Two Years On: Obamacare

It's still forcing someone to buy something they don't want. That's the crux of the argument.

Instead of having 0 items and being forced to buy 1 item, it's buying 1 item and being forced to buy 2.

 

The crux of the argument is that 'regulating commerce' and 'compulsing commerce' aren't the same thing. If you are already buying one item, there's commerce to be regulated. (Not that I don't have a problem with the law you're referencing).

 

Uninsured users tap into our healthcare system at a rate of approximately $43 billion a year, increasing the average American's insurance bill by approximately $1,000. There's not a lack of commerce. The consumers of that $43 billion worth of goods and services just refuse or can't pay for it.

With that said, I'd be in favor of some kind of escrow system so fringe libertarians could have their "mandate" money returned to their families as long as they pay cash or never use the healthcare system.

 

I'm sure all of the arguments in favor of the bill's constitutionality are based on a completely dispassionate review of the case law...

 

Of course, this denies political reality.

There are people here who know the Con Law better than I do. I doubt anyone knows the politics better.

We could have had this bill in the early 70s. Ted Kennedy and the Senate Dems took your advice, then, and we didn't get another swing at this bill until 1993. This bill finally passed in 2010.

Follow the math.

Also, a note -- there are lots of people contributing on this thread, from seemingly all ideologies, some of which I don't even claim to understand. So, thanks. Informative.

 

Nixon! Ehrlichman! Kaiser!

whitehousetapes.net/clip/richard-nixon-john-ehrlichman-all-incentives-are-toward-less-medical-care

 

I'm not reading 22 pages, but has anybody talked about the economics of this? Boom quipped that we could solve homelessness by mandating homeless people buy houses, but there is actually sound economic, market-based reasoning for an insurance mandate. Without a mandate, something occurs called "adverse selection." It's the same reason that employers have to let everyone buy insurance without investigating their risk factors. There is only so much that a third party like an insurance company can know about a person. Ultimately, high-risk people are apt to buy insurance, and low-risk people, like 25-year-olds are apt to opt out. So costs soar, because insurance companies have to compensate for this fact.

This doesn't address the constitutionality of the mandate - I still think it's a tax and a slam dunk case. But I think the economics are important to understand. Because it is pretty much uncontroverted - as much so as the dark science can be - black letter economics at this point that an insurance system falls apart without a mandate. The libertarian in you may not like the mandate. But the penny pincher in you needs the mandate. You want those 25-year-olds in the pool. You want those 50-year-olds in terrific shape in the pool. Because without them, it's you and a bunch of people who realize that they might need insurance, regardless of what the actuarial table might say. And the insurance companies know this, and they adjust their rates accordingly. Not to gouge. To survive.

 

It's been brought up, but that's a good reminder.

It's also a strong argument that makes the insurance market unique, to my way of thinking.

 

At the end of the day I think we all agree that the health care system needs overhall.

Unfortunately Obamacare seems like it's not going to make it through the court.

It seems like a lot of mistakes were made along the way in trying to jam this bill through. The ones that jump out a me:

1. Obama taking a back seat and letting Nancy Pelosi be the face of bill

2. Nancy Pelosi and her gang putting on political theater by defiantly walking outside Capital on way to vote. This was a real in your face moment that did not have to happen.

3. Obama not sticking with his opinion that he put forth again and again during 2008 Primaries that a federal mandate requiring all to buy health insurance would not fly.

Obviously # 3 is the big one and if law is overturned by the Supreme Court will be the one that does the bill in.

Maybe in planning they gamed this into the process and figured it would come down a Supreme Court decision. What they did not plan for is the incompetence of their Solicitor General in making their case.

 

I'm glad it's been discussed.

I think people are skeptical of politicians, of course, and a certain segment of the population is, obviously, skeptical of what they see as a big government liberal administration. The market-based economic reasoning behind a mandate, again, is not Obama's way of trying to outsmart you or pull a fast one in his goal to push big government. Because of asymmetry of information, insurance markets do not work without a mandate. They just don't. This is basic, and it is very much unique to insurance.

I understand the libertarian argument against the mandate.

I have under understood the mainstream Republican outcry against it. It works.

 

You sound like Scalia