Althouse: "[W]e're on the verge of enacting a policy that is due to explode..."

October 25, 2009

"[W]e're on the verge of enacting a policy that is due to explode..."

"... penalizing many of the very people that it was ostensibly designed to help."

24 comments:

rhhardin said...: The worst cost is the vast flow of money through Washington.; 10/25/09, 3:12 PM
Anonymous said...: The individual mandate is not designed to help anyone. It is designed solely to take money from some people and give it to other people who will use it to purchase health care.

It is the elderly stealing money from young people to pay for their expensive health care.

Nothing more.

Generational theft.; 10/25/09, 3:16 PM
Anonymous said...: Here's the real reason for the mandate:

"For many people, the health insurance aid would phase out when food stamps, housing vouchers and the earned income tax credit also end and the personal income tax kicks in."

This is a convenient way to ensure poverty continues as a way of life for generations to come.

Keep the poor down.

That's what this is all about, folks.

Don't earn too much, or your check will stop coming.

Stay poor.

And anyone who votes for this ObamaCare is signalling to all their hatred of poor and downtrodden people.

Lincoln is weeping.; 10/25/09, 3:23 PM
Prosqtor said...: Florida, you do make a good point about the accumulating incentives of government subsidies.; 10/25/09, 3:30 PM
Automatic_Wing said...: The whole point of this exercise is to give the politians more control over the economy and the citizenry. Any other effects, positive or negative, are purely incidental.; 10/25/09, 3:32 PM
miller said...: You are all such negative people.

These plans are served up with the very best of intentions.

You should just shut up because He Won.; 10/25/09, 3:33 PM
Gahrie said...: Florida:

While your point is true, it is not the real reason there will always be poor. The real reason there will always be poor is that we continue to move the goal posts.

The average "poor" person in the United States today has indoor plumbing, central heating and/or air conditioning, electricity, gas, a fully stocked kitchen (including a microwave), at least one color TV, and a car.

They use cellphones (usually everyone in the family), and dress expensively, including buying their children $100 tennis shoes.

The biggest health problem with the poor in the US today is obesity.

The poor in the US today have a higher standard of living than the upper middle class 100 years ago. They live better than 90% of all the people who have ever lived on this planet.; 10/25/09, 3:44 PM
traditionalguy said...: After the instant remaining industrial collapse planned for us by enacting a Cap and Steal Tax on all industrial use of energy in the USA, our absentee Chinese owners will simply start Chinese Herbal Clinics in Walmart stores for their new serfs.; 10/25/09, 3:48 PM
John Stodder said...: Despite all these paradoxes, contradictions and clear indications of looming disaster, this bill is going to pass because three powerful individuals, Obama, Reid and Pelosi need a win. The media will cover it like a sporting event, and applaud the winners. What happens next will be continually described as "unexpected" and "disappointing" but no blame will be cast upon these three supremely selfish individuals.; 10/25/09, 3:54 PM
The Crack Emcee said...: It's the housing crisis all over again.

Some fools never learn.

The Macho Response.; 10/25/09, 4:00 PM
jaed said...: The individual mandate is not designed to help anyone.

Mmmm, not quite. The goal is to help insurance companies by making purchase of their product mandatory. Therefore (the reasoning goes), the said companies would refrain from objecting too strenuously to the other controls (banning products like major-medical insurance and HSA plans) and to the existence of a government insurance plan designed to eventually take over all medical care. The idea was that the "mandate" was the bone thrown to the insurance companies, as bones were thrown to other groups, so they wouldn't squawk too much about Obamacare.

However, the Baucus bill messed that up by weakening the mandate enough so the insurance companies no longer receive a large enough bone. Hence their pushback in the last couple of weeks.

None of this has anything to do with helping "poor people" or "ordinary families" or "people who can't afford insurance", however. It's pure political logrolling.; 10/25/09, 4:02 PM
Anonymous said...: The Democrats long term goal is socialized medicine. All these problems, crazy disincentives, rationing, lack of innovation, decreasing level of care, etc will all be used to justify the long march to universal single payer health care or socialized medicine.; 10/25/09, 4:13 PM
Alex said...: First off, we have a student loan bubble and now we're going to create a health care bubble. America is a bubble paradise!; 10/25/09, 5:03 PM
Wince said...: A good explanation of the Obama disaster in the making.

Create huge disincentives to work at all levels of the income scale, all the while foisting the cost of providing "necessities" for an increasing share of the population on the backs of a shrinking share of the population already struggling to pay for their own.

Good luck with that.; 10/25/09, 5:17 PM
former law student said...: I agree with Cowen: Like the Netherlands, we're going to need income equality for universal health care to work. We should immediately raise the top marginal tax rate to the Dutch 52%.; 10/25/09, 5:53 PM
TosaGuy said...: The Warren Buffets of the nation won't pay 52 percent income tax...because they don't have income.

Why does DTL want people who make less money than Buffett pay so much income taxes?; 10/25/09, 6:03 PM
Anonymous said...: "Mandate creep" is real. Did you know that the Congress in the original TARP mandated that insurers provide mental health coverage in the same ratio that they covered physical health issues?

Tarp and Insurance

Government control is a large reason why costs are going up now. Why should we give them even more control?; 10/25/09, 6:03 PM
Phil 314 said...: As someone in the business, its clear to me that if you're going to have an insurance-based system and eliminate individual rating/pre-existing condition, you will need a robust individual mandate. Now understand, that does NOTHING for controlling costs it just allows enough dollars in to underwrite the universal coverage.

As it stands right now the penalties aren't strong enough.

And as an FYI regarding the insurance companies I would refer you here.

Back in July, President Obama asserted that health insurance companies are making “record profits.” Not really. The Annenberg Public Policy Center’s FactCheck.org reported, “In general, the health insurance industry did poorly toward the end of 2008 and in the first quarter of 2009, so record profits weren’t likely in the second quarter.” Averaging profits of 3.3 percent, health insurers are the 86th most profitable industry in the U.S., well behind chain restaurants (7.7 percent), electric utilities (6.2 percent), and brewers (18 percent), but ahead of major auto manufacturers (-3.3 percent), resorts and casinos (-8.9 percent), and major airlines (-11 percent).; 10/25/09, 6:19 PM
Anonymous said...: Breaking:

In a blow to the working man, Democrats announced they will not require businesses to provide health insurance for workers.

Instead, working men and women will be required to buy it themselves.

This amounts to a huge Democrat-enforced pay cut for most working Americans. Estimates for a family of four are $14,000 per year for newly-required health insurance.

Scurrying like cockroaches, Democrats readying the plan understandably don't want their names used. And newspaper reporters agreed to help hide them from what is sure to be an angry public:

"The officials spoke on condition of anonymity, saying they were not authorized to discuss the private negotiations involving key Senate Democrats and the White House."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33470039/ns/politics-health_care_reform/; 10/25/09, 6:31 PM
former law student said...: The Warren Buffets of the nation [Netherlands] won't pay 52 percent income tax...because they don't have income.

Ah, but they do have wealth, and the Netherlands have a wealth tax. You must pay over 1.2% of your wealth every year, minus the value of your house and a zero bracket amount.; 10/25/09, 7:03 PM
kentuckyliz said...: The middle class is dying out as manufacturing leaves, even worsened by the cap and trade assault.

We're about to have a massive underclass.

I'm doing my best not to join it but I've already asked my sister not to let me become a bag lady, can I live in the barn if it comes to that.

I'm going to become an indentured servant on the family farm.; 10/25/09, 7:49 PM
TosaGuy said...: So people trying to get wealthy pay 52 percent tax and those with wealth pay 1.2 percent on a pile of money that grows probably 5-10 percent a year. Sounds like the wealthy of the Netherlands have a sweet deal that keeps those up and comers out of their fun little club.

Be careful when people want you to fight in their class war. Many of them see friendly fire as a good thing.; 10/25/09, 10:41 PM
1775OGG said...: First, IMHO, the "mandate" is not Constitutional! Yet, with the example of Medicare being tested, IB, the mandate might skate through.

Secondly, what we wish doesn't seem to matter. the only thing that seems to matter is the desire on the part of the Dems to control our lives, to turn this country into a workers' paradise. The Dems want this effort to succeed where so many efforts have failed in other countries.

God help us make it through the next 3 1/2 years.; 10/25/09, 11:06 PM
Phil 314 said...: This amounts to a huge Democrat-enforced pay cut for most working Americans. Estimates for a family of four are $14,000 per year for newly-required health insurance.

So are you suggesting that an employer mandate wouldn't also cut salaries. The very origin of employer-based healthcare was from a desire of employers to pay their workers more in an era of wage-price controls.; 10/26/09, 11:22 AM