The claim that this is no different than requiring people to get car insurance . No, this is more like requiring people to buy cars, or at least pay for them. I might digress here and point out that mandatory car insurance is brutally regressive. While 150 a month for full coverage on a new Lexus may not seem like such a bad deal, 80 for liability on an old beater can be crippling.
Anyone remember that great bipartisan triumph, the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005? This was as far as I can tell the only real response our leaders had to the real estate mortgage bubble, no fresh starts anymore. We were told that with the losses due to fraud and "abuse" eliminated the grateful card issuers would be able to lower rates for the honest folk who faithfully paid their obligations. What actually happened, is that once escaping their grasp became more difficult the card issuers simply itghtened the squeeze and the juice got higher.
Tighten the insurance/ big med monopoly stranglehold and costs will come down? Gimme a break!
There are all sorts of reasons that a person may decide to go without health insurance, simple economic self interest undoubtedly being most common, but there are also religious, philosophical, and especially biological factors for avoiding the medical monopoly.
People who prefer macrobiotic or paleolithic food therapies, herbalist, shamanic, acupuncture, prayer, reflexology, or any number of other approaches are out of luck. Free market means choosing between coke and pepsi when it comes to health.
Check out the new mission for the IRS, big Med's collection agency. Mission creep is inevitable, gee, I wonder what other uses the IRS can be put to?
Tens of millions of our most economically marginal countrymen are about slated to be punished economicaly for the benefit of higher social classes. What's progressive or even compassionate about this? Not a damn thing.
Sacriest part though, is when I discuss this topics to my proObama friends, they get a faraway look in their eyes and start reciting to me the benefits of universal public health care. As if anything of that nature that was remotely on the table.
Tighten the insurance/ big med monopoly stranglehold and costs will come down? Gimme a break!
There are all sorts of reasons that a person may decide to go without health insurance, simple economic self interest undoubtedly being most common, but there are also religious, philosophical, and especially biological factors for avoiding the medical monopoly.
People who prefer macrobiotic or paleolithic food therapies, herbalist, shamanic, acupuncture, prayer, reflexology, or any number of other approaches are out of luck. Free market means choosing between coke and pepsi when it comes to health.
Check out the new mission for the IRS, big Med's collection agency. Mission creep is inevitable, gee, I wonder what other uses the IRS can be put to?
Tens of millions of our most economically marginal countrymen are about slated to be punished economicaly for the benefit of higher social classes. What's progressive or even compassionate about this? Not a damn thing.
Sacriest part though, is when I discuss this topics to my proObama friends, they get a faraway look in their eyes and start reciting to me the benefits of universal public health care. As if anything of that nature that was remotely on the table.
