If anything can save Democrats now, it's populism -- the notion that standing with 80 percent of Americans is real power. That's why the White House and progressives should be cheering the decision by a conservative Virginia judge to strike down the highly-unpopular federal mandate to purchase health insurance and preserve the rest of the federal health care reform law.
Conservatives have tried to repeal the mandate that everyone must buy health insurance as a way of taking out the full law in the court. Today's ruling makes clear that the popular and progressive parts of health care reform could go forward without the big sop to health insurance companies -- mandatory purchases without regulated premiums.
Why would a progressive like me support repeal of mandatory health insurance purchases?
70 percent of Americans consistently oppose mandatory health insurance purchases.
If the last two elections have taught Washington a lesson, it's that we can do anything if 70 percent of Americans agree and do nothing if a majority cannot agree.
Most of the progressive parts of health care reform -- subsidies to buy insurance for the poor and rules to make the marketplace fairer -- enjoy 60 percent to 70 percent public support. Mandatory purchases, however, will consistently suffer the public's wrath because of popular distrust of the insurance industry and the high cost of health insurance premiums. Congressional refusal to limit how much health insurance companies can charge will ensure Americans' distaste only grows.
This issue is a ticking time bomb for Democrats and the courts may yet defuse it.
Beneath the polling, of course, is a strong social mores that the government should not be forcing Americans to buy health insurance that they cannot afford.
As a candidate, President Obama agreed with this popular sentiment. He argued, in stark contrast to Hillary Clinton, that, "The reason people don't have health insurance isn't because they don't want it, it's because they can't afford it." Once in office, Obama conceded to the Washington wisdom that government cannot force insurance companies to sell policies to all
citizens without requiring that everyone have to buy it.
The notion that mandatory insurance is necessary for a "take-all-comers" law to succeed, like so many assumptions in the Beltway, needs to be reexamined. Fear of gaming by those who won't buy insurance until they are sick can be alleviated by creating greater carrots for buying coverage and less severe deterrents for failing to, such as a limited national open-enrollment period.
Current law now requires Americans to spend 8% of their income on health insurance by 2014 or face fines. Sliding scale subsidies would assist a family of four up to $88,000, but the $7,000 the family would have to pay could not even buy a policy likely to meet their needs, since the average policy for the family costs more than $12,000 today.
Mandatory health insurance has not produced lower premiums or health care budget savings in Massachusetts, the laboratory for the experiment. Massachusetts recently adopted strong premium regulation to give consumers relief from the highest health insurance rates in America.
New York, which has a take-all-comers law, is often cited as the disastrous consequence of the failure to enact mandatory purchases. But the empire state also is embarking on tough premium regulation to deal with its problems -- which still rank it lower than Massachusetts in premium prices. Premium regulation is the key.
This principle set me on my journey as a consumer advocate more than twenty
years ago. Californian endured double-digit premium hikes on their auto insurance under mandatory auto insurance laws imposed in 1986. This sparked a voter revolt in 1988 led by the founder of the consumer group I now head, Consumer Watchdog. Proposition 103, passed via ballot measure, created the nation's toughest premium regulation. A 2008 report by the Consumer Federation of America found California motorists have saved $62 billion on their auto insurance bills. Congress has no such appetite for tough regulation, however.
Driving is discretionary, so you can always take the bus rather than buy auto insurance. Breathing and not having to pay more than 8 percent of your income are the only requirements for the 2014 federal insurance mandate. When the public feels that blow, the backlash will make the midterm election look like a baby shower.
There's a lot worth saving in the health care reform overhaul, including provisions I fought for to limit out-of-pocket costs and force insurers to be fairer. Democrats should want to repeal the mandate because otherwise the most progressive parts of health reform could be lost. Laws tend to be repealed based on their most objectionable provisions.
Despite their moral objections to the mandate, Republicans may not want to diffuse the ticking time bomb of mandatory health insurance before it blows up on the Democrats. But they should be wary of standing too close when the bomb goes off. Narrowly repealing mandatory health insurance is something the public and many Democrats agree with, it's the common ground that Americans overwhelming stand on. The political establishment should join
them.
Jamie Court is the president of Consumer Watchdog and author of The Progressive's Guide To Raising Hell: How To Win Grassroots Campaigns, Pass Ballot Box Laws And Get The Change We Voted For (Chelsea Green)
Follow Jamie Court on Twitter: www.twitter.com/RaisingHellNow
Henry E. Hudson - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hudson, Henry E. - History of the Federal Judiciary
Henry E. Hudson - Bio, News, Photos - Washington Times
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Maybe then Americans will be ready for Single Payer, but probably not. They will probably listen to the "heath" insurance industry and support abolishing all provisions of this health care act.
But I do get your point.
After all, why pay for coverage when you don’t need it if you can just buy it for the same price when you do need it? Of course, no insurance system could survive if only the sick bought coverage. So Obamacare simply orders everyone to buy insurance. Having taken the economic logic out of insurance, the law’s champions had to take away the public’s freedom to choose whether to be covered or not.
Drudge
I cannot choose not to be sick. This is a PREPOSTEROUS argument!
Furthermore, if I bought a car I'd have a freaking car. If I am forced to buy health insurance, all I have is insurance!
I was unemployed and offered COBRA, for SIX HUNDRED DOLLARS a month! I got around $325 a week from Unemployment, which is the high end -- which would not even pay the rent!
I chose not to get the COBRA and prayed. Now I'd have to get it or pay a fee tax time.
This is MONSTEROUS! I cannot express how much I hate it.
There are many great provisions in the bill, that is undeniable.
Obama never campaigned on Single Payer, he barely mentioned the Public Option.
Maybe we did have to pass some bill, any bill, to keep our foot in the door on changing the system at all, but I'm rather dismayed by all of the "progressives" who decry the ruling that the mandate is unconstitutional. Forcing us to pay more than we can afford for insurance that is not required to pay claims or charge affordable premiums is NOT something we should all be fighting to preserve.
I would like to see the other 20 states do the same. Progressives need to do their homework so they know what's really going down in Washington and therefore vote accordingly.
Fanned.
Today the essence of insurance is the collection of premiums and making money on the investments. Many insurance companies actually contract out both underwriting and claims handling; their sole interest being collecting the premiums and investing them.
The insurance robbers made an evil pact (sometimes merely tacit, sometimes more formal) with drug companies and medical care providers and some, but by no means all, doctors, to have the costs of care escalate constantly and the cost of insurance increase astronomically to create a larger float for obscene profit for all. Some useful dupes were found in labor unions who began seeking health insurance for their members in lieu of wages and because of some taxation sleight of hand, bought from a willing Congress, employers went along happily.
Health insurancet is simply a case of rapacious gamblers using their political clout to fleece the unsuspecting public through employer, private and government premium money. In return, the insured gets nothing but false promises and the continuing opportunity for medically induced bankruptcy.
Thank you Obama and Dems for preserving this pernicious system and feathering your own financial nests along the way!
A public option would be GOOD but federal control over the administration of health coverage is BAD. History has proven that as segments of our economy are placed under the control of the feds, states lose their ability to regulate those firms doing business within their borders. Eventually those firms all move to NDak or some other consumer-unfriendly state, rates go up dramatically while service suffers equally.
To compare the mandated health insurance purchase to a forced automobile purchase: You are required to buy an automobile that you must guess how far you will drive ahead of time, you will pay additional costs every time you actually use it and the it will cost you more to buy it if you are older or need to go farther. Plus, you don't actually get to see the car in action ahead of time, but you can buy a different car next year, if you can prove you bought one this year, otherwise it will cost you more. If your car is not expensive enough, based on your income, we will fine you. Can't see how anyone would stand still for buying a car that way.