Mandatory Health Insurance part 3

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Third, turning health care into a political football is reason # five hundred and forty three why health insurance should be bought by the individual and not acquired through their employer or government.
Indeed, the current employer-based healthcare system in the US was a fluke of combined unintended consequences.
 
That is a good reason, I think. Individuals choosing their own medical insurance policy without any mandatory policy forced upon them by their employer (or the government). Have the insurance companies offer a basic insurance of about $150/month which covers the basic things (for generic, medical necessary hospital admittance, visits to the GP, essential medication, etc.) with choices for additional coverage.
Have the insurance companies compete with each other, so the individual has an actual choice. It's still mandatory to be insured, but with competition costs can be lower (as well as the monthly premiums) and service will hopefully be important too.

Exactly, plus, high deductables will reintroduce free-market pricing for most medical purchases as patients shop around for price and hospitals, clinics and pharmacies compete for customers.

Too bad all this:

1) makes too much sense
2) takes power away from politicians and gives it to individuals (not popular right now)
3) could be so easily demagogued
 
Sorry, Indy. You are mistaken.

Simply going by CBO estimates and when you figure in what CBO isn't allowed to like the "Doc Fix," the double accounting, the Medicare cuts that will never happen, the rosy tax revenue projections and the under estimate of how many Americans will lose their current health care coverage... I'm can still say with 100% certainty that... just like Soc Sec, Medicaid, Medicare, and every other federal entitlement passed in the past 100 years...

...Obamacare will cost many, many times more than originally estimated.
 
How does one "have the insurance companies offer a basic insurance of about $150/month" while not mandating anything and keeping everything in the free market work, exactly? An unregulated health insurance market would probably be pretty oligopolistic.
 
Exactly, plus, high deductables will reintroduce free-market pricing for most medical purchases as patients shop around for price and hospitals, clinics and pharmacies compete for customers.

Too bad all this:

1) makes too much sense
2) takes power away from politicians and gives it to individuals (not popular right now)
3) could be so easily demagogued
It's too bad that neither party is proposing this.
 
How does one "have the insurance companies offer a basic insurance of about $150/month" while not mandating anything and keeping everything in the free market work, exactly? An unregulated health insurance market would probably be pretty oligopolistic.

What do you mean with "not mandating anything"? I meant with "without any mandatory policy forced upon them by their employer (or the government)" that no employer should force you to buy insurance from company ABC or XYZ just because they have an arrangement with that company. However, "t's still mandatory to be insured" so if you're not going with the option offered by the employer, you still have to choose another policy.

And how would "[a]n unregulated health insurance market [...] probably be pretty oligopolistic"? The market would maybe not be totally unregulated. And besides, anti-trust laws also apply to those insurance companies.
 
Must be great to have a govt health plan like Dick Cheney's. I don't see how anyone with substandard or no health insurance would still be alive if they had his health problems.

Huffington Post

Health Care Mandate Will Affect Few, Study Finds



WASHINGTON -- Just 2 percent of the U.S. population would be subject to the aspect of health care reform at the center of a constitutional challenge before the Supreme Court this week -- the individual mandate, a study released Monday by the Urban Institute found. The analysis said 98 percent of Americans would either be exempt from the mandate -- because of employer coverage, public health insurance or low income -- or given subsidies to comply.

Including those who are subject to the mandate, but would get subsidies, increases the total number of people affected to 5 percent of the population, according to the Urban Institute, a non-partisan policy research organization based in Washington, D.C. (Some of those subject to the mandate who get subsidies would still need to dig into their pocket to cover the difference.)

Opponents of the mandate argue that it infringes on personal liberty by requiring the unwanted purchase of something from a private entity. Backers say the mandate is constitutional because everyone consumes health care services at some point, so it is reasonable to tax people who consume care without paying for it.

The Urban Institute study indicates that such a tax, or fine, would be levied on a small population.

Health care reform prevents insurers from discriminating against patients with pre-existing conditions and caps premiums that can be charged. The only way to accomplish such reform, backers say, is to require healthy people to insure themselves, rather than wait until they get sick.

The court spent Monday debating whether to delay a decision in the case, with the justices appearing to be intent on ruling this year.

Tuesday the court weighs the constitutionality of the individual mandate. HuffPost's Mike Sacks reports:

During today's two-hour argument -- twice as long as the 60 minutes the court usually allots each case -- the justices will pepper each side's superlawyers with questions that will give public hints of how they will ultimately decide the case by late-June.

The court's four Democratic appointees -- Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan -- are all expected to side with Solicitor General Donald Verrilli's primary argument on behalf of President Barack Obama's administration that the mandate falls within Congress' broad power to regulate interstate commerce. The inevitable consumption of health care services by the uninsured, Verrilli will argue, substantially affects the national insurance market by shifting costs to the insured and creating the problem of skyrocketing premiums that the Affordable Care Act was designed to solve.

Justice Clarence Thomas, on the other hand, need not break his six-year streak of silence at oral argument to reiterate his oft-written antipathy towards the New Deal precedents Verrilli's argument draws upon for support.

So while there is always a vanishingly slim chance that one or two of the liberal justices will surprise the public with some pointed questions for the solicitor general, it is more likely that they will try to win over their remaining four conservative colleagues by putting the screws into the challengers' lawyers.
 
I am all for the government taking over the Health Care system, I mean all of Europe does it and things seem to be working great. I don't ever hear from them complaining about there health care systems, hell Bono went to Germany to get his back fixed and didn't come to the US so we don't know how to do everything.

As far as I know, the US is the only country lame enough not to have a health care system where only the uber rich can get good health care and the rest of us can't even get band aids without having to get a second mortgage.

My step dad worked for the Veterans Administration for over 35 years and raves about how great the care was for our veterans. He worked with the budgets for hospitals and told me that nothing runs smoother than when the government handles these facilites. And talk about the efficiency, I mean clock work orange fellows!

I trust our government to do whats best for me, hell I elected these people right?

With smart intelligence, how I pray the supreme court does the right thing for real change in this ever evolving pursuit of utopia, which is the United States.
 
My step dad worked for the Veterans Administration for over 35 years and raves about how great the care was for our veterans. He worked with the budgets for hospitals and told me that nothing runs smoother than when the government handles these facilities. And talk about the efficiency, I mean clock work orange fellows!

I trust our government to do whats best for me, hell I elected these people right?

I don't know if you're being sarcastic there, seems like maybe? No offense to your step dad but I think the VA is terrible. Just knowing what I know about it from the care a family member has gotten there.

I don't trust the govt to do what's best for me, I've become very cynical about govt. But I do believe in universal/affordable health care. MA has had it for years, including a mandate, and it seems to be working fairly well.
 
Of course the VA has some problems, but for the amount of medical coverage they provide, and at the costs, it is very effective and efficient.

people that don't like it, can opt out and go provide, and pay those costs.

many people choose to opt out of government provided schools and go private
 
Yeah, because every senior has an abundance of income and isn't living off VA benefits and Social Security.

There are plenty of senior veterans. And don't forget all the unemployed younger veterans.
 
Huffington Post

Health Care Mandate Will Affect Few, Study Finds

The analysis said 98 percent of Americans would either be exempt from the mandate -- because of employer coverage, public health insurance or low income -- or given subsidies to comply.

The reason this is false is actually given several paragraphs later:
Health care reform prevents insurers from discriminating against patients with pre-existing conditions and caps premiums that can be charged. The only way to accomplish such reform, backers say, is to require healthy people to insure themselves, rather than wait until they get sick.

If you can't be turned down because of a preexisting condition -- why would anyone, if not mandated under penalty of law, pay hundreds of dollars a month when healthy rather than waiting until they actually needed health insurance to purchase it?
 
The reason this is false is actually given several paragraphs later:


If you can't be turned down because of a preexisting condition -- why would anyone, if not mandated under penalty of law, pay hundreds of dollars a month when healthy rather than waiting until they actually needed health insurance to purchase it?

I don't see the connection between these two ideas to be honest.
 
Must be great to have a govt health plan like Dick Cheney's. I don't see how anyone with substandard or no health insurance would still be alive if they had his health problems.

That is one thing that really drives me nuts about this. The very same politicians ranting against this "evil healthcare" sure don't seem to mind taking that cushy healthcare for themselves. Apparently it's fine for them, but for anyone else? Nope. Scary. Taking away liberties, or something.
 
I don't see the connection between these two ideas to be honest.

To quote myself: If you can't be turned down because of a preexisting condition -- why would anyone, if not mandated under penalty of law, pay hundreds of dollars a month when healthy rather than waiting until they actually needed health insurance to purchase it?

How would you answer that? Especially if, as more people drop out, rates would rise even higher on those paying premiums.
 
Conservatives often make the best arguments for a single-payer system.

JUSTICE KENNEDY: But the reason, the reason this is concerning, is because it requires the individual to do an affirmative act. In the law of torts our tradition, our law, has been that you don't have the duty to rescue someone if that person is in danger. The blind man is walking in front of a car and you do not have a duty to stop him absent some relation between you. And there is some severe moral criticisms of that rule, but that's generally the rule.

And here the government is saying that the Federal Government has a duty to tell the individual citizen that it must act, and that is different from what we have in previous cases and that changes the relationship of the Federal Government to the individual in the very fundamental way.
-- Justice Kennedy

Not if you were listening.
 
Not if you were listening.



think bigger.

if a mandate for private insurance isn't constitutional -- which, given this Citizens United Court, who can predict? -- then it becomes an argument for the utter indispensability of a single-payer system paid for via tax.

remember, the mandate was a conservative idea.
 
To quote myself: If you can't be turned down because of a preexisting condition -- why would anyone, if not mandated under penalty of law, pay hundreds of dollars a month when healthy rather than waiting until they actually needed health insurance to purchase it?

How would you answer that? Especially if, as more people drop out, rates would rise even higher on those paying premiums.

This has to be the WORSE argument you've made in this debate. So denying a preexisting condition is just an incentitive plan? For who? Surely not those that had the preexisting condition.

Not only does your argument make you look like a horrible health providor, but it makes the argument for the side that many of us have been arguing for years. Congrats :applaud:
 
INDY is right. If health insurance cannot be denied because of pre-existing conditions but there is no mandate, there is no incentive for people to buy health insurance before they develop such a condition, which in turn will drive up premiums, which in turn will make people less likely to buy health insurance before developing pre-existing conditions, et cetera until the health insurance industry collapses. And the government will spend exorbitantly in the process. It's not feasible to have this act without the mandate, which I believe is what INDY is arguing. The difference is (I believe) that he wants neither the mandate nor the rest of that law while most of this forum wants both.
 
INDY is right. If health insurance cannot be denied because of pre-existing conditions but there is no mandate, there is no incentive for people to buy health insurance before they develop such a condition, which in turn will drive up premiums, which in turn will make people less likely to buy health insurance before developing pre-existing conditions, et cetera until the health insurance industry collapses. And the government will spend exorbitantly in the process. It's not feasible to have this act without the mandate, which I believe is what INDY is arguing. The difference is (I believe) that he wants neither the mandate nor the rest of that law while most of this forum wants both.

Right, but this is where the current system was already heading, except that those with pre-existing conditions were left to suffer. A system that only works for the well off and healthy.

INDY supports the current system where those with certain diseases will not be covered by ANYONE. His only solution was HSAs, which once again only help the well off and healthy.
 
Worst thing I've ever heard:

Justice Kennedy questioned whether the government had the power to force people to do something for the good of others.

"The reason this is concerning is because it requires the individual to do an affirmative act. In the law of torts our tradition, our law, has been that you don't have the duty to rescue someone if that person is in danger. The blind man is walking in front of a car and you do not have a duty to stop him absent some relation between you," he said.

"Here the government is saying that the federal government has a duty to tell the individual citizen that it must act, and that is different from what we have in previous cases. That changes the relationship of the federal government to the individual in the very fundamental way."

Jesus Christ. So forcing men to report for duty to "save others" in Vietnam or face jail time was completely legal, but forcing them to buy health insurance or pay a fine is not?

There is no prior precedent or constitutional grounds to strike down this law or any part of it whatsoever. I don't agree with the Affordable Health Care Act and feel that it does far more to prevent future changes to the industry than it does good changes now, but striking down the law is nothing more than partisan nonsense.

If only Justice Kennedy had gone blind and walked into a car during the Obama administration... :lol:
 
INDY is right. If health insurance cannot be denied because of pre-existing conditions but there is no mandate, there is no incentive for people to buy health insurance before they develop such a condition, which in turn will drive up premiums, which in turn will make people less likely to buy health insurance before developing pre-existing conditions, et cetera until the health insurance industry collapses. And the government will spend exorbitantly in the process. It's not feasible to have this act without the mandate, which I believe is what INDY is arguing. The difference is (I believe) that he wants neither the mandate nor the rest of that law while most of this forum wants both.
INDY is indeed correct. The individual mandate is the lynchpin to the entire private-sector insurance handout that is the Affordable Care Act.

Just as with Mitt Romney's Massachusetts health care insurance reform law.

The entirety of the healthcare law worked out for the national level relies on that individual mandate to make it work. It's either private insurers with the individual mandate, or a single-payer system, or nothing at all.

I would almost say fuck it and leave it up to the states to hammer out healthcare reform. Unfortunately, the very people this legislation is intended to help (poor and middle class without health insurance) often do not have the financial means for the mobility to pick up and move to another state that isn't as shitty as their conservative one that allows them to get left behind by society.
 
Obama wins this politically no matter what.

if it goes down, they get to run agains the Roberts/Scalia/BushVGore/CitizensUnited tyrannical unelected unaccountable activist judges who stole health insurance from 40m people and those with preexisting conditions. then arguments for a single-payer system become much, much more compelling. because, as we see, health care is not a commodity and not ordinary commerce. it is it's own thing.

if it is upheld, he looks like he was right all along.
 
From a pro Romney site

RomneyCare - The Truth about Massachusetts Health Care | Mitt Romney Central

Romney is occasionally asked by the more conservative/libertarian voters, why he used an individual mandate. Romney replies:

“The key factor that some of my libertarian friends forget is that today, everybody who doesn’t have insurance is getting free coverage from the government. And the question is, do we want people to pay what they can afford, or do we want people to ride free on everyone else. And when that is recognized as the choice, most conservatives come my way.”

To Romney, the mandate that all individuals buy health insurance represented the conservative ideal of personal responsibility. Romney believed that whenever possible, individuals should take care of themselves, and not rely on the government for assistance. Too many people had been receiving “free” health care from the government even though many of those individuals could afford to pay for it themselves.
 
Obama wins this politically no matter what.

if it goes down, they get to run agains the Roberts/Scalia/BushVGore/CitizensUnited tyrannical unelected unaccountable activist judges who stole health insurance from 40m people and those with preexisting conditions. then arguments for a single-payer system become much, much more compelling. because, as we see, health care is not a commodity and not ordinary commerce. it is it's own thing.

if it is upheld, he looks like he was right all along.

I'm not so sure of that. If the SCOTUS kills the Affordable Care Act, it will certainly energize the left. Many people further to the left who view Obama as a moderate may be made a little less apathetic about voting, but considering the popularity polling for ObamaCare Socialism™, my guess is that it would probably only enhance the message that Obama is destroying the American model of limited government or whatever. It's not like the SCOTUS would be killing a wildly popular bill.
 
To quote myself: If you can't be turned down because of a preexisting condition -- why would anyone, if not mandated under penalty of law, pay hundreds of dollars a month when healthy rather than waiting until they actually needed health insurance to purchase it?

How would you answer that? Especially if, as more people drop out, rates would rise even higher on those paying premiums.

I would answer it like this:

INDY is right. If health insurance cannot be denied because of pre-existing conditions but there is no mandate, there is no incentive for people to buy health insurance before they develop such a condition, which in turn will drive up premiums, which in turn will make people less likely to buy health insurance before developing pre-existing conditions, et cetera until the health insurance industry collapses. And the government will spend exorbitantly in the process. It's not feasible to have this act without the mandate, which I believe is what INDY is arguing. The difference is (I believe) that he wants neither the mandate nor the rest of that law while most of this forum wants both.
 
I'm not so sure of that. If the SCOTUS kills the Affordable Care Act, it will certainly energize the left. Many people further to the left who view Obama as a moderate may be made a little less apathetic about voting, but considering the popularity polling for ObamaCare Socialism™, my guess is that it would probably only enhance the message that Obama is destroying the American model of limited government or whatever. It's not like the SCOTUS would be killing a wildly popular bill.



here's what Republican David Frum thinks:

"[If the ACA is struck down,] Republicans will need a Plan B. Unfortunately, they wasted the past three years that might have developed one. If the Supreme Court doesn't rescue them from themselves, they'll be heading into this election season arguing, in effect, Our plan is to take away the government-mandated insurance of millions of people under age 65, and replace it with nothing. And we're doing this so as to better protect the government-mandated insurance of people over 65—until we begin to phase out that insurance, too, for everybody now under 55,"



the bill may become much more popular in death, as elements of the ACA are highly popular.

the administration has done a shitty, shitty job selling this thing.
 
the administration has done a shitty, shitty job selling this thing.

That's because you can't polish a turd.

This was always a shitty Bill. And worse yet, Obama expended all of his political capital on something that's shitty.

There should have been an opt-into a single payer system built in there, which would have denied any plausibility for an unconstitutional argument. Since Obama didn't have the guts to go for it, this is what we're dealing with now on and with a hyper-political Supreme Court.

INDY is right that this law doesn't function without the mandate, but I don't see the SCOTUS striking it outright. Their comments today suggest that even Scalia thinks its inappropriate for the SCOTUS to go through a page-flip and then decide what the true legislative intent would have been, and what else should stand or go. You'll either see the mandate severed or, much less likely it seems right now, the whole thing be held up.
 
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