Tomorrow is the official kick-off of the Obamacare Healthcare Marketplace, that will allow people who lack insurance but have disposable income or who are sick to buy insurance in a competitive fashion, without consideration of their current health status. The idea is no longer can people be denied insurance, because they are sick and do not get insurance through their employer – but of course, they must have money to buy that insurance – as it’s a commercial, only partially-taxpayer subsided benefit.

The problem with Obamacare is it basically continues the existing system, with some extra duck tape, to try to bridge in the problem of the uninsured sick, into the current health insurance system.

That’s a laudable goal, but if you only add the sick into the various insurance risk pools, you will only add to the price of insurance. Despite the Obamacare tax on those who are uninsured, it’s not clear if it will get many of them to buy insurance. The reality is most people who pay the uninsured Obamacare tax, won’t even really notice it – as it will come out as a slightly lower refund when they do their taxes in the following year. Few if any will actually pay the tax directly – because most poor and working folk either get an earned income tax credit or getting a tax refund for overpayment.

Obamacare is a boon for those looking for insurance. It will make insurance much more affordable for those who see a need in having an health insurance policy. Many responsible and informed people, who couldn’t afford insurance policy prior to Obamacare, will choose to get a insurance policy to protect their assets. Unfortunately, I suspect that is a minority of the uninsured. Most of the uninsured, are relatively healthy, and relatively poor and without assets. Expanding Medicaid will help the poorest of these individuals, especially those with families, but it won’t help the relatively healthy, and only slightly better off.

There are a lot uninsured Americans that make between $8-$15 hourly, but aren’t lucky enough to work for companies that provide regular healthcare insurance at an affordable rate. Many of those people work paycheck to paycheck, drive older cars, and rent. Their assets are very limited – if they got really sick – there isn’t much for hospitals and doctors to seize in collections. Those Americans also are unlikely to have even $80 monthly or so for the minimal insurance, offered through the Obamacare low-level plans, that only really cover you if you get seriously sick. Even if they could find the money by giving up their cellphone or cable television, do you think they will?

To protect the system, it makes sense for all Americans to health insurance – at least in incidents of catastrophic illness or hospital visits. For most individuals, health insurance only makes sense if you get it cheaply from your employer, you have assets, or are sick or feel you have a risk of getting sick. The solution is not a tax on the uninsured, who are largely struggling to get by.

The solution is to provide a basic insurance benefit to all who suffer catastrophic illness or injury paid through the broad tax collection powers of the federal government.

There are a few very wealthy in our society, who can afford to pay a lot into the system. Once you have  a certain amount of money, any additional money declines in utility. Working folk, should also contribute a marginal amount into the health-case system. The reality is we could have a broad-based tax-supported  health insurance system, that could cover the highest risk parts of the insurance, leaving individuals with the ability to buy insurance to cover routine doctor visits and other lower-cost services. Some would choose to go without any insurance, and simply pay in cash, for what is necessary, up to what is covered by government.

Any single-payer system should not restrict private insurance, above and beyond what the government covers in it’s system. It’s simply undemocratic to ban queue jumping, or paying for extra services, with private money, if people so choose. They’re should also be a cost burden put on private individuals – like co-pays or fees – to discourage excessive use of the health care system and keep it affordable for government. If government decides not to cover something, private individuals or their privately-purchased should be allowed to cover it.

I think the President made an honest attempt at reforming health-care insurance, but the net result was the same basically broken system, we’ve always had in America for those under Age 65. Adopting a Medicare-for-All system, would move our country forward, yet to still allow people to purchase private plans and purchase additional health-care, not covered by the basic Medicare system.