emergency room with or without insurance; but if they don't have insurance, there is still a cost associated with the visit to the emergency room and any other thing they may need. They may need to have their leg repaired, a broken leg, or maybe they need an appendectomy or whatever. That is still a cost. The question is: Who picks up that cost? That is called uncompensated care, and it was a huge problem prior to the Affordable Care Act.…”