General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsIt time to put an end to the GOP talking point repeated here on DU again and again.
Obamacare does not require you to buy health insurance. No one is now or will be required to write a check to Blue Cross or any other insurance company. Nor will you be required to give anybody any money to have them buy insurance for you. You do and will have total freedom to not buy insurance from anyone. The tea party GOP and even some on the Supreme Court would have you believe otherwise because it advances their cause of total repression of the middle class and poor of America.
Obamacare DOES allow the IRS to collect a tax penalty from anyone who can afford insurance but who does not get that coverage and from those who could sign up for free or subsidized insurance but does not do so. The IRS has no way, method or plan to get you insurance if you don’t want it. They are totally powerless to do anything to get any insurance company to insure you unless you buy the insurance as your choice. You are the only one who can make sure you have insurance and you have total freedom to not get health insurance. The tax penalty is 2.5% of your taxable income at the most. The IRS will not and cannot use that money to buy from a private insurance company insurance for you or anyone else. Not only are you not required to send a check to any insurance company, the IRS is not required or even allowed to send a check to an insurance company. There is no commerce being created, mandated, required or otherwise commanded. Yes, Obamacare encourages, stimulates, even provides an incentive for people to get insured but that has nothing to do with your freedom to not buy insurance. You will have total freedom to not participate in the commerce of health insurance. (Incidentally your employer, as now, may have the power to require you to buy insurance if you choose to work for him. But that’s subjecting yourself to the capitalist, not the government. The GOP loves that!)
That the Tea Party has convinced anyone here on DU otherwise shows the power they have to control the dialog. Please correct any comments you hear and remind them that no where in the Affordable Healthcare Act does the government have the power to make you as an individual buy insurance from anyone, any company, public or private.
Note: I would prefer a Single Payer Healthcare system like Medicare for everyone but right now, Obamacare is all we have to defend. Your kids will be grown and out of the house before we see any healthcare reform if Obamacare is thrown out by this Supreme Court. Complain about it all you want, but stop repeating GOP talking points and explain to me where in the act it says to write out a check to anybody for health insurance. If it does, tell me which company, I have my check book ready and I need the coverage.
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KG
(28,751 posts)all the lipstick in the world ain't gonna pretty up that pig.
FarPoint
(12,360 posts)It's that simple, it's responsible....
Secondly...I agree completely with the OP...
Doctor_J
(36,392 posts)Subject line: I support the mandate
text: I completely agree with the OP (which says there is no mandate).
Which is it?
FarPoint
(12,360 posts)Being aggressive and insulting is unbecoming.
xtraxritical
(3,576 posts)His reply was intelligent and succinct.
FarPoint
(12,360 posts)To my opinion.
A Simple Game
(9,214 posts)FarPoint
(12,360 posts)Let me make this clear...if I misunderstood the entire context of the lengthy OP, then I apologize and wish the harassment to please end now ...Do not treat me as if I were a troll....I will not tolerate being bullied.
I support the mandate, I support Obamacare. If the SC strikes it down...we can start over again.
A Simple Game
(9,214 posts)Please let me know what you will tolerate, and do it now! Imagine the last four words in your best bullying voice, please.
progressoid
(49,990 posts)+1
AKA "I cannot admit I am wrong" 
rgbecker
(4,831 posts)One could easily support the idea of having people feel obligated to get coverage and support the idea that those who don't pay a tax and still agree with me that the ACA does not require anyone to buy insurance.
yeah, the idea of bringing attention from the IRS is in no way intimdation
Javaman
(62,530 posts)
seemed like perfectly reasonable observation and question to me.
pa28
(6,145 posts)rgbecker
(4,831 posts)that is not my point. The Tea Baggin GOP tells us the government is making us "Buy" insurance. They say they are being forced into creating commerce where there was none. They say we'll all have to buy broccoli soon and join a health club. These are lies. You simply will have to pay the IRS a tax penalty. After all is said and done...you will have no insurance. No broccoli and no health club. You will continue totally free to have no insurance. The IRS isn't going to sign your check over to Blue Cross and get a policy for you. You won't have insurance if you don't want it.
One could easily support the idea of having people feel obligated to get coverage and support the idea that those who don't pay a tax and still agree with me that the ACA does not require anyone to buy insurance.
The issue in this post is the repetition of the GOP talking point that somehow we are all going to end up with insurance somehow by being required to buy it. Yet none of the repeaters have suggested how that compulsion is going to take place if I don't want insurance.
Which insurance exactly am I going to be buying? If the IRS doesn't say which one, who does? Will one of those tea baggers please come forward and tell because it is not anywhere in the ACA.
Zalatix
(8,994 posts)much the same way as the threat of a fine doesn't force you to get a driver's license.
There's a difference, you say? Yup, nobody's forcing you to drive.
The only way out of the "buy Cigna's insurance plan or pay the fine" is to die.
rgbecker
(4,831 posts)How is that being forced to buy the insurance plan? When the year is done...you still have no insurance. This is the GOP talking point I'm trying to call out. If you were being forced to buy insurance, how is it year after year, you still don't have it? You may have paid more in taxes, but that seems different than having to buy insurance. The proof is in the pudding. Do you have coverage after you were so called "Forced" to buy insurance? Seems like you didn't buy it as you don't have it. So the force wasn't enough? How about jail? Not in ACA. How about deportation? Not in ADA. Even if those penalties were in the ACA, you still end up with no insurance. If the ACA said the IRS or the Health service would be required to issue you a policy and the IRS would be required to garnish the premium the GOP might have a case...but that's not in the act. No insurance if you don't want insurance. Freedom. Very simple truth.
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)you have priorities, food, rent, driving expenses which are mainly to get to an from work. You have no extra cash to spend on vacations or other luxuries, which in today's America includes HC. Let's say your job doesn't cover you so you simply cannot afford another dollar to buy coverage and live on the hope that no one gets sick.
Now there is a law that requires everyone to buy HC OR be fined by the IRS. You are earning too much to get assistance, so you now have an additional expense, and if you can't pay it, we all know what the IRS does when a tax bill is not paid.
To such a family, and there are untold numbers of them, that new tax means they have make yet another choice of what not to buy for their family. Should it be the clothes from the thrift shot, a little less milk or eggs for the children?
I don't think anyone who followed the debate on the HC bill was unaware of this. From a legal standpoint re the SC, it may save the bill, and at this point most of us probably hope it does. But that doesn't change the implications for many, not-quite-poor-enough families who are currently living paycheck to paycheck as it is.
No democratic country should be fining people for not buying HC, period. But we had that debate, we lost and all we can do now is hope that the bill will benefit enough people to be an improvement of what we had before, and work hard to get what all Americans have a right to.
cyberpj
(10,794 posts)I'm not sure we know what happens to the fines once the IRS has them.
Cheviteau
(383 posts)...that with all the buying the kids clothes and more milk and eggs, that you didn't mention who was going to pay for the next emergency room visit for said kids. That would be me who pays a hefty premium for a supplemental policy in addition to my medicare premium. And don't discount my taxes that go to support public hospitals such as the LSU medical center here in my small town. Who do you think keeps doctors and nurses in those emergency rooms? Again, that would be me and those like me who pay outlandish prices for a visit with a stubbed toe or hang nail.
Compare a 2.5% surcharge on one's taxes to a $150,000 bill for reconstructive surgery on a small child who's been a victim of an unavoidable accident.
Get my drift, here?
stevenleser
(32,886 posts)Individuals and families that make under a certain amount of money get a tax credit that they can use to purchase insurance.
Sabrina, there is no such thing as a free lunch. If we went with single payer, taxes would have to go up to pay for it. The same family you talk about would have their taxes go up by a couple of hundred dollars a month. That is also money out of their pockets. That is the way single payer is handled, you pay for it in taxes.
Lets not pretend there is a material difference there in the impact on families of having to pay for health care.
reACTIONary
(5,770 posts)...using the term "the mandate" does not mean you think it IS a mandate. It is completely reasonable.
Zalatix
(8,994 posts)
pnwmom
(108,977 posts)even though most of its provisions won't take effect till 2014.
Meanwhile, millions of children and young adults already have insurance they didn't have, and others aren't bumping into annual or lifetime limits on their policies.
So the Heritage Foundation didn't have such a terrible idea.
cali
(114,904 posts)Look, if the ACA is overturned, more people will suffer and die than if it isn't. it's that simple, but a lot of you evidently don't give a flying fuck about that.
Sickening.
robinlynne
(15,481 posts)has a mandate to buy insurance, which is absurd for so many reasons.
two big reasons are:
It exposes the bill to this current Supreme Court situation, which we all knew was coming.
It is about buying insurance, not about receiving healthcare.
rgbecker
(4,831 posts)Lipstick is for bulldogs. It doesn't take a hockey mom to figure out how the GOP has taken this talking point and shoved into the mouths of the most progressive writers on DU.
thesquanderer
(11,986 posts)There are lots of things that we are told are not allowed. But to carry the OP's argument to its extreme, *everything* is allowed... as long as you are willing to face the penalty.
You don't have to buy insurance. But if you don't, you will have to pay a penalty. (Whether it is a tax or a fine is some of what is being debated in the court... see http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/03/live-blog-obamacare-challenged-at-the-supreme-court/ )
You don't have to put money in the parking meter. But unless you do, you will get a ticket (at least in New York, it's pretty much a given!). You don't have to pay the ticket. But if you don't, there can be even more unpleasant consequences. So, do you or do you not have to put money in the meter? Every action (or inaction) is okay, if you are willing to accept the consequences. Can you leave the scene of an accident? No. Well, maybe yes, if you are willing to accept the consequences.
So I think that saying that the state isn't "forcing" you to buy insurance is technically true, but only to the extent that state can't force you to do anything, short of the point of putting you in shackles where you can be physically forced. Other than that, any time the state says you must or must not do something, it's always a choice of benefit versus consequences. So whether or not you are literally being forced is a semantic argument.
rgbecker
(4,831 posts)you would think they would instruct the IRS to take the penalty money and sign it over to an insurance company which would be required to issue an insurance policy in your name. Thus basically ending up with the "Mandated" requirement of having insurance. Instead, the penalty money goes directly into the treasury and you still, thank goodness have no insurance and you didn't have to buy any. The tea bagger has stolen this discussion by somehow making us feel bad for making him take his hard earned money and giving it to the evil insurance company when in fact it is not in the law.
BOHICA12
(471 posts)robinlynne
(15,481 posts)Posteritatis
(18,807 posts)
W T F
(1,147 posts)all the lipstick in the world ain't gonna pretty up that pig........touché
appleannie1
(5,067 posts)
MinisterMelinda
(2 posts)That's WTF he is talking about.
EFerrari
(163,986 posts)we all pay for it, too, in higher rates and subsidies. And we will continue to pay for it if this plan is implemented.
SunSeeker
(51,550 posts)Do you really mean to say the same number of uninsured will continue to use the ER on the ACA as they do now (and hence we will continue to pay the same mark up on our insurance for this highly expensive, inefficient use)?
Yes, we will continue to pay high rates under this plan, but every objective analysis of this plan I've seen indicates the rates will be less high than without the plan because there will be tens of millions more insured and paying into the system. And, this plan will save about 45,000 American lives every year.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)It provides assistance to people earning below a certain income, and the level of income is set high enough to make health insurance affordable for many people who cannot afford it today.
Instead of paying the emergency room bills for low-income people who cannot now afford insurance, taxpayers will subsidize their insurance premiums.
The problem for the poor is that they do not get primary care. Insignificant, easily remedied problems become significant and difficult to treat. That is why this bill is so important.
It is also important so that people who have to have emergency care because they have accidents or infectious or other diseases can have good follow-up care.
Perhaps the most important part of this bill is that it will enable all pregnant women and small children, including lower middle-class women to afford and obtain pre-natal, post-natal and early childhood care. This requires the supervision of a doctor, but some of the work -- like the shots and ear, nose and throat examinations can be performed by nurses and nurse practitioners.
I had single payer for years -- especially during my pregnancies and the early childhood years of my children. It was wonderful. And our children are the healthier because I did not have to hesitate before taking them to the doctor. I did not have to worry about whether I could pay for their medical care.
Yes, we paid very high taxes for the benefits. But what is a child's good health worth? A lot, more than you can imagine, I can tell you. This is especially true if you have a child born with a pre-existing condition -- even something like allergies.
zinnisking
(405 posts)As long as they have children, low income families are already in the system. My sister has lived in several low income housing units in my area. Everybody there is insured.
It's about time they give some help to hard working single adults who have crappy jobs.
markpkessinger
(8,395 posts)...but even if they do go to the ER, then at lest some of the cost will be either paid directly or reimbursed by insurance. For the unisured, NONE of it gets reimbursed. Now tell me again which scenario is the greater contributor to aggregate medical costs?
EFerrari
(163,986 posts)as I've already posted elsewhere.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)LACarMan
(45 posts)My wife carries no insurance currently. She went to the emergency room last year. We are still paying for it. I don't see anyone else kicking in.
Even if she had cut rate insurance, the premiums would be around 350.00 a month (4200.00 a year). With a 2500.00 deductible, the cost of her visit would not have been covered by insurance.
A Simple Game
(9,214 posts)you do know someone would have to make up the deficit?
Now if you were paying the $350 per month for what is essentially near useless insurance, could you still make a payment for the emergency room visit?
Will you admit that there are people that are less able to make an extra payment to a hospital than you? Will you admit that there are people that couldn't make the $350 payment for insurance in the first place?
girl gone mad
(20,634 posts)This bill just shifts some of those costs onto working people.
Telly Savalas
(9,841 posts)What program? Where's its website?
girl gone mad
(20,634 posts)http://healthcare-economist.com/2010/04/01/the-cost-of-uncompensated-care
hfojvt
(37,573 posts)Which I paid, thank you very much.
I submit that it is easier to pay an occasional $1,000 bill from an ER than it is to pay $600 a month for health insurance.
levp
(188 posts)...what about any chronic conditions or preventive care?
How is ER going to manage your diabetes or heart condition? How is ER going to do your cancer screenings?
markpkessinger
(8,395 posts)hfojvt
(37,573 posts)and it was padded with $500 worth of X-rays that I didn't need.
GirlinContempt
(16,987 posts)on a national scale, is part of the reason the US pays more for health care (and receives less, and is less healthy) than the rest of the developed world.
SmellyFeet
(162 posts)Your knowledge of health care is so ignorant and simplistic it astounds me.
And, where are you getting the $600 a month number?
TheKentuckian
(25,026 posts)doesn't buy a product you do? Your product potentially costing more is not a fine, fines are levied by governing bodies. (Not always GOVERNMENT bodies, just those that govern a certain area).
Are you arguing that any lack of demand that prevents production being scaled to the lowest cost for its consumers is a fine?
Dragonfli
(10,622 posts)The individual mandate no longer exists, because the enforcement mechanisms are just coincidental or some such horse shit.
I wonder if that works the same with DUI enforcement mechanisms
nadinbrzezinski
(154,021 posts)you won't be fined either.
Sancho
(9,070 posts)you can call it a penalty, tax, or whatever...if you don't have insurance, you pay more taxes...
it's just another layer on the tax code. Call it a deduction if you pay for insurance if you wish...
but if you DON'T buy a house, there will be no mortgage - thus no mortgage interest to deduct...
So you do have to buy a house in order to be able to deduct mortgage interest. What's wrong with this?
Recursion
(56,582 posts)If my rent were instead a mortgage, I would be paying less in taxes. As it is, I'm subsidizing home owners. Exact same deal. We just don't call it a "home purchase mandate".
napoleon_in_rags
(3,991 posts)Its a tax break for being responsible, with a subsidy to help the poor.
girl gone mad
(20,634 posts)You get to deduct the mortgage payment on your income taxes if you decide to itemize your deductions. This only applies to people who earn enough of an income to pay federal taxes, and who have enough deductions to itemize. There is no penalty or tax for those not carrying a mortgage.
Recursion
(56,582 posts)If I were buying instead of renting, I would pay less in taxes. Just like I will pay less in taxes for having health insurance than if I didn't. What's this magical distinction you're seeing?
girl gone mad
(20,634 posts)so I doubt you're being penalized in any way.
Still the comparison you're attempting to make here is absurd. The government is not requiring you or anyone else to purchase private property or face penalties.
Recursion
(56,582 posts)pnwmom
(108,977 posts)girl gone mad
(20,634 posts)Health insurance, definitely not.
pnwmom
(108,977 posts)through Congress. It's not Obama who opposed it, or the majority of the Democrats.
girl gone mad
(20,634 posts)Millions of people get perfectly adequate health care sans the parasitic insurance middle men.
GirlinContempt
(16,987 posts)I agree, but I agree because I live in Canada (although I do also have insurance, which is great, covers things like prescription drugs until I reach my provincial deductible to get it free from the government, long term disability, dental, etc) so sure, there are millions of people out there who get health care with out insurance. But if you're talking about within the US, I'd like to hear your reasoning behind this statement because I sure don't get it.
SmellyFeet
(162 posts)Brilliant!
still_one
(92,190 posts)Not only is that a "shared" burden to society, it is at the MOST expensive price
By having the mandate the risk is shared by all, it benefits all, both directly and indirectly, by providing healthcare for those who couldn't get it or afford it previously, and at more affordable rates
However, I wouldn't be too concerned since it looks like it will be overturned by the supremes, which incidentally, will most likely leave me without any reasonable priced insurance in the next two months
bowens43
(16,064 posts)doesn't make it true.
freshwest
(53,661 posts)
tibbiit
(1,601 posts)Stop the talking points people. The consequences are too dire to keep the rw talking points going. If Pukes get the white house, another scalia and alito will be on the court for life.
that must not happen. Seriously, it must not happen.
tib
ffr
(22,669 posts)Once we stop repeating, they'll be forced to repeat our message. What a revelation!
EFerrari
(163,986 posts)Sophistry. You defend Obamacare and leave me out of it.
cali
(114,904 posts)many more people will suffer and die than if it remains intact? Because that is the bottom line.
EFerrari
(163,986 posts)I was born at night but not last night.
And, btw, it's not self-evident that "many more people will suffer and die" than if it remains intact. As Dr. Steffie Woolhandler recently said about MA, "Some people got helped a little bit; some people got hurt a little bit. But for most of the doctors and patients, nothing changed. That is, people still could not afford care and had to seek care in the public sector because they were unable to afford the care that they needed."
FarLeftFist
(6,161 posts) EFerrari
(163,986 posts)will be forced to behave by anyone in our government, Congress or the Executive. And with the current court, forget it.
As long as the health care industry is for profit, we're screwed. MA spends 15% more per capita than the national average and insurance premiums have gone up between 5-10% annually.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/18/us/massachusetts-tries-to-rein-in-its-health-care-cost.html?pagewanted=all
Unlike the Republicans, my problem is not with the mandate, it's with the profit and with the insurance industry vultures.
TheKentuckian
(25,026 posts)essentially self reporting, that maintains an anti-trust exemption is being regulated into trustworthiness?
Please. We have a largely toothless, unresourced, and convoluted law that says it does what you claim but willfully avoids it.
Congress was not serious at all. I heard more threats to MLB's anti-trust exemption for steroids and lockouts than the entire healthcare debate.
I also know that when it is actually undertaken to regulate something we see hammers for every nail from fines to community service to probation to prison. We see agencies created with budgets to investigate, prosecute, and punish.
Here we get if what you report isn't compliant then we will be forced to announce/publish the fact and eventually inform the cartel "if you persist you won't be allowed to have our exchange customers who you refused to cover or abused mightily if you would take their money by the wheelbarrow load (provided you all don't collude to tell us to fuck off and leave us with no choice but to knuckle under because we have no choice)".
Since no one would trust a comparable system to render a puckish 8 year old trustworthy, no I don't find it remotely credible on some of the most callous and predatory fucks in history as a toolbox to transform my perception to one of trust.
This bill makes the cartel even more dangerous. They are being made a too big too fail, supported by the with faith and credit of the United States and literally every citizen a personal obligation to them to backstop an "industry" on course with suicide from their own practices and avarice.
When your solutions are too build up and build around the problems, the burden should actually be on you to overcome bias against your reasoning. Even more so when you reach for a pre-existing solution not built with such intent that has been put into practice with little record of such either, participation is up but cartel is still the cartel there. Your "reform" was designed to prevent systemic reform, not enable it. To empower the cartel, not make it a servant of the people.
unapatriciated
(5,390 posts)in controlling the Insurance Cartel watch Sicko again.
This was not just a documentary about others, for many it was our life story(mine included).
California enacted really strong laws in the early 90's regarding pre-existing conditions and claims denials.
The Insurance Industry either ignored or found loopholes that benefited them. Leaving their insureds scrambling to pay for health care that was covered under their policies. They didn't just deny claims they were allowed to 'review' claims and take back payments already paid for health care services.
California has had to revisit the practice of the Insurance Industries denial of care or policy cancellations many times. Yet the insurance cartel continues to ignore the law. Why, because the fines are less than the cost of providing care. Profit is what it's all about, health care not so much.
http://phoenix.injuryboard.com/miscellaneous/blue-cross-of-california-agrees-to-settle-rescission-class-action-lawsuit.aspx?googleid=218686
http://www.shernoff.com/legal-news/Blue-Cross-of-California-Settles-Class-Action-Suit-Over-Policy-Cancellations.html
Voice for Peace
(13,141 posts)this is helpful
Arkansas Granny
(31,516 posts)markpkessinger
(8,395 posts). . . and in the meantime, you actually do get something in return for that penalty. You get the option, should you suddenly and unexpectedly become afflicted with a major illness or injury that would require tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars to treat, of being able to then buy insurance at the moment you really do need it, without worrying that you will be disqualified because it is a "preexisting condition."
girl gone mad
(20,634 posts)It's already set to go up dramatically. It will be very easy for the insurance industry to lobby for ever greater penalties.
BTW, you need to read the bill because the claim you're making is not accurate. While it's true that the insurance companies can't deny people because of pre-existing conditions, the bill does not require them to write catastrophic policies for people with PECs. What's more, insurance cos. can still deny claims and they're still allowed to kick people off of their roles using the fraud provision, which is the main way they screw policyholders now.
rgbecker
(4,831 posts)I can't believe the democrats would write such a bill. And no catastrophic policies for anybody, I believe, not just people with pre-existing conditions.
Thank goodness I don't have to buy one of those policies and can just pay the fine.
pnwmom
(108,977 posts)and who oppose this bill that gave millions more people access to healthcare.
It's all too easy for people who already have good insurance (including Medicare recipients) to say that we should wait for the perfect bill to get passed. Not so easy for those of us who aren't insured, or who's children aren't insured, or who face loss of insurance if our situations changed.
adam in oregon
(32 posts)I am in a similar situation. I work in a hospital and have insurance now. My hospital lost millions last year and is up for sale. No one knows what the situation will be in 5 months. How does forcing me to buy insurance I can't afford help me? This bill does not give millions access to health care. It gives insurance companies millions of new forced customers. Two very different things. Probably with plans that really doesn't cover much. And if they have to cover everyone, for life, with no denials, cost will go up.
Before I got this job and for a while after I had no insurance(nearly two years) because it was not affordable. My Cobra plan came back at 600 dollars a month. That is not happening if I am unemployed. With underemployment and regular unemployment being around 15-20 percent I don't know how people will afford insurance.
We need to scrap this law and start over. Health insurance is a scam that offers nothing for a patient except to drive up the cost so CEOs can make million dollar bonuses. This country needs single payer, paid by taxes. Not forced subservience to an insurance company as a requirement of being born.
pnwmom
(108,977 posts)The government will be expanding Medicaid and subsidizing many other people to keep the cost to a certain percent of income. If you are unemployed with no income, you wouldn't be expected to pay $600 a month! Why don't you investigate what the actual costs would be in your case, rather than just assuming the worst?
If this law is scrapped, no one will be starting over because the Rethugs have no interest in developing any health care plan at all, much less single payer. This is the best we could manage at this time, but it could pave the way for single payer, as insurance companies start to leave the business because of the way the law limits their profits.
adam in oregon
(32 posts)I always assume the worst when it comes to government. The last time I was between jobs, my COBRA would have been 600 dollars a month, which is where I got that number. I could not afford that being employed, let alone unemployed. I had a decent job, therefore enough income at the time, so I doubt I would qualify for any subsidy. Even if I did, I probably could not afford the co pays and pill costs that are not covered.
This bill was written by the insurance industry to get 50 million more guaranteed customers that they would not otherwise get. No other industry in the world is guaranteed lifetime customers just because you were born. This country needs better health care, not health insurance, whose only function is to skim money off the top.
pnwmom
(108,977 posts)
NNN0LHI
(67,190 posts)I let the cat out of the bag here that Keep America Beautiful and the crying Indian ad was a scam paid for by the worlds biggest polluters once here.
Needless to say, it didn't go over well.
Don
rgbecker
(4,831 posts)GOP is good at the catchy phrase and we need ammunition at the front lines at the coffee shop and water coolers.
xtraxritical
(3,576 posts)Being reasonable and discussing ideas is all very good here at DU but in the real world sound bites seal the deal. Vote a Straight Democratic Ballot. 
LibDemAlways
(15,139 posts)a Native American. That was actor Iron Eyes Cody, who, admittedly, strongly identified with Native Americans but was, himself, Italian.
NNN0LHI
(67,190 posts)It was like someone announced to a Kindergarten class that there was no Santa Claus.
Don
barbtries
(28,793 posts)thank you. send to SCOTUS?
Marr
(20,317 posts)The plan is based around a mandate to purchase for-profit insurance. I don't think anyone was under the impression that the penalty was a public flogging.
But good luck defending this Republican legislation. If this had come from the Heritage Foundation, you'd decry it as a cynical bait-and-switch con, with healthcare swapped out for corporate welfare.
Oh wait a minute-- I think it *did* come from the Heritage Foundation.
rgbecker
(4,831 posts)I'll ask you and the Republicans to join together to say what you intend to do to get healthcare costs under control and to get healthcare to the uninsured, to those with pre-existing conditions. Oh! Wait, I know, let them go down to the nearest emergency room and then, if they survive, garnish their wages.?! I suppose if the GOP can withdraw their support for the Heritage's and Romney's plan because it was signed by a black president, you could refuse to participate in the dialog because old white guys together with virtually all the black guys in congress came up with a plan that might actually work and by the way, is presently the law of the land.
Marr
(20,317 posts)Why would they espouse something their opponent is willing to push?
In fact, given the context, I'd say their lack of public support is even more damning. If they expected it to actually do the job they claimed it would do back when they were promoting it, you'd think they'd want to get some of the credit... wouldn't you?
rgbecker
(4,831 posts)The picture you paint is clear. Mitch and John standing with Obama, praising each other for the great job they did passing a healthcare bill that regulates the insurance companies into unlimited caps on coverage, coverage of 40 million uncovered poor people, most of whom will be subsidized and coverage for pre-existing conditions. I don't think so.
Normally, if people who think the way to cut the government budget deficit is to cut government revenue by cutting tax rates on the wealthy (which are at 85 year low) support something, that would be the damning.
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)The Republicans we have today are not the same Republicans we had even a few years ago.
In some instances, some have cynically changed their position.
However, when you get into the business of examining ideas on their pedigree rather than their merit, you are going down a foolish path.
Orangepeel
(13,933 posts)CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield, for example -- while still expensive-- is not-for-profit. So is Kaiser Permanente.
rgbecker
(4,831 posts)Call people out on the words they use to lie and cheat.
Marr
(20,317 posts)Blue Cross Blue Shield is for-profit, and Kaiser is a non-profit umbrella with for-profit, state-level operations underneath it.
Orangepeel
(13,933 posts)And, as I understand it, Kaiser Permanente Heath insurance is not for profit. The physician owned medical groups that provide services may be for profit.
There are legitimate issues with the idea of a mandate, but the "for profit" part is not one of them. One is not mandated to buy insurance from a for-profit company.
Perhaps a legitimate response to that statement is "So what? One is still mandated to buy insurance!" Okay. That's a discussion worth having. But if a linchpin of the argument against mandates is the "for profit" part, the argument falls apart, because that's just not necessarily the case.
TheKentuckian
(25,026 posts)The shell games permeate the entire industry.
girl gone mad
(20,634 posts)CareFirst executives have been attempting to undergo for-profit conversion for over a decade. They would have already succeeded if it wasn't for the state of Maryland having stopped them. Do you think they're going to quit trying once their coffers are swollen with the revenue stream of their newly captive consumers?
What complete garbage to pretend for-profit status is a badge of unquestionable honor and purity! The same class of crooked rent-seekers who run the for-profits run the non-profits. Non-profit management is every bit as greedy, corrupt and incompetent as their for-profit counterparts. The executives are showered with lavish compensation while they squander assets in search of self-glorification. They deny care to patients while doling out contracts to cronies and spending top dollar on luxurious jets and box seats at sporting events. They use the same techniques to capture their regulators.
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)HMSA (Hawai'i Medical Services Association) has about two-thirds of the market; Kaiser is a distant second.
In practice, the only difference between them and a for-profit corporation is that the execs, rather than shareholders, reap the obscene windfall profits. 
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)In CA, Anthem Blue Cross is for-profit (Anthem bought the Blue Cross name), but Blue Shield is nonprofit.
marshall gaines
(347 posts)Look at the phenomenal profits the health insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, and health industry in general are making off of us now and some things are still not covered. And what about low income WORKERS/PART-TIME who aren't offered insurance by their employers or just can't get insurance? They go to urgent care, we with insurance end up paying for it one way or another. Too many lies out there. I think all this is much ado about the fact that the Obama administration is truly trying to help people in our society and the tea baggers and repugs could care less about the less fortunate and their reason for being is to be obstructionist on anything good coming out of Washington in this political cycle. Some people out here are thinking for themselves.
Dragonfli
(10,622 posts)He will have to try to trick this Dragonfli by winning a race or something. (I have this betting habit you see...)
I did not know the Heritage Foundation had so many fans here but it would seem they do.
The supporters of GOP policies have grown here exponentially the past few years.
JoeyT
(6,785 posts)This is just silly. You aren't required, you just get fined if you don't and if you don't pay the fine you go to jail.
Y'all need a new talking point, because this one is dumb. It's like claiming speed limits aren't requiring you to drive under a certain speed because you can always speed and pay a ticket or go to jail.
If you support mandates, say so. Then try to convince people why they're necessary and good. Don't spend several paragraphs trying to redefine "require". If "If you don't do this you will pay a fine or go to jail" means something isn't required, you've just invalidated every law in the country. Congrats, I guess.
rgbecker
(4,831 posts)Just show me in the ACA the name of the evil insurance company waiting for me to be forced into commerce. God knows I don't want to go to jail. If you think paying a fine is the same as buying insurance, Congrats, I guess. But I don't think you'll get any reimbursement for that x-ray.
JoeyT
(6,785 posts)Because if you don't pay it, you'll either go to jail or they'll start seizing your assets.
All laws to make you do or prevent you from doing something have enforcement mechanisms. The idea that you have the "option" of triggering the enforcement mechanism means you aren't being forced to is completely absurd. It's like claiming laws against murder aren't trying to prevent murders because you can always kill someone and go to prison. Forcing people to do/not do things by punishing them if they don't/do what our entire legal system is based on.
I'm open to arguments that the mandate is a good idea. I'm not sure if it actually is or not. If the consumer protections are strong enough and the subsidies for lower-lower middle class people well funded enough, it may be a good thing. That's an entirely different argument, though. Your argument doesn't say the mandates are a good idea, in fact it implies mandates are a terrible idea. It claims the mandate doesn't exist at all.
"Sure I had a gun pointed at him while he signed that contract, but he didn't HAVE to sign it. He could have chosen to make me shoot him." The "Mandates aren't mandates, they're suggestions that we punish you if you don't follow." argument negates the very idea of forcing anyone to do anything. Ever. Under any circumstances.
PB
kestrel91316
(51,666 posts)If you owe the IRS money on a tax return you file, they don't jail you. They just bill you and if need be seize assets.
But thanks for repeating the RW lie.
rudycantfail
(300 posts)who have not paid their taxes.
riderinthestorm
(23,272 posts)I thought you owned your own vet clinic, if your tax preparer/attorney/accountant hasn't told you this, please make sure you get better advice!
rgbecker
(4,831 posts)Simply agreeing to what the government wants you to pay, but because you don't have the money, you don't pay will not put you in jail. In the case of the ACA or any other tax provision, if you lie about whether you have the insurance, saying you have it to avoid the fine when actually you don't, you could see some serious jail time. The IRS has many methods to get hold of your money, but that is all they are interested in, not having you in jail.
Either way, in this case of the whether the ACA requires you to buy insurance, there is no way, method, or plan for the IRS to make that transaction transpire.
JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)No one is forced to buy a home with a mortgage, but you get a tax break if you do.
Of course the even simpler argument goes like this ....
The Constitution gives the congress the ability to regulate interstate commerce. The Health care industry is interstate commerce. Therefore, the congress can regulate it.
Importantly, the constitution says nothing about the manner in which such regulation occurs. So debating the mandate as a tx or as a penalty is a red herring.
saras
(6,670 posts)JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)The supreme court is determining whether the mandate violates the Constitution, not whether health care should or should not be "interstate commerce".
quaker bill
(8,224 posts)
hughee99
(16,113 posts)If you want it to be similar to the home mortgage deduction, raise EVERYONE'S taxes by the amount of the fine, and then give deductions to those who buy insurance. You're not doing that here, though, because the mandate isn't a tax, it's a penalty to be added on to whatever your current taxes are IF you meet certain criteria.
I'm not sure anyone is arguing congress can't regulate the health care industry, but is "regulating interstate commerce" the same thing as forcing everyone to engage in interstate commerce? The banking industry is interstate commerce but congress can't force everyone to keep their money in a bank.
TheKentuckian
(25,026 posts)The poster knows this as well and is spinning hard to make a muddle in minds. The truth doesn't matter.
rgbecker
(4,831 posts)If the ACA required you to buy insurance as the tea baggin GOP would have you believe and which you apparently believe, then how is it, after all the penalties and taxes and contra tax credits, and mortgage payment deductions and speeding tickets you still don't have insurance? The GOP wants you to think you have lost your freedom to choose to buy or not buy health insurance. Say I choose not to buy. Take me through the process as outlined in the ACA about how I end up with an insurance policy. Say I make $100,000/yr. Self employed and pay about 15% on a taxable income of $65,000.
I have my checkbook out ready to write the check to whichever company the wicked government says I have to "buy" a policy from. I'm ready to be forced into the market place. I'm ready for forced government created commerce. But remember, I'm also a decent citizen, member of DU and I'll write a check to the IRS if that will keep me from supporting Blue Cross.
Your mind has already been muddled by the GOP, high school history and glorification of the marketplace.
I'll await the truth. I'm open minded that maybe they are going to make me buy insurance but I can't find it in the present ACA.
Dragonfli
(10,622 posts)in a bank"
Well, not yet, but I am sure that it is in the works, they just need to find and dust off some old GOP law from some thinktank somewhere and stamp a D on it.
I will be historic Democratic Legislation!
JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)That's a regulation. Congress regulates your relationship with the financial industry. Congress also wants to regulate the financial industry so that banks can't use your deposits as leverage in risky financial investments.
That's congress "regulating".
Dragonfli
(10,622 posts)JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)They could say that if you keep your money outside a recognized financial institution, then you pay a tax.
Now ... tell me which part of the commerce clause prevents that.
Well?
freedom fighter jh
(1,782 posts)From there it's just a small step to making everyone keep their money in a bank. The constitutionality will have been resolved.
JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)pay a tax for Medicare, or Social Security.
And if this gets overturned, that is exactly where the GOP will go next.
freedom fighter jh
(1,782 posts)You're talking about taxes. It's established that the government has a right to levy taxes to support programs.
The mandate requires you to buy from the private sector. That is new. And if SCOTUS OK's it, then next time Congress wants to require you to buy from the private sector they won't have a SCOTUS battle. They can just do it.
JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)The mandate taxes you if you don't have insurance and you can afford it.
There is nothing in the commerce clause that prevents this. Congress is given the power to regulate interstate commerce, but the mechanisms that they can or can not use are not limited by the Constitution. It says NOTHING on the matter.
And again ... if the SCOTUS throws this out, Medicare and Social Security are next for the same reasons. That will be the argument, and if we have the same SCOTUS, those are out too.
girl gone mad
(20,634 posts)which is why they based their entire SC argument around the idea that health insurance is a "unique" product. The administration didn't want to set a precedent which would allow future legislation mandating private purchases. It sounds as if the majority of the justices weren't ready to buy the argument that the health insurance market is unique, for good reason.
Dragonfli
(10,622 posts)It would require that all citizens keep any liquid funds in a bank listed on an exchange, one will be issued a Debit Card for all of your transactions and banks will only be able charge 15% per transaction, it will be well regulated (as we always do with banking).
It will protect us from having direct access to our money by placing a responsible corporation in a position as gatekeeper.
No one will ever have to worry about cash again.
For those that fear such progressive progress, I submit that even if it is mandated that your funds be managed for you, you can refuse to give up your cash as there is no law requiring you to use the debit card, if you chose to us cash you may, but the enforcement provisions would require you to pay the IRS a heavy fine, that is in no way meant to force you to comply.
JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)your proposal.
The question is not the "goodness" of your proposal, but whether it can be defended, or blocked via the Constitution.
In case you missed it, Congress can pass some really crappy laws that fall within the bounds of the Constitution. Hell, a few years back, the Congress voted to give their Constitutional Authority to declare war to the President.
The discussion here is whether the mandate is constitutional. There are plenty of side arguments about it being a "bad thing to do" but those do not make it UNCONSTITUTIONAL.
I do expect the GOP SCOTUS to throw it out, along with the entire bill ... Roberts claimed he felt that the court should always show "restraint" ... which of course was bullshit.
Regardless ... you are not arguing the Constitutionality of the law, but why you don't like it. Which is fine, unless the discussion is on the Constitutionality aspect.
Dragonfli
(10,622 posts)burdened to prove it is unconstitutional?
All that really means anyway is whatever Scalia and company say, I think they will uphold the mandate, constitutional or not.
It is and always has been a GOP idea, they appear to be the sort of men that admire Heritage Foundation policy and will bend the law backwards if need be to accommodate the Corporations they so lovingly call citizens with first amendment rights.
Insurance Cartels are their favorite type of "citizen" Corporate ones.
GirlinContempt
(16,987 posts)That's why Thomas' wife has spent buckets of money and time since this started to try to defeat this law, that's why Roberts and Scalia are palling around with the law firm arguing the case, it's all a conspiracy to support the law by doing everything possible to undermine it publicly. I get it now.
JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)You presented that proposal as an example of some bad future law. You did so to help your case in arguing that the ACA is unconstitutional.
But you did not explain what makes your bad law proposal unconstitutional.
A law can be a good law and also be unconstitutional. A law can be a bad law, and still be constitutional.
And so claiming that you think a law is bad does not in and of itself make that law unconstitutional.
Dragonfli
(10,622 posts)is if a law is good or not.
If it is indeed (and quite frankly that depends on the interpretation of humans, corrupt or not) "constitutional" in YOUR (It would appear by boast, EXPERT opinion) or more importantly at the moment, Robert's Supreme Courts Almighty declared constitutional opinion to be deemed "constitutional", then whe need to use the provisions provided in a living document to amend the damned thing so that a really, fucking bad law is no longer constitutional.
You get it?
What really matters is what is right, you keep arguing that whatever matters is only what lawyer bullshit you need to make a bad law all good and legal.
We are really arguing about two different things, on this I wholeheartedly agree: I am arguing for what appears to me to be an axiom, if it is bad, don't make it law.
You are arguing, "prove I can't get away with it" because I want it to be law.
JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)Not the "goodness"
You seem to miss that.
Throughout our history, bad laws have passed. And the Constitution was not, and is not perfect. Originally, women could not vote as one simple example.
So yes, it is a living document.
The OP's point is that those who claim this law forces everyone to buy insurance are wrong. And the OP is correct.
Now ... you would like to discuss what is "right" ... as if what is "right" is an easy thing to determine.
You claim the mandate is "bad". Ok ... let's test that. The mandate only applies to those who can afford to buy insurance. The law also says that those who can't afford it get either subsidies so they can, or expeditions from the penalty.
I think that this particularly legal structure for the mandate is acceptable if and only if, it also means (a) those with pre-existing conditions get covered, (b) no life time caps, and (c) can't drop some one when they get sick.
Would single payer be better, sure. But is the combination of a mandate, plus regulations to protect people in situations a, b, c a law that I think is "bad".
Nope.
On edit: Start there ... and continue push to single payer.
Dragonfli
(10,622 posts)I think that my proposal and the Heritage Foundation law are both unconstitutional, I simply do not claim to be the expert you claim to be. It really doesn't matter what Joe on the internet thinks about constitutional law, not unless you are arguing before them.
So basically you are using your beyond reproach expertise in constitutional law to argue, shit, a steaming pile of it, is constitutional mainly because you want this stinky shit passed. Perhaps you are correct, I doubt it, but if you are, then time to change the Constitution yet again.
JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)If no one buys insurance, then we all pay the tax / penalty.
Second, you can't force people to participate in an industry that they already participate in. And for all practical purposes, every one of us already participates in the health care industry.
The instant you are born in a hospital, you've just participated in the Health Care industry. Go see a doctor, you just participated. Even the purchase of over the counter drugs is "participation" in the health care industry. I suppose you could make the Christian Science position that you will pray away illness .... but even they face consequences when they allow a child to die by not treating a simple illness that ultimately kills that child ... if that's not force, what is?
And so again, you can not be forced to do something that you are already doing, and that is participating in the health care industry.
hughee99
(16,113 posts)Virtually everyone participates in the banking industry whether they like it or not. You're really working hard to "find" a constitutional justification for this when, I'm sorry, there just isn't one. Unless, of course, you want to interpret the commerce clause so broadly that it can be used to justify virtually anything the government wants to do. In that case, though, you now need to be willing to defend giving the government such sweeping authority.
JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)The commerce clause give the congress the ability to regulate interstate commerce. As far as I am aware, the Constitution does not describe specific limits on how they do so.
Can you outline the limits that you find there?
hughee99
(16,113 posts)to be part of regulating it, nor would i consider creating a financial penalty for those who choose not to engage in interstate commerce to be "regulating it" either.
I don't want to sound like a freeper on this, but the interstate commerce clause is not, nor should be, a justification for the government to tell people what they have to do with the money left over after taxes. If the government is going to REQUIRE you to do something with your money, they should tax you and spend the money for that purpose to ensure that it gets done. I'm all for single payer paid for by TAX revenue, I don't think they government should be able to tell you "either give your money to some private company (you get to pick which one) or we will fine you". Not for health insurance or for anything else. If it's so important that EVERYONE needs to have it, the government should be running it (even if they do subcontract the day-to-day operations to a private company).
JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)you already participate in.
Even if you are a Christian Scientist, and you avoid all participation in health care ... if you get hit by a car, or if you have a heart attack on the street, you will participate in the health care industry.
And, if you have no insurance your treatment costs are passed on to everyone else. And in that sense, we are all participating in the Health care industry together.
Now ... if hospitals did not have to treat you when you showed up in an ambulance with no coverage, then the situation might be different. If you could wear something that indicated that you "opted out", maybe there is a case to be made.
But that's not reality. The health care industry is unique because it provides services even if you don't have insurance and can't pay for them. And so again, we are already participating.
hughee99
(16,113 posts)If the government wants everyone to have insurance, it should offer insurance to anyone who wants it, not require people to turn their money over to the the for-profit health insurance industry.
And in any case, you're suggesting that we need this because the health care industry has to bear the cost of the uninsured. How exactly does this fix the issue when the private company I've been forced to buy my insurance from DENIES my coverage for a specific procedure?
The reason everyone is going to be forced into this isn't because of a desire to have everyone insured, it's because with the other regulations that are being implemented, the costs will be such that the only way to make this work is to force all the people who can afford, but don't have, insurance to pay for it. As these are likely those less likely to use the insurance, it will be a financial boon to the private insurance industry, which was the payoff for having their lobbyists not completely derail this.
The minute the public option disappeared, it was clear that this plan was just fucked. Yes, there are certainly good parts of the bill, like the pre-existing conditions rules, but it's going to be implemented at the cost of freedoms to all Americans. There's other, better ways to do this.
rgbecker
(4,831 posts)The freedom to buy an insurance plan that doesn't meet the ACA's standards? And ?
Actually there will still be insurance companies offering those plans, they just won't excuse you from the tax penalty provision.
hughee99
(16,113 posts)that allows the government to direct your personal spending. The fact that the current penalty "isn't very much", as some would suggest, is irrelevant since the size of the fine isn't the issues, it's the fact that they can impose one at all. The proper way to handle this issue is to tax people for this and spend that money on it, like medicare. This is a hack, as computer programmers would say, and a bad one in which we potentially create more issues than we solve. As the mandate seems to be required to make the system work, what happens if insurance rates rise and congress either decides to raise the penalty significantly, or drop the penalty to a dollar? Either of these actions would make this whole thing fall apart.
girl gone mad
(20,634 posts)First of all, even if it were true (I'll get to why your statement contains more truthiness than truth) what would be wrong with that? Isn't that exactly what we should want: socialized medical care?
Now for why it's not really true. If I'm uninsured and get hit by a car or have a heart attack on the street, sure, I'll get some basic level of care at the hospital. Then I'll get a big fat bill. Since I have income and assets, the hospital will come after me to collect. I could probably negotiate some sort of payment plan (still much higher than what the insurers would pay for the same services), which is what ultimately happens in many of these cases. If I ended up in bankruptcy, the hospital would probably pass the bill along to the government, as you point out. The government spends tens of billions paying for uncompensated medical costs each year. Right now it adds to our deficit - which is a pretty good thing to do during recessionary periods such as the one we're currently in.
But, wait, that's not all. Most people who go through medical bankruptcies have insurance. Will you guys that continually push this talking point about the costs of the uninsured being passed on to everyone else ever address this fact? The ACA will not put a stop to medical bankruptcies. There's actually no guarantee it won't make the problem worse, since the insured seek out more medical care, get more unnecessary procedures, and don't always have better outcomes, despite the higher costs.
JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)Also ... your math does not work out.
After your car accident or heart attack, you get treated. That costs money. You claim that you have assets that they will take from you. Perhaps. But do those assets actually cover all the costs?
In many cases no. I have a 27 year old nephew in law. He had a low paying job, no insurance, no assets. He crashed his motorcycle, broke both legs, spent 3 months in the hospital. He has no assets to take. The hospital will eat that cost and write it off as a loss. Which gets passed back to the rest of us.
As for your point about people with insurance going bankrupt ... you are correct ... now think about why ... the reason that could happen before is that insurance companies could kick you off their plan when you got sick, hit the lifetime maximum, or if you had a pre-existing conditions ... that's one of the critical parts of the ACA ... to NOT allow insurers to do any of those things going forward, thus stoping such bankruptcies.
girl gone mad
(20,634 posts)in the form of a tax write-off or recompensation through the Medicare program. It does not get "passed back to the rest of us". That's where you're confused about how our economic system functions.
The reason insured people go bankrupt is usually either because they can't afford the co-pays or the insurer denies the claims. Neither of these issues are addressed in the ACA. Nor does the ACA prevent insurers from kicking patients off of their plan when they get sick.
You guys who spend so much time defending this junk should try actually reading it.
JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)The ACA does not allow insurers to kick you off the plan if you get sick. Its actually part of the legislation.
Same as no life time caps. Those are gone too.
And the costs of the uninsured do get passed back to the rest of us because health care providers, when they write off the loss from some one who can not pay ... they still lose money, the can not write off the full cost ... so they raise their costs ... and that moves right back into your premiums.
And again ... you still do not provide a reason that the mandate should be considered unconstitutional.
I'm still waiting for that.
girl gone mad
(20,634 posts)This is one of the most common ways insurers remove unwanted customers now.
Hospitals are reimbursed in one form or another for virtually all uncompensated care. Any added costs won't go away under the ACA because uncompensated care won't go away. This bill really doesn't resolve the issue. it shifts a fraction of those uncompensated costs from the Medicare DSH program on to young working people, but it doesn't eliminate the problem of unaffordable co-pays, denied claims, or unhealthy patients being pushed off of private plans to lower quality plans or government care.
ETA: I actually think this is a terrible way to deal with uncompensated care from a macroeconomic perspective. When Medicare pays for the costs, we're efficiently putting more money into the private sector. By forcing young workers to bear these costs, instead, we're taking money out of the private sector. Worse, we're doing it on the backs of a segment of the population which is already facing too many challenges, from student debt to diminishing employment opportunities.
The Constitution does not give the federal government the right to create commerce, and the power to tax is a governmental, not private, power. In this case, I agree with the lower court ruling, which said in part, "This economic mandate represents a wholly novel and potentially unbounded assertion of congressional authority: the ability to compel Americans to purchase an expensive health insurance product they have elected not to buy, and to make them repurchase that insurance product every month for their entire lives."
rgbecker
(4,831 posts)adam in oregon
(32 posts)They can regulate commerce that exists. They can not force you to engage in commerce. The interstate commerce clause has been so twisted in the last 50 years it is frightening. Look up Wickard vs. Filburn. Gonzales vs. Raich. And tax and penalty are different under the law, and so have to be argued differently. It is what tripped up the US lawyer during the first day of arguments.
JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)Even if you trade chickens to do so.
You even participate via your contributions to Medicare tax.
And the penalty is treated as a TAX. That's why the IRS collects it.
BTW ... As I understand it, the court ruling in Wickard vs. Fishburn creates a precedent for the HCR mandate.
Or do I miss read it? Or are you claiming that ruling, and the subsequent one you mention were wrongly decided?
Also ... I'm not sure how you compare HC to those anyway ... no one is growing HC for their own use. The vast majority of Americans obtain HC from the HC market. And congress gets to regulate that market.
A better comparison might be this ... you can have a cow, and milk it, and drink that milk. But the law won't let you sell that milk without meeting some regulations.
Also, the HC industry has a rather unique element. If you collapse in the street, you get treated regardless of your ability to pay. In that situation, the industry is required to provide a product to some one who can't pay for it. That has a direct effect on the HC market.
Now ... how the current SC will rule we have no idea. I suspect that if the current President was Romney, the conservative judges would up hold the mandate and also declare the requirement for coverage of pre-exiting conditions unconstitutional.
In other words, no matter what the current court does, I doubt it provides a reasoned position on this topic.
1monster
(11,012 posts)My family income says we can afford insurance, but our budget says we can't. Only my husband has health insurance and that is through his work where his employers pay a big piece of it. Private insurance for my family of three was $1,369.00 per month with a $3,000 deductible, and an 80/20 split for the first $10,000 before paying 100% the last time I checked. That's $16,428 per year. In 2009, we had the largest out of pocket medical bills since our insurance company decided to leave the state and dropped us. The family total for that year (including my husband's copays) was $1,650. One tenth of what the insurance premiums would have been.
Tobin S.
(10,418 posts)What happens if you get cancer or heart disease?
Your insurance bill would be much lower in a group plan which is what you would have if the current law stands. I just got covered at work and I'll be paying about $2000 a year in premiums for me and my wife. It won't go up if we have children.
rgbecker
(4,831 posts)You won't have to pay the tax penalty if you don't get the coverage. The insurance coverage will have to meet the Obamacare rules of coverage for pre-existing conditions etc. and it could be the coverage will be quite high. But no one will have to buy insurance. They may have to pay a tax penalty if they don't buy insurance that is priced below 8.5% of income or if they don't sign up for available free or subsidized coverage but no where in the law will anyone have to pay to an evil insurance company any money if they choose to not have insurance. Hopefully, as more people who are presently in good health, look at their options, they will start paying in and that will decrease the cost of everyone's portion and decrease deductibles, co pays etc.
dragonlady
(3,577 posts)This is according to what I heard at a recent health care law forum. That figure currently amounts to about $90,000 for a family of four.
I don't know for sure, but the subsidy is probably on a sliding scale.
1monster
(11,012 posts)coverage.
I have been offered 50% coverage with a $5000 deductible fore what is $125 more than 8.5%. Do I have to accept substand coverage?
rgbecker
(4,831 posts)Unfortunately, what the insurance companies can offer isn't suddenly going to be affordable. Nothing in the Law as far as I know will require a certain rate. Now also there is no law requiring a certain rate. There will be minimum coverage requirements and a more transparent marketing place via the internet. Will insurance companies be allowed to offer high deductibles and different co-pays? I think they will, as the cost will shift too much to the states if they don't. Most states will be subsidizing a range of income levels between medicare and the 8.5% rate.
subterranean
(3,427 posts)The more you make, the less subsidy you'll get.
Marr
(20,317 posts)We're still talking about insurance, not healthcare. So we have tax dollars being shoveled into the insurance industry in the form of subsidies, and the benefit is "coverage", which means whatever they say it means.
appleannie1
(5,067 posts)I would rather have single payer but anything that saves lives works for me.
Poll_Blind
(23,864 posts)PB
rgbecker
(4,831 posts)If I pay the fine (Tax penalty) and get insurance then maybe you could say I was required to buy insurance. But there is nothing in ACA that says you get coverage by paying a fine. So how is paying a fine making me buy insurance? By the way, if I have to buy insurance, please tell me to whom to write the check out to. Must be in the ACA somewhere, Scalia says so!
Poll_Blind
(23,864 posts)PB
The pretzel logic in this thread is blowing me away.
You're mandated to stop at red lights. If you don't, you'll receive a fine (or conceivably go to jail if you don't pay it).
rgbecker
(4,831 posts)Call it what you want, fine, mandate, command, threat, but no where in the law are you required to pay an insurance company for health insurance if you don't want to. If you don't want insurance coverage, simply pay the IRS. If you repeat the opposite, I say your repeating the GOP talking point devised to overturn the law which, however much I don't like it, will provide healthcare for millions who are now forgoing it.
Marr
(20,317 posts)Nice rephrasing though. You aren't "simply paying" the IRS, you are being *fined* by the government for failing to purchase insurance.
Doctor_J
(36,392 posts)I can either pay money and get insurance, or pay money and not get insurance. I thought you are in favor of the law. You "support" of it is decidedly unconvincing.
Maven
(10,533 posts)That's not the point.
It is a FINE for not doing something the government wants you to do.
It makes no fucking difference where the fine goes to.
What the hell are you talking about?
marshall gaines
(347 posts)i believed everything the preacher said until i read the whole bible for myself. read for yourselves. there are too many hidden and not so hidden agendas in this political season. THINK FOR YOURSELVES.
Gman
(24,780 posts)MinisterMelinda
(2 posts)You'd better sit down, folks.
Article 31 of the Iraqi Constitution, drafted by your right-wing Bushies in 2005 and ratified by the Iraqi people, includes state-guaranteed (single payer) healthcare for life for every Iraqi citizen. Article 31 reads: "First: Every citizen has the right to health care. The State shall maintain public health and provide the means of prevention and treatment by building different types of hospitals and health institutions.
This news is an example of the benefit of our online viral information age. The situation was first called to my attention late yesterday (September 8) by a long-term blogger, Korkie Moore-Bruno, on a think tank list of Obama supporters. Korkie posted an alert from her Facebook friend Jubal Harshaw. Give them credit for the heads-up; all I've done was verify the rumor with the United Nations.
It would seem that U. S. citizens might find out if their Representative and/or Senators have supported or voted to fund the war in Iraq. If so, do they support health care as a civil right for you?
If the answers to those questions are "yes" and "no," respectively, you might consider less hypocritical representation.
THERE IS A PDF LINK FOR THE IRAQI CONSTITUTION IN THE ARTICLE. THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION HELPED TO CREATE IT.
rgbecker
(4,831 posts)He forgot to tell us they'd be charging us $110 a barrel.
earthside
(6,960 posts)If the Supreme Court upholds the mandate, here is the future:
The health insurance corporations will immediately begin to use their billions of dollars to begin undercutting every regulation of the ACA that cuts into their profits.
Watch for intense lobbying and campaign contributions to Senators and Representatives to weaken, for instance, the regulation banning denial of coverage for a 'preexisting condition'.
Within a very, very few years we will all be mandated into paying the insurance corporations and be right back where we were before this legislation was passed -- except that the insurance industry will be even richer and will have even more power over us. (And, watch how the shameless Repuglicans will have no problem whatsoever is becoming defenders of an amended, 'deregulated' ACA.)
We all must buy their product or pay a fine -- from the beginning I have thought that there couldn't be a greater gift to the health insurance industry than the mandate on individuals.
Sadly, because of the two party system in this nation that almost requires us to pick one side or the other, we are stuck with the pathetic notion that "Obamacare is all we have to defend."
My biggest disillusion with Pres. Obama is still his capitulation on the 'public plan option' ... let alone his never presenting single-payer as an alternative plan.
Frankly, whether or not the Supreme Court upholds the law or throws it out, I don't think we're going to be much better off (and maybe worse off) in the intermediate term.
denvine
(800 posts)At first, the President wanted a single payer option, but all the Republicans, Blue Dog Democrats and the entire Medical Business Community screamed Socialist. There was no way this piece of legislation was going to pass. Compromise and they came up with a former Republican plan, but now that the President supported it, the Republicans called foul. The American people are watching this and listening to all the blabber mouths, but really coming to grips with the fact that we do need some type of reform. The ACA is not the ideal, better than nothing, but maybe now the single payer option is looking better. Maybe this is a round about way of exposing the Republican plan for what it is and showing that the single payer plan is what we need. Optimist, maybe, but it sounds good.
obxhead
(8,434 posts)man·date [man-deyt] Show IPA noun, verb, -dat·ed, -dat·ing.
noun
1. a command or authorization to act in a particular way on a public issue given by the electorate to its representative: The president had a clear mandate to end the war.
2. a command from a superior court or official to a lower one.
3. an authoritative order or command: a royal mandate.
You can view it however you want to. The fact is you are required to purchase health insurance. There is a penalty for not purchasing that insurance.
If I go speeding down the highway and get caught I get a fine. Just because the penalty is only a fine does not make it any less of a crime.
rgbecker
(4,831 posts)No one, not even the GOP says not getting insurance is a crime.
Speeding is breaking a law. Choosing to pay a tax penalty is simply choosing one option over the other. If you file your 1040 late, you are not breaking a law, you are simply subjecting yourself to the late filing fee. If you don't have enough taxes deducted during the year as estimated tax, you are not "Breaking" the law. You simply are choosing the fine rather than to do what is "Mandated." W. Bush says he was mandated to privatize Social Security. Was he breaking the law by not doing it?
obxhead
(8,434 posts)The penalty for not obeying the mandate is a fine. The fine is for violating the mandate included in the health care law.
rgbecker
(4,831 posts)Call it what you like. Fine, Mandate, Violation. No where in the ACA is there a requirement that you buy insurance. And by that I simply mean: If you do not want to send money to an insurance company and get insurance coverage, don't. Pay the IRS instead and get no coverage. You will not be listed as felon. You will not be put in jail. You will not be deported. Even if you were, you would still be without insurance.
Marr
(20,317 posts)KG
(28,751 posts)obxhead
(8,434 posts)So where does the fine come from?
ETA: If you fail to pay the fine it will be taken out of any tax return you get in the future. You will never escape that money owed to the government.
I would also like to point out you analogy to the fine for filing taxes late. That fine is based on the law requiring you to file by April 15th of every year.
Fines are based on a violation of a law. Just because they can't or won't put you in jail does not make them any less of a violation of law.
TheKentuckian
(25,026 posts)There is no law restricting murder, you may find yourself in the electric chair but nothing prevented you from killing whoever you please is a bunch of idiotic stretching. Or claiming there is no such thing as conscription because you can always run and hide or be shot on the spot of go to prison.
No one claims that Congress can write the laws of physics, no law prevents or directs ANYTHING according to this sham logic. In laws not written by gods but by men, prevention or coercion of action is rarely plausible so actions or inaction (in this case) come with penalties.
You follow this jacked up nonsense to its conclusion and Congress could require us all to report to Catholic Church twice a week for worship and not run afoul of the Freedom of Religion clause because the law cannot force us to go to church and simply subjects to punishment ______.
Or that it is okay for Congress to pass a law that punishes speaking ill of Congress with death because free speech was not abridged, the person wasn't stopped from complaining about Congress, only executed as a penalty.
There is no there there, just a simple minded self justification for most any possible law or command from the government by shifting the debate to Congress no being able to change the nature of the universe so there are no laws.
Yes, we grasp Congress did not enact gravity and its effects.
rgbecker
(4,831 posts)I'm penalized with the wretched income tax if I earn income. The government clearly says "earn income, dare you, then pay the penalty. You must be punished for such an assault on slothfulness. We'd draw and quarter if only the democrats would allow."
I suggest the tax code is legitimately used as method to modify behavior of the citizens but is not usually considered a penalizing method. In fact, most legal penalties are aimed at stopping the aberrant behavior: Incarceration of the thief, death to the killer, revocation of license for the driving while intoxicated. True, many have a fine that could be levied to keep the jails from filling up, but these are collected by the courts, not the IRS.
In the case of ACA we have no courts involved and nothing whatsoever is done to get the offender an insurance policy. To say he must "Buy" health insurance but then leaving out the actual transaction certainly can't be construed into somehow creating commerce.
TheKentuckian
(25,026 posts)The penalty is for inactivity, it does not create the activity.
You are the one redefining words to fit your purpose because you want to make the argument about something other than what it is.
This was not codified as a tax, it just wasn't. More it WILLFULLY was not structured as a tax. This wasn't a slip up but a tactic for a some to be able to claim no new taxes bullshit that you are now trying to spin away and accuse people of disseminating "Republican talking points" like a fool when the objections are so old they were the objections when this was the Republican plan put forward by Heritage, supported by Dole and Gingrich, and implemented by Romney.
Further, even in its own context your accusation makes virtually no sense because most of the objections are not at all the same. Truth is that without some use of old ass Republican talking points one cannot advocate for this legislation because it is built on their worldview, their economic beliefs, their worship of capital, and devotion to "free markets".
Everyone isn't 20 years old or one of those that didn't really follow politics until Bush, Jr. I've been watching this one a long time and it is a Republican machination, regardless of it being orphaned for partisan sniping or not.
pa28
(6,145 posts)obxhead
(8,434 posts)Phlem
(6,323 posts)disguised as democrats. I was just in a thread where the dialogue was strangely frustrating, like talking to an ignorant republican. I wish we had Single Payer for DU cause the R's seem to infect then spread like an ugly tumor.
-p
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)
MNBrewer
(8,462 posts)All they do is allow the criminal justice system to arrest, try and imprison you if you don't comply with the law.
mdmc
(29,068 posts)KG
(28,751 posts)mdmc
(29,068 posts)rgbecker
(4,831 posts)mdmc
(29,068 posts)I lack access to medical treatment because my co-payments are too high.
SmellyFeet
(162 posts)It's been really sad to read the responses.
tularetom
(23,664 posts)The Insurance Companies - they want the individual mandate but they don't want all the conditions and cautions that came with it like not being able to terminate people's policies if they get sick, not being able to force young adults off their parent's policies, etc.
Republicans in Congress - they want the entire thing thrown out so they can use it as a club to smack Obama with during the upcoming presidential campaign. Not that they have any better plan.
The Medical Profession - they don't care, because they will continue to complicate the entire process and charge more for their services regardless of who is paying for it.
Drug Companies - see "Medical Profession" above.
Consumers - they want a single payer system of health care delivery but most of them are afraid to use that term because some asshole on TV told them it was "socialism".
The Obama Administration - I have no fucking idea.
canoeist52
(2,282 posts)earthside
(6,960 posts)I read your post, then had to do some other work ... but what you wrote stuck in my mind.
You have summarized the situation very well.
The Repuglican politicians in Washington are against 'Obamacare' because Pres. Obama is for it --- plain and simple. But absolutely, if the Court upholds the law and mandate, by the next Congress they will be onboard and working diligently to 'deregulate' the ACA. Their outrage over the individual mandate will only exist rhetorically, because their masters, the insurance corporations, will love it.
As for us, the health care consuming rabble? We will be required to buy a corporate product with fewer and fewer consumer protections after every election.
tooeyeten
(1,074 posts)Could we call it what it is "Affordable Care Act"?
rgbecker
(4,831 posts)I'm going with it. And I like it.
1monster
(11,012 posts)Dragonfli
(10,622 posts)a given. I don't think a bronze plan with a deductible I can not afford is affordable.
mike_c
(36,281 posts)Sure, you don't have to buy health insurance, you just have to pay a penalty if you don't. Similarly, no one has to obey traffic laws-- one need only pay a simply penalty for choosing not to.
rgbecker
(4,831 posts)The IRS could fine you to smitherings, til you hadn't a penny. Then the penalty wouldn't apply, and you'd still be walking around and without health insurance.
Try that out on the judge at your next speeding ticket hearing. Then see if they let you keep your license.
Marr
(20,317 posts)I swear to god, party Democrats don't stand for jack shit. It's just whatever services the party's interests at any given moment.
Dragonfli
(10,622 posts)It breaks my heart, to see so much doublespeak and right wing ideology disguised as the "new face of my party".
I must be getting old, this party is nothing like the one I joined, it resembles what the Republican party was when I became a Democrat instead, only with a far worse record on civil liberties than even those Republicans.
ChadwickHenryWard
(862 posts)If not fiduciary penalty, what, if anything, would constitute a government command or compulsion to buy health insurance?
rgbecker
(4,831 posts)How about jail?
Or just make Blue Cross cover you whether you like it or not.
Or not allow you, by physical retraint, within 500 feet of a doctor, hospital or pharmacy.
The truth is, they are not commanding nor compelling you to buy insurance. They are establishing a tax penalty to be paid by those who can afford to buy insurance but who do not get coverage. Even if you don't buy insurance, as far as the ACA goes, nothing happens that will get you insurance if you don't want it. Pay the fine...still no insurance. Don't pay the fine...still no insurance. Nothing in there will get you to buy insurance if you don't want it. Freedom, gotta love it.
Nye Bevan
(25,406 posts)1. everyone pays a tax;
2. you get a tax credit for buying health insurance.
Surely this would have the same end result and I don't see why it wouldn't be constitutional. Am I oversimplifying here?
rgbecker
(4,831 posts)Together it makes a little sense. Simply get the Congress to approve a tax equal to 2.5% of income and at the same time a tax credit 2.5% if you can show health care insurance coverage. Two steps instead of one to fool Antone Scalia.
I'm afraid it won't shut up those who rant that the act somehow makes people get insurance, even if they don't want it and thus indicates that the government is "Fundamentally altering the relationship between the government and the people." But, as I point out in the post, you'll never have insurance unless you choose to get it yourself. The Government is not making anyone write a check or even sign a policy or in anyway engage in the commerce of healthcare insurance. They simply are requiring a tax penalty. If you pay that penalty, you still won't have insurance. How can anyone call that being required to buy insurance? That's easy. It's the GOP scaring people into thinking the government is about to make everyone go down to the Stop and Shop and buy broccoli, stopping at the local gym to work out on the way. Using their hard earned money to do Nancy Pelosi's bidding.
SoutherDem
(2,307 posts)Last week I heard several "news" commentators argue whether the penalty was a mandate or a tax and the old saying if it walks like and duck and quacks like a duck it is a duck.
I know it may just be semantics but apparently this is an important question and could be the pivot point in which this whole argument balances.
Let me make it clear, I am for the mandate or tax, no actually I am for single payer which is taxed directly to be paid for similar to the health care in Canada and many European countries, but which ever way it happens we NEED real health care for this country. We like to claim to be the most advanced country on the planet but we DO have people dying because they can't pay for the care they need.
If we could call it a tax I know the argument which the conservatives would make, "they shouldn't have to pay for anyone else's health care. Well, I don't have children but I pay taxes to help those who do have kids go to school, there are roads which I never drive on but my taxes help build and maintain those roads, and there are law enforcement agencies which I will never receive any protection from but I pay taxes for those too.
My point is we accept paying taxes for things of common good for society, I don't see any difference. So, maybe we should start calling it a tax instead of a penalty or mandate.
TheKentuckian
(25,026 posts)It was written as a penalty, not a tax so it is what it is.
former9thward
(32,003 posts)You must sign a contract with a private corporation or be fined. That is mandatory. I guess if we follow your logic then we really don't have any speed limits on the highways. When a sign says max speed 55 it is not stopping us from going over 55. We will just be fined if we do. So therefore by your logic there are no speed limits anywhere. Good luck selling that crap.
rgbecker
(4,831 posts)If you speed, and keep speeding, you are going to be physically stopped. Then your license will be revoked and you will no longer speed. If you fail to obtain the insurance coverage as specified in the ACA you will be fined (taxed) if your income is high enough and I suppose if you really press it, put in jail. But you will not at that point have insurance. No one will get you insurance if you don't want it. You will not be required to get insurance by the ACA. You are FREE, FREE at last! No insurance ever.
How is it on DU we are hearing all about the awfulness of having to buy insurance when we are not and yet no one is complaining that the government is not making the insurance companies sell us a policy when they are not?
Only explanation is the total buy into the GOP talking point lies and selling us crap!
pinto
(106,886 posts)Baby boomer, retired. AIDS and a recent onset of a siezure disorder. Meds alone, paid by Medicare Part D, are > $1,500 / month. Thanks, Gen X, Gen Y and others in the workplace. You are already contributing to my healthcare as I did for others while I was working. It's called spreading the risks and the costs across all those who pay into the system.
The mandate aims at the same thing. We're all in this together. ACA also aims to lower overall costs and limit the overhead take (profit and operating costs) to insurance companies. And, iirc, Medicare billings and payments in the Western Region are handled by AETNA, an insurance company, acting as the agent for the government program.
Here's the official Medicare funding fact sheet -
Medicare provides health coverage for 47.5 million people.
In 2010, Medicare spent $516 billion for covered items and services. Have you ever wondered where Medicare gets this money? Read this fact sheet to find out, and learn ways that you can help Medicare
save money.
What are the Medicare Trust Funds?
Medicare is paid for through two trust fund accounts held by the U.S. Treasury. These funds can only be used for Medicare.
1. Hospital Insurance (HI) Trust Fund
What does it pay for?
■■Medicare Part A (Hospital Insurance) benefits, such as inpatient hospital care, skilled nursing facility care, home health care, and hospice care
■■Medicare Program administration, such as costs for paying benefits, collecting Medicare taxes, and combating fraud and abuse
How is it funded?
■■Payroll taxes paid by most employees, employers, and people who are self-employed
■■Other sources, such as income taxes paid on Social Security benefits, interest earned on the trust fund investments, and Part A premiums from people who aren’t eligible for premium-free Part A
What are the Medicare Trust Funds? (continued)
2. Supplementary Medical Insurance (SMI) Trust Fund
What does it pay for?
■■Medicare Part B (Medical Insurance) benefits, such as doctor services, outpatient hospital care, home health care not covered under Part A, durable medical equipment, certain preventive services, and lab tests
■■Medicare Part D prescription drug benefits
■■Medicare Program administration, such as costs for paying benefits and for combating fraud and abuse
How is it funded?
■■Funds authorized by Congress
■■Premiums from people enrolled in Part B and Part D
■■Other sources, such as interest earned on the trust fund investments
Note: Federal funding for the Part A, Part B, and Part D benefits for people who join a Medicare Advantage Plan (Part C) is split between the two trust funds. Enrollees may also pay a premium for these benefits.
http://www.medicare.gov/Publications/Pubs/pdf/11396.pdf
pa28
(6,145 posts)Explain this to the people who are going to get whacked by steep tax bills because they lack insurance.
I'm sure they'll understand there is no "mandate".
kudzu22
(1,273 posts)Please note - this is just a thought exercise, not advocation of the following absurd policy or ACA or anything else. It only goes to the question of what is a mandate and what is a tax.
Suppose an all-GOP Congress and President Palin had passed a law that allowed the IRS to tax anyone who didn't have a gun $500 per year. Their rationale is that 9-1-1 is expensive and if you can't protect yourself then the cops have to come and save you at public expense. Would you say that they are mandating you buy a gun?
rgbecker
(4,831 posts)Forget the word Mandate..I don't think you'll find it in the ACA anywhere..what you are asking is if Palincare requires you to buy a gun. That is, write a check, or lay the cash out and get a gun....OR is Sarah happy to simply have you pay $500 and not have a gun. If she really wanted us to have a gun, why not give us each a gun? Or use your Dad's gun or the one your friend gave you? Would that remove the $500 obligation? Not much of a requirement if she lets you just pay $500 to not do it.
We need to know a lot more about Palincare before we know what's up with that...
Meanwhile, the ACA is clear. Get coverage or pay the tax. That tax won't get you insurance. Whether you have insurance or not is entirely up to you. You are free to choose NO INSURANCE. No one is making anybody get, have, buy, sell insurance. Simple. If you don't have insurance and don't want it, you won't get it. Sarah isn't going to buy it for you. Barack isn't going to buy it for you. No insurance company is going to give it to you if you don't pay them and there is nothing the FEDs can do to make you do that.
This should be clear to even the most ardent Ron Paul supporter.
quinnox
(20,600 posts)Gosh, though I'm so relieved that you will allow someone to have an opinion that paying health insurance corps for shitty high deductible insurance or paying a fine to the government is a pile of shit and we can still be Democrats while holding that opinion.
frazzled
(18,402 posts)and don't want to?
If you are currently insured through a plan of your employer's, this new law will change absolutely nothing for you. That's something like more than 85% of Americans. Nothing will change for them.
If you are currently insured through Medicare or Medicaid nothing will change for you. More people will be eligible for Medicaid, but that's about all.
If you are not employer insured and have been unable to buy insurance in the individual market either because of a pre-existing condition or because it would be too expensive for you, this law will allow you to obtain it no matter what condition you have, and will subsidize your insurance if it is too expensive for you to buy on your income.
If you are uninsured and do not wish to be insured, you'll have to pay a tax penalty to cover the cost of treating uninsured people and the cost of helping to insure everyone else. Just like you are taxed for schools you may not use (you don't have kids), or roads you don't use (you don't drive).
But honestly, how many people wailing and moaning already have insurance?
How many would like to have insurance?
How many would refuse to be insured under any circumstances?
SmellyFeet
(162 posts)Interesting that no one is responding.
truedelphi
(32,324 posts)Buy health insurance or be fined.
It is that simple. And like KG added, all the lipstick in the world wouldn't make that pig look good.
Why the Big Insurers were coddled and then allowed to actually draft so many of the provisions I do know: it's called politics.
And right now our political machinery is so broken that many of us don't know how to think about politics any more.
So Rahm meets with these criminals from Big Insurance and he got them to help him right the legislation.
So health care in this country, a nightmare before the ACA of 2010 was signed off on, remains a nightmare.
bluedigger
(17,086 posts)Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)Only families as defined according to Rick Warren get treated as families. So take pride in that fact. You get to add to the injustice in society while selling insurance policies with force of law. Good stuff. God is in the mix, of course that God is the Almighty Dollar.
simplesimon
(13 posts)As far as government mandating insurance goes, here in Wisconsin, as with many other states, one is required not only to pay for and maintain prescribed minimum levels of auto insurance, but to carry proof of this in your car. If you are stopped by an officer, you are asked for the proof as well as your license -- and you darn well better have it.
Sure you can avoid buying auto insurance -- but only if you don't drive. The reason for this is obviously twofold: to protect other people one may be involved with in case of an accident, and, since uninsured/underinsured motorist insurance is part of the requirement, to assure an innocent receives care and not at state expense.
I have never heard anyone bringing up pigs and lipstick concerning this insurance requirement, which I would argue is much closer to a true mandate than the ACA.
Since any one of us is only a bad head-injuring fall away from being reduced to vegetative status I don't see what the problem or the objection is.
retread
(3,762 posts)robinlynne
(15,481 posts)Egalitarian Thug
(12,448 posts)Contortive semantics aside, this insurance-only plan locks the nation into dealing with this extortive cabal, period.
All the wriggling and hair-splitting in the world does not change that.
radarluv
(30 posts)Forgive me if someone else has already made this point before me, but you could quit calling it "Obamacare."
That is a term that the GOP and their assholes love to hear everyone use. Isn't it the "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act"?
progressoid
(49,990 posts)ACA continues that flawed plan.
Puzzledtraveller
(5,937 posts)they have read through it and believe it's really what the country needs and it will work.
Some people think it's a good start towards something better.
Some people support it just because it was democratic legislation, even if they do not actually like it.
Some people support it for strictly partisan reasons.
Some reject it because of the "mandate".
Some reject it because it's not single payer.
Some reject it because they oppose the size and scope and favored piece meal changes to insurance laws.
Every example I've given has been some form of support of opposition by Democrats and Progressives.
Which are you?
I simply oppose it due to the "mandate". I have a right to that opinion and it's not a litmus test. There is too much" you are either with us or against us" chatter on the forums these days. We are better than Republicans beause we have a diversity of opinion.
busteddrum
(2 posts)All things being equal with 2 taxpayers with identical returns except 1 has a deduction for health insurance; the one who does not have insurance will pay more taxes, then pay an additional penalty.
Medicare for all.
Zalatix
(8,994 posts)rgbecker
(4,831 posts)If you think they support Obamacare you had better read up on their latest drivel. I'd agree that it was their brainchild if I thought any of their supporters had a brain. Scalia may tell you the Heritage's Mandate is the center of the ACA but it is just a small park of an attempt to get America's healthcare system out of the gutter.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)against it when the Democrats spoke for it.
Such is the level of Machiavellian politicking in the halls of power.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-weigant/the-individual-mandates-c_b_1386716.html
Element #1: Every resident of the U.S. must, by law, be enrolled in an adequate health care plan to cover major health care costs.
This requirement would imply a compact between the U.S. government and its citizens: in return for the government's accepting an obligation to devise a market-based system guaranteeing access to care and protecting all families from financial distress due to the cost of an illness, each individual must agree to obtain a minimum level of protection. This means that, while government would take on the obligation to find ways of guaranteeing care for those Americans unable to obtain protection in the market, perhaps because of chronic health problems or lack of income, Americans with sufficient means would no longer be able to be "free riders" on society by avoiding sensible health insurance expenditures and relying on others to pay for care in an emergency or in retirement.
Under this arrangement, all households would be required to protect themselves from major medical costs by purchasing health insurance or enrolling in a prepaid health plan. The degree of financial protection can be debated, but the principle of mandatory family protection is central to a universal health care system in America.
Help would be provided in two ways. First, the tax code would be amended, as Chapter 3 describes, to give tax relief to individual purchasers of health insurance or prepaid plans and to provide tax credits for out-of-pocket expenses. Second, government would aid those who, because of income or medical condition, find the cost of protection to be an unreasonable burden. Such aid could take the form of vouchers for purchasing insurance or state-managed systems as described in Chapter 5.
The requirement to obtain basic insurance would have to be enforced. The easiest way to monitor compliance might be for households to furnish proof of insurance when they file their tax returns. If a family were to cancel its insurance, the insurer would be required to notify the government. If the family did not enroll in another plan before the first insurance coverage lapsed and did not provide evidence of financial problems, a fine might be imposed.
GreydeeThos
(958 posts)O****care is a made-up, right wing word used to negatively frame the issue. The first thing we all need to do is stop using right wing definitions in our discussions.
rgbecker
(4,831 posts)I say use it and support it.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20092578-503544.html
I truly believe Obama does care.
dkf
(37,305 posts)That is what makes it a potential problem in terms of the constitution.
Xyzse
(8,217 posts)However, like some people say, this current Health Care reform needs to continue.
There is no such thing as "Repeal and Replace" and any Republican mentioning that is either lying, naive or just does not know the proccess.
Stating that, it shouldn't be called an Individual Mandate as everyone from the time they were born in America or crossed the border, they have become part of the Health Care System.
One can not choose not to be part of the Health Care system as non-participation in insurance is a choice.
If one were to get in to a car crash where one has insurance and another doesnt', both get the same immediate care from Emergency Services.
The difference is that one is basically paid for by the government. Meaning, we already have socialized care as is. The craziest, most expensive type around.
It is a person's responsibility not to be a burden to society and those who opt out of having insurance are a burden to society and opting for socialized care at the greater expense of all.
AzDar
(14,023 posts)
joeybee12
(56,177 posts)In other words, a heavy financial penalty to not buy it...sounds like forcing someone to buy it.
Dragonfli
(10,622 posts)That no one is requiring you to but a shitty bronze plan with high deductibles you can't afford to use, no it is merely a coincidence when you face the punishment for not doing so.
It is almost like you don't know that no one forces you to drive sober, that DWI thing with all the costs and penalties are a separate issue that has nothing to do with enforcing DWI laws.
Now don't you feel dumb, now that you know that everything is permissible, but there are penalties for all you do?
Hell Hath No Fury
(16,327 posts)
rgbecker
(4,831 posts)Good points all, really adds to the debate.
DennisBrault
(1 post)The Op is spot on the money.
Watching “Morning Joe” last Monday morning I was reminded once again how effective, a propaganda tool, a slogan that tells a lie is. Joe and crew repeated over and over again the slogan “Individual Mandate” and falsely stated that it forces an individual to purchase health insurance from the private sector. It does not. The mandate doesn’t mandate that anyone purchase anything. Instead, the “Individual Mandate” penalizes the individual for not purchasing heath insurance.
The correct term should be the “Individual Penalty”. Because there is a penalty that the government assess, on an individual’s tax form, if that individual has not purchased health insurance. So who created the term “Individual mandate” and why? The puppeteers for power and profit?
One can imagine the debate, at the propaganda puppet master’s PR HQ, over which term “Individual Mandate” or “Individual Penalty” would most effectively influence the public mind to achieve their desired goal. It is obvious, by the puppeteers’ choice of the term “Mandate”, that their goal, of creating a negative feeling about ObamaCare, can best be accomplished praying on peoples anger at being told what to do. So why would Obama go along with this?
So the next time you hear the term “Individual Mandate” remember the pysops game the puppet masters are trying to play on you and say “NO”, The proper term is “Individual Penalty”.
http://www.thedailycall.org/?p=16543
TBF
(32,059 posts)It's called "uninsured motorist fee" or something like that.
Personally I think we need to take the profit out and nationalize health care (single payer), but I also don't see having an "uninsured fee" for health care as something onerous or unprecedented in the meantime.
Enrique
(27,461 posts)Back when Hillary was for it and Obama was against it, the mandate was a big issue here and it was exaggerated how evil it was.
Now, when the mandate is discussed here it's usually to defend it from conservatives.