It's an avoidable tax. Most of us have insurance anyway. The indigent will get subsidized insurance instead of government charity hospitals and country clinics. This tax eliminates the freeloaders who pay nothing and show up for treatment at emergency rooms or skip paying as healthy young people and then try to get insurance at 50 when the medical issues start appearing. Better that these freeloaders pay for their own insurance than passing those costs on to the responsible people who have insurance. And that is exactly how Romney promoted the Heath Care Sytem he implemented in Massachusetts.
The cruel irony of it: September 20th, 2009, on This Week with George Stephanopoulos, interviewing President Obama, discussion about the health care reform bill, Stephanopoulos said, "Under this mandate, the government is forcing people to spend money and fining them if they don't. How is that not a tax increase?" OBAMA: No, tha-tha-that's not true, George. Eh, for us to say that you've gotta take a responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase. What it's saying is is that we're not gonna have other people carrying your burdens for you, any more than the fact that right now everybody in America, just about, has to get auto insurance. Nobody considers that a tax increase. People say to themselves, "That is a fair way to make sure that if you hit my car, that I'm not covering all the costs." STEPHANOPOULOS:"Well, it may be fair, and it may be good public policy, but for you to say that this isn't a tax. This just..." OBAMA: No, no. But George you can't just make up that language and decide that that's called a tax increase........ And so it wasn't a tax until today. Party at the White House tonight.
Obama is correct, it is not a tax increase, suggesting that everybody's taxes will go up. It is an avoidable penalty tax for failing to obtain health insurance. It's like the penalty tax you get from the IRS when you fail to pay your taxes. It will only penalize a few freeloaders that expect others to care for them.
Obama said that NO family making less than 250k per year would see their taxes go up. He did NOT say anything about having to buy insurance to make sure the taxes for said family would not go up. He was pretty f'n emphatic about no new taxes for said family.
The problem with the whole thing is that it won't change the real cost of healthcare or make the delivery any more efficient. It has been and will continue to be a closed system with no transparancy. No consumer can find out how much any part of his care really costs or compare it to services offered by competing doctors, hospitals and insurance companies. All this act does is change where the money goes (big pharma, hospitals & insurance). The body that has defacto control of what is charged is Medicare and for so long it has just adjusted charges by calculated "inflator" that has no basis in reality. There has been no incentive to really deal with the issues behind the rise in cost on either side. You know we spend more per capita on health care than any other country yet while some of the best care available in the world is here so many have none. A government bureaucratcy won't help (look at our schools or the cities and states going bankrupt). We have all contributed to the problem by demanding "no cost be spared" when faced with a health care crisis. If we shopped for health care like we do a car competition would drive cost lower. Look at Lasik, not covered by insurance prices have held or dropped and quality has increased over 20 years. Can you say the same for any procedure covered by insurance. In addition too many eat to morbid obsity, drink their livers to liquid and smoke till they can't brathe and demand to be considered as the same risk as people whoi look after their health. Look at all the organ donors riding motorcycles without helmets or texting while driving or running on busy streets. Why should we pay for their poor choices? Yes there are people who need better access and help in afording good care. If we properly managed cost there would be plenty left over to help those who need while all have better service. What will happen to our sysytem when all the uninsured start trying to find doctors. There aren't enough there. DON"T take this as my advocating keeping them out! What I am saying is that the system isn't ready to cope and overload will add to cost not lower it. SO add me to the list of those opposed to Obamaare but not because of what it does but because of what it doesn't do. It doesn't provide a path to bring good care to more and manage the cost. What would I do? Open the system to real competition and transparancy. First make insurance plans be able to cross state boundries. Second demand we shop for services similar to what happens in auto insurance. When you make a claim submit 3 bids from contractors. Require health suppliers to show a bid and final bill and explain the difference in cost. Most people have no idea what the cost of services is. Break the cost down to details like other industries. Finally something needs to manage the malpractice tort business. The cost of insurance and the additional CYA steps doctors & hospitals add for protection are significant adders to cost. Yes malpractice needs its day in court but there needs control. Encourage innovation and add more health care providers of all stripes. Finally we need to consider a rule that if you get insurance through the government or a subsidy good living practices must be managed to keep it. Not an easy task and not something I lke as it is intrusive. Anyway we would all be better off if instead of making political points both sides would try to find a better way. Sorry for the rant.
It's not just about the people who pay a penalty for not getting insurance. The people who are forced to get insurance are also paying. Everyone has to buy in for this system to work. Opting out is not an option because you pay anyway. Hence the "mandate". I am insured and god forbid I ever be without insurance. It has saved my finances once. I am a big believer and I would like everyone to have that opportunity if they desire. What I find to be disappointing today is the ruling itself, not the implications. I am disappointed in Roberts ruling in particular. 4 justices did not care if it was a 'pretty please', a mandate, or a holy royal immaculate decree from the secular godhead. They were going to vote to pass it. 4 justices saw it as a blatant transgression of the commerce clause and were against it. Chief Justice Roberts would have struck it down if it were a mandate but he decides its a tax. What a disappointment of a human being he is. We know now that his ideals follow the path of least resistance.
But most people are already insured and they will not be paying the tax. Most people agree. So why do you advocate for a person to refuse to be insured and pass his costs on to you? Throwing a Republican Chief Justice under the bus for not voting Republican? Roberts has, for the first time, demonstrated that he really means that he is not going to legislate from the bench.
The path of least resistance? I think just the opposite. He doesn't like the law but he based his decision off of his job in the judicial branch of the government. It's ridiculous that our courts always vote on party lines. How absurd is that. The supreme court has to be above that. Exactly
I am in the middle of reading Roberts' ruling and I don't really see anything to suggest that calling the mandate a mandate would have made it unconstitutional. He even calls it a mandate many times. What I see is this:
But that is the way the court is set up. The president nominates the Supreme Court justice on qualifications and ideology. Ginsberg, Sotomayor, and (most likely) Kagan do not vote across party lines because they are extremely liberal. Conservatives have their judges also. Kennedy is usually the swing vote and he sided on the mandate being unconstitutional. I say the path of least resistance because Roberts held that the insurance requirement could indeed be a mandate but he followed the Government's alternative view. He sat on the fence and took the less political way out. The court deferred judgement. Conservatives will bash him relentlessly for a while but that is far better than the venom of liberals and their reactions would have been. For the record, I am not against Health Care Reform. I am against this ruling. That may seem like a contradiction but whether this is called a mandate or a tax it opens up doors for future Congresses to enact 'taxes' for future laws.
