The right wing is attacking health care reform by using the courts to file constitutional challenges to the individual mandate. They assume that if they can convince the courts that the mandate is unconstitutional, they can unravel the changes to our health care system that were enacted into law and signed by the President earlier this year. The Obama administration and those many Americans who will benefit from the bill need not be concerned. A narrow ruling on this ground will have minimal effect. As we were able to demonstrate in Vermont, the expansion of our health care system can work without a mandate.
The academic thinking behind the need for an individual mandate suggests that without one, there will be a certain number of "free riders" -- people who will essentially bet that they can go without insurance because if they do get sick they will be taken care of anyway and the costs are passed on to the rest of us. Some argue that the elimination of " pre-existing condition" loopholes necessitates an individual mandate to prevent large premium increases. While the mandate does increase the number of insured Americans, and it does spread risk among a greater number of insured Americans by requiring them to be in the insurance pool, the expansion of the system envisioned in the bill can work without a mandate.
In 1992, Vermont embarked on fundamental health care reform. With help in part from a Medicaid waiver from the Clinton Administration, we have had universal coverage for Vermonters under the age of eighteen for nearly twenty years. Over that time, Vermont has had a generation of experience allowing families who make less than $65,000 buy into Medicaid, and 96% of all young people in Vermont have grown up with health coverage. Of that, one percent are not eligible, and three percent who are eligible do not sign up. Compare these results to Massachusetts, which has the only universal health care program in the country for all its people and includes an individual mandate. Almost the exactly the same percentage of people in Massachusetts choose not to get health care. However, while Massachusetts does achieve a higher percentage of insured than it otherwise would without the mandate, Vermont also has a very respectable percentage of coverage without the mandate. (Granted that we are comparing a population under eighteen which cost less to insure than a universal pool.)
The other major reform Vermont embarked on a generation ago was to eliminate the preexisting condition loophole. Because we were surrounded by states which did not do this, we established a waiting period to minimize being deluged by people moving from other states and skewing our insurance pools. We later split off Vermont Blue Cross from its New Hampshire counterpart to prevent it from becoming a for-profit entity.
In the face of much tougher reforms than even the recent Federal law calls for, the insurance and business communities predicted chaos in the insurance industry, mass exits from the state, and huge rate increases at the time. Under the Vermont law, not only were pre-existing conditions eliminated as a cause of insurance denial, insurance companies were not allowed to charge more that 20% over their base rate to any customer. This contrasts to a 300% differential in the recently passed federal bill. After 18 years, while a few bad actor insurance companies have left the state, our market is about the same as many other states and better than most. There are three or four companies who are still in the group and individual markets. And 18 years later, Vermont's insurance costs are in line with most Northeastern states, and significantly less than Massachusetts, New York and New Jersey.
So, once again in their zeal to obstruct, the Republicans have struck out and America will be stronger because of their failure. As a generation of experience in Vermont has shown, an individual mandate is not essential either to achieve near universality or to have a stable insurance market. While its true that the new federal law will expand health care coverage and make the system fairer if it contains an individual mandate, the most important changes will survive, and the bill will still achieve all of it's major goals even without a mandate.
You just won't have any privacy or freedom.
Fair Trade. :)
http://confederateunderground.blogspot.com/2010/10/we-should-thank-111th-congress-for.html
"As Louisiana’s attorney general, I am duty-bound by my oath of office to pursue a request by the governor of the state of Louisiana for legal assistance, so long as it has substantial legal merit.
To save Louisiana the potential expense of filing a separate lawsuit regarding the federal health-care legislation, it was my decision to sign-on to Florida’s well-drafted action at minimal cost to Louisiana and accomplish the same legal purpose.
According to state Department of Health and Hospitals Secretary Alan Levine, a substantial financial burden is imposed on Louisiana by this legislation. According to Secretary Levine, there is a minimum added cost to Louisiana of approximately $350 million a year to implement this act, because Congress passed this as an UNFUNDED MANDATE by the federal government to the state government."
http://www.2theadvocate.com/opinion/89483912.html
whats the argument?
They just raised their rates 25% in Cali
The middle class pays for everything
"
That every citizen, so enrolled and notified, shall, within six months thereafter, provide himself with a good musket or firelock, a sufficient bayonet and belt, two spare flints, and a knapsack, a pouch, with a box therein, to contain not less than twenty four cartridges, suited to the bore of his musket or firelock, each cartridge to contain a proper quantity of powder and ball; or with a good rifle, knapsack, shot-pouch, and powder-horn, twenty balls suited to the bore of his rifle, and a quarter of a pound of powder; and shall appear so armed, accoutred and provided, when called out to exercise or into service"
What a neat buzz phrase. The government pays for all and we get it all for free!
Mandated auto insurance put the auto manufacturers and dealers out of business. Insurance in many cases costs more than the monthly car note. Wonder if mandating health insurance will put hospitals and doctors out of business? Unintended consequences sometimes are crazy, but don't write it off as far-fetched before reviewing the parallels.
Autos in states with mandatory coverage could not sell vehicles without proof of insurance. Have you noticed that when you go to the doctor, the medical staff won't let you see the doctor unless you show proof of insurance? That was the doctor's office routine even before a mandate. Can you see what's coming after the mandate?
So much for the work (and jobs generated from) designing, manufacturing or selling autos. I HAVE TO FACTOR IN THE INFLATED COST OF MANDATED INSURANCE when I decide to make a purchase of a car. Have you ever asked yourself whether mandating insurance for all spawns innovation or growth?
Same for healthcare mandates. Insurance mandates are the sure-fire way to work towards complacency.
I am sorry but with adding millions of uninsured, prohibiting restriction on preexisting conditions, prohibiting routine visits from co-pay all increase costs to whoever is paying the bill.
At the same time those paying the bill are told they must eat the increase in cost.
In addition to that they are required to join a group, controlled by the Government, that tells them what product they must offer, and the price they can charge.
At the very least those last two points amount to price controls. There is a measure of direct Government control in this law already. These price control provisions seem designed more to drive insurers out of business more than designed to improve health care.
In spite of all this Government intrusion into business the health care system has not been changed one whit!