The idea is to a) force the people who can afford health insurance to purchase health insurance and b) provide subsidies for the poor to purchase health insurance.
Obama's Healthcare Reform and the Supreme Court
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The idea is to a) force the people who can afford health insurance to purchase health insurance and b) provide subsidies for the poor to purchase health insurance.
Wait a minute. If that's the case, exactly what the fuck is the problem that the rightwing nutjobs have with it?
Wait a minute. If that's the case, exactly what the fuck is the problem that the rightwing nutjobs have with it?
They're opposed to forcing people to buy health insurance because they believe its an infringement upon personal liberty, and they're opposed to the subsidies because they don't want the government to spend more money on the poor.
Close. They're now CLAIMING to be opposed to forcing people to buy health insurance because they CLAIM to believe it's an infringement upon personal liberty. They Actually oppose it because the Democrats and specifically Obama started supporting it. Prior to that Congressional Republicans had been supporting it themselves across at least 3 decades.
Yeah, I'd read this was similar to a plan originally proposed by Republican congressmen in the early 90s, correct?
The healthcare mandate has been supported by conservative think-tanks and Republican leaders going back to the 90s, yes. [Although, some of them claim that they only put forward the idea as a way to take down Clinton's efforts to reform healthcare, and they never really wanted it implemented.] As for the plan as a whole, it's basically what the Republican presidential nominee agreed to put in place back when he was Governor of Massachusetts.
The individual mandate's Republican roots go back even further, to the Nixon administration.
It wouldn't be the first time either the Right Wing or Left Wing have reversed themselves and retconned their ideology.
"u can haz hlth ins lol"
The text messages are really annoying...
Exactly right, it was a compromise that kept Insurance Companies in the system-- though a lot of Republicans argue they were never crazy about the idea, they just needed an alternative to a nationalized healthcare system (which Democrats have been fighting for for decades).
And if we eliminated 86% of health care spending so that the average inflation adjusted per-capita health-care costs were a thousand dollars instead of $7,500, we would have 1970's costs which Nixon thought the government could afford. Back then health care was cheap.
As a percentage of GDP (and our per capita GDP is near the highest), our public sector health care spending is already higher than the public sector spending in Japan, the UK, Canada, Australia, Spain, and Italy. Our private sector spending is even higher than our public sector spending,
This is a sad, sad, statement. I don't really know whether to laugh or feel sorry for the state of politics in the U.S. (Although we are not much better, up here. The polarity between our two main parties is widening and the importance of making decisions that are good for the people is getting lost in the rhetoric.)
I am glad, though, that something is being put in place, in the States, to look after those who need health care.
This unfortunately fits very closely with the image I've built of the state of US politics from the perspective of across the pond. To wit, that the Republicans will automatically fight against anything Obama wants to do, whether it's objectively for their own benefit or not, simply because he is Obama.
And why would they have a problem with him being Obama? Because he's black. I can see no other reason.
.
The bastard has a Muslim-y name. Don't forget to list that amongst his crimes.
Well, Scalia joked it. Basically, if you are poor enough to qualify for medicaid, you are exempt from having to pay a penalty.
Wait a minute. If that's the case, exactly what the fuck is the problem that the rightwing nutjobs have with it?
They're opposed to forcing people to buy health insurance because they believe its an infringement upon personal liberty, and they're opposed to the subsidies because they don't want the government to spend more money on the poor.
In short?
They're stupid assholes.
Who doesn't want insurance? Even if you are young and never visit the doctor you wanna be covered in case you have an accident which might cost a five-digit amount. So this freedom talk makes no sense, it's like claiming that there is something worthwhile about being free to not have electricity, water or food.
Furthermore forcing everybody to buy health insurance is actually a good thing as it solves the adverse selection problem. If health insurance is optional and insurance companies cannot determine how likely it is that you are becoming sick they will charge an average fee so the healthiest folks will not buy insurance, the quality of the pool becomes worse, the company has to raise its fees and so on until we reach a high fee, bad quality equilibrium. i.e. only high-risk people might get insurance ... although healthier people would also like to buy some.
So there is a market imperfection and this warrants governmental interference in the form of forcing everybody to buy insurance.
Of course the evil word for right-wingers in there is market imperfection.
Furthermore forcing everybody to buy health insurance is actually a good thing as it solves the adverse selection problem. If health insurance is optional and insurance companies cannot determine how likely it is that you are becoming sick they will charge an average fee so the healthiest folks will not buy insurance, the quality of the pool becomes worse, the company has to raise its fees and so on until we reach a high fee, bad quality equilibrium. i.e. only high-risk people might get insurance ... although healthier people would also like to buy some.
So there is a market imperfection and this warrants governmental interference in the form of forcing everybody to buy insurance.
Of course the evil word for right-wingers in there is market imperfection.
People want insurance. They don't want to be told to buy insurance.
Maybe we could just have them sign a legally binding waiver that if they get sick or injured, and they chose the "freedom" of not buying health insurance, they are on their own. No medicines, no emergency room, no surgery, nothing. They could be free to die in the streets rather than have a Federal Gubment ambulance come and help them.
Would that be better?
At this point they would denounce Reagan if Obama said that he was his favorite President.