December 20, 2013--At the Risk of Being Snide . . .

There's a new New York Times/CBS News poll about Obamacare.

No surprise, there is widespread skepticism about the whole thing--from the law itself (though most polled confessed they didn't yet understand what's in it) to the enrollment process.

What jumps out for me is that 53 percent who are currently uninsured disapprove of the law and, while about half of those said that they are thinking about getting health insurance, at least a third say they do not plan to do so.

Here's what's confusing to me--

These folks for the most part have no idea what's in the law; and, although they do not have insurance, many will not make the effort to learn what the Affordable Care Act can do for them and thus still say they will continue to remain uninsured?

For them I have a couple of questions--

Do they have a better idea as to what would work for them? If not Obamacare, what?

Then, if they do not have a credible alternative and intend to remain uninsured, who do they expect to take care of them and pay for them if they become seriously ill or are critically injured in an accident?

I'm not inclined to want to.

In the past when coverage was unaffordable for low-income Americans, when people couldn't get coverage if they had preexisting conditions, when there were lifetime caps on coverage, I was all right with the rest of us picking up the cost of emergency room care for the uninsured.

If we as a people couldn't figure out a better way to take care of our most vulnerable citizens, then we had to do something--even something as crude and expensive as making ER care universally accessible. But now, I'm not so sure.

I am tempted to say that you either get insurance on your own (with generous subsidies for the working poor) or you're on your own.