The Insurance Mandate Shell Game

[g5000]

The solution favored by many conservatives is to force consumers to shell out more money when they seek medical care so that they will think harder about whether it is really necessary. The “consumer-directed health care” movement calls for providing people with enough information about doctors and treatments so that they can make wise decisions.

There would most likely be some savings. A classic experiment by Rand researchers from 1974 to 1982 found that people who had to pay almost all of their own medical bills spent 30 percent less on health care than those whose insurance covered all their costs, with little or no difference in health outcomes. The one exception was low-income people in poor health, who went without care they needed. Any cost-sharing scheme would have to protect those unable to bear the burden.

New York Times

This is where buying your own health insurance would bend the cost curve down compared to EPHI. When it is your money you are spending, you spend it more wisely.

And to repeat, you also get to tailor your insurance to YOUR needs, and not to the needs of the entire herd.

 

[LordBrownTrout]

This must be a helluva quandary for the dems since O was against the mandate when he was campaigning against Clinton, who was for the mandate. Now O is for the mandate.....lol! What a deal.

 

[g5000]

This must be a helluva quandary for the dems since O was against the mandate when he was campaigning against Clinton, who was for the mandate. Now O is for the mandate.....lol! What a deal.

And depending on the weather, Obama argues the penalty for not buying insurance is a tax, or isn't a tax.


However, the individual health insurance mandate originated at the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation in 1989.


Eeeeeverybody's a flip-flopper.

ETA: Evidence. See page 6.

 

[DiamondDave]

If you're so for "choice", why not let the American people do what they REALLY want to do and set up an independent not-for-profit health insurance co-op that all Americans can join? Oh I know, gotta protect the evil insurance industry...

And this is exactly what the insurance lobbyists and their ass-kissers in the GOP (and I'm sure some Dems) did by taking the public option off the table. This would be real choice.

I welcome them to do any such thing... just not run by government, or subsidized by government

 

[ecinicola]

I am totally against the obamacare and it should be thrown out. It is unconstitutional. I do not want to be forced to buy iinto it, or have irs in my life. I do not want to furnish healthcare for immigrants and illegals and muslims. This healthcare will affect all our lives in a horrible way. Ii can't imagine anyone in their right mind wanting it. Its not free, and its not what some people think.

 

[Mr. Shaman]

Shell #2: The ACA has subsidies in in it. A family of four that earns up to $92,000, and a single person who earns up to $44,680, will have their health insurance subsidized.

That is FOUR TIMES THE POVERTY LEVEL.

Nearly half of all Americans will be subsidized by the taxpayers for their health insurance.

Yeah. Half. You heard that right. The median household income is $51,914.

Half may be a conservative estimate.

The argument that the uninsured are costing taxpayers money today is completely obliterated by the fact the taxpayers will be paying for health insurance for likely at least half of America.

And you can be DAMN SURE the subsidies will be a political football forevermore as the Democrats unceasingly work to increase them every election cycle to buy votes.

So don’t let the “the uninsured are costing us money under the status quo” argument be Shell #2.

If the Supremos DO end Health Care Reform, have the Teabaggers managed to organize some system of ER Greeters?? After all....if tax-payers will have to subsidize the expense of ER-visits, you Teabaggers really-should share in some o' the credit for enhancing this option, all-across-America!!!

Yes....you can still wear your goofy hats.

"Welcome to the ER!!"


​

 

[The T]

They don't have to provide health insurance. Even under the mandate. If they choose not to, they pay a penalty to allow our government to offer health insurance to all Americans.

Semantics.

The same is true for the individual mandate. You don't "have to" buy health insurance, but you pay a fine if you don't.

Scalia Upbraids Obamacare Defender: 'We're Not Stupid'

Solicitor General Donald Verrilli Jr., who made the Obama administration’s case for the constitutionality of the individual mandate in the healthcare law Tuesday, was upbraided by Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia after he flubbed an exchange with Justice Elena Kagan.

Scalia interrupted Verrilli, tersely telling him, “We’re not stupid.”

At the time, Kagan, a former solicitor general whom President Barack Obama appointed to the high court, was agreeing that young people should be required by the federal government to buy health insurance because eventually, others will subsidize their healthcare in the future.

But Scalia shot back, arguing that young people will make the decision to buy health insurance eventually and do not need the federal government forcing them to engage in commerce.

 

[Mr. Peepers]

Um..."public option" =/= "non-profit co-op".

The public option was actually a government run health insurance agency

No, that's just what the right wants you to believe (remember, it was in that talking points manual they found). A public option is just that, a public option, be it gov't run, gov't/non- profit hybrid or independent non-profit. As long as it is a plan that any American citizen can join, that makes it a public option.

And how do we know what it was? It was tossed out of consideration before the plan was even hammered out, thanks to our bought and paid for congress. I never heard ANY discussion on any kind of real public option.