Of course it does. Every liberal policy has unintended consequences. That's why it's a law.
The other headline I was contemplating for this post was "WaPo: Hey, those individual mandate fines are way too low bro." That would have been somewhat misleading, as the article is written by Martin Feldstein and he doesn't actually suggest the need for higher fines. But the unavoidable conclusion from the facts he posits in the article is that once people figure out how best to avoid the higher premiums inevitably caused by ObamaCare, one of the 111 new bureaucracies invented under ObamaCare will have to consistently raise the fines for failing to insure until they're at a level that makes it a real penalty for not insuring.
The higher premium level would cause others who are currently insured to drop coverage, pushing premiums even higher. The result would be a spiral of rising premiums and shrinking numbers of insured.
In an attempt to prevent this, the draft legislation provides penalties for individuals who choose not to buy insurance and for employers that do not offer health insurance. But the levels of these fines are generally too low to cause a rational individual to insure.
Feldstein goes on to explain how families and individuals in most situations will find it far more financially sound to forego insurance coverage and pay the fine than do the reverse. How long do you think it will take before Congress realizes this and starts making the penalties really hurt?
Consider: 27 million people are covered by health insurance purchased directly, i.e. outside employer-based plans. The average cost of an insurance policy with family coverage in 2009 is $13,375. A married couple with a median family income of $75,000 who choose not to insure would be subject to a fine of 2.5 percent of that $75,000, or $1,875. So the family would save a net $11,500 by not insuring. If a serious illness occurs -- a chronic condition or a condition that requires surgery -- they could then buy insurance. Since fewer than one family in four has annual health-care costs that exceed $10,000, the decision to drop coverage looks like a good bet. For a lower-income family, the fine is smaller, and the incentive to be uninsured is even greater.
So, ObamaCare will cause untold numbers of individuals and families to drop their insurance and pay the fine in order to put the money back in their pockets. Less insured and higher insurance premiums; this will inevitably be the legacy of ObamaCare, at least until we start seeing people go to jail for refusing to buy coverage, which we will.
Couple this with the Examiner editorial today:
That American citizens should be fined or even put in federal prison for refusing to purchase government-approved health insurance is as un-American as any idea we can imagine. But such a mandate is the very heart of the bill written behind closed doors by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her privileged pals. If their bill is approved by the House tomorrow, we will be a big step closer to the day when everybody gets their health care insurance through the government or from an approved insurer offering policies that meet meticulously detailed specifications contained in thousands of pages of federal regulations.
The Law of Unintended Consequences is as consistent as gravity. The reason is because supply and demand and the laws of human nature are also as consistent as gravity. Who in their right mind would buy insurance at 10 grand a year knowing that they can buy insurance in the event a catastrophic event occurs when they can save the 10 grand and pay a thousand dollar fine? Nobody.
But liberals, as we know, are never in their right mind.
TIP:
Enter the amount, and click "Tip" to submit!
Don Rich
Two Thumbs
noah tawls
Alaska Progressive
ScratcherMMBI
FrogTown Diva
Salon.com
Comments
–adjective
1. favorable to progress or reform, as in political or religious affairs.
4. favorable to or in accord with concepts of maximum individual freedom possible, esp. as guaranteed by law and secured by governmental protection of civil liberties.
5. favoring or permitting freedom of action, esp. with respect to matters of personal belief or expression: a liberal policy toward dissident artists and writers.
7. free from prejudice or bigotry; tolerant: a liberal attitude toward foreigners.
8. open-minded or tolerant, esp. free of or not bound by traditional or conventional ideas, values, etc.
–noun 14.
a person of liberal principles or views, esp. in politics or religion.
H'm, sounds pretty gosh darned right-minded to me!
Where do I start, with the fact that nothing today's modern liberal espouses even resembles that definition or that the word "liberal", like so many other concepts, has been hijacked and perverted by the totalitarian philosophy of your modern 'progressive'?
You tell me.
I sure does "sound pretty gosh-darned right-minded" and it was, a long, long time ago, when it more accurately defined people of my particular political philosophy. The problem is that your average modern liberal/progressive bears none of these beliefs and their actions belie any adherence whatsoever to "individual freedom" or "freedom of action". In fact, you can more or less define classical liberalism as the polar opposite of everything today's modern liberal stands for.
Likewise, what I meant specifically by liberals not being in their right mind in this context, is that noone on the Left either understands the Law of Unintended Consequences or cares about its ramifications. 'ObamaCare is great because Obama says it's great'. That's the full extent of the liberal's argument on this issue.
Never mind that it will inevitably result in far fewer insureds and higher premium costs; that is a necessary consequence to doing what "feels" good to the liberal. Oh, and then screw "individual freedom", we're gonna fine and jail those who fail to bow down and heed the government's commands.
Keep following sheep...one day they'll come for you too.
Russ
Not to mention, if we can get discounts for tanks, don't you think we should be able to get them for medicine? Especially since our tax dollars go into the R&D for making and developing the damned drugs in the first place?
Then there is the issue of marijuana. Which despite Obama's uninformed and very stupid comments at that town hall, is actually already being tested by the FDA as one of the MOST efficacious drugs for some of the most serious and so far untreatable neurological diseases that so far nobody has been able to treat. And its both cheaper than any other drug on the market, a high cash crop and of course a great source of green jobs. And can be used for everything from drugs to clothing to green energy.
Then of course there is the issue that nobody in power really wants reform. Congress, and of course Obama, gets top flight medical coverage for free, at our expense of course, PLUS the medical industry is one of the biggest backers of every Congressional PAC. Not to mention one of the biggest money makers for Wall Street, which is also THE biggest donor to Congress. And Presidential campaigns.
So this whole damned thing is a "deform" to begin with.
It's also illegal.
Simply because under the disability laws in this country (and most people with disabilities, who are twenty percent of the population, and most live in poverty because of rampant discrimination, with a 90% unemployment rate) are the biggest consumers of medical services) cannot get equal access under a tiered system of medical care they are designing.) Per disability law (both the Rehab Act and the ADA) People With Disabilities are REQUIRED to be allowed under federal law to have EQUAL ACCESS to everything that their able bodied peers are. PRICE is not supposed to be an issue. But you can't of course. I know that very well. I have two very serious neurological disabilities and I can't a neurologist to see me who takes Medicaid since I have been submitted to poverty while waiting over two years for the EEOC to even investigate my damned illegal termination from a six figure salary. Much less get an MRI. Because nobody will take Medicaid for one.
But this has flown right over the heads, and not even entered the debate. In fact Obama never even mentioned PWDs in his speech to Congress on the issue. In fact Congress was even considering at one point eliminating neurological coverage for poor people, which on average costs about thirty grand a year to treat.
This whole thing is FUBAR. And just designed as a massive cluster f*ck to preserve Congress' PAC money on the side.
Just like the wars we are fighting.
It's disgusting.
And this on top of the fact that the real unemployment rate is something like thirty percent, according to people like Robert Reich and Paul Krugman (who aren't counting PWDs) so the real amount of people who are actually drawing a salary right now is about fifty percent. And of those people most people are seeing wage reductions. Plus everyone on social security has already been informed that their fixed income won't even be getting a cost of living adjustment for at least the next two years.
So INCREASING the cost of insurance is stupid, and this whole damned thing has been screwed from the start.
And the reason is that the industry is and has been very good to both Congress and of course the Obama's personally.
You don't get $200K raises as Michelle Obama did, while engaged in patient dumping if you are really committed to health care reform, now do you?
I wonder if you could offer some solutions that you think might actually bring costs down and permit more people to get coverage.
I'll start with ending all prohibitions on interstate sale of insurance policies and real, meaningful tort reform. Just those two things alone I can posit would dramatically reduce the costs health insurance and, as more insurers entered the market and the costs came down more and more people would be able to afford coverage.
Couple that with real tort reform, thus further lowering costs by eliminating the need for multi-million dollar professional malpractice insurance policies to be purchased by doctors, and we could have the twin problems of health care licked literally overnight.
But you're right. ObamaCare has nothing to do with lowering costs or getting people insured and everything to do with the fascists in the Democratic party aggrandizing their own power at the expense of the people of this Country.
In a more rational world, every last one of them would be arrested and tried for "high crimes and misdemeanors" against the people of America and for violating their oaths of office.
Thanks for the comment.
Russ