Edwards Might Garnish Wages, Withhold Tax Refunds To Enforce Health Insurance Mandate

Kaiser Network ^ | Nov. 30, 2007 | Kaiser

[FocusNexus]

Presidential candidate and former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) on Thursday in an interview said that, under his health care plan, U.S. residents who can afford to pay for health insurance could have their wages garnished or tax refunds withheld in the event that they do not obtain coverage, the Des Moines Register reports. The proposal would require all residents to obtain health insurance, with federal subsidies available to lower-income residents.

Edwards also said that the proposal would enroll uninsured residents in health plans when they use the health care system or public services. He said, "So if you don't have health coverage, and you go to the emergency room, you get enrolled. If you are a five- or six-year-old and you go to kindergarten or sign up for school, you get enrolled, if you're not on a health care plan. If you go to the library, you get picked up."

He added, "When somebody chooses not to be in our health care system, then what they're choosing is that the rest of America is going to pay for their health care" (Leys, Des Moines Register, 11/30).

In related news, the Register on Friday examined how voters "must decide ... if there are two John Edwardses" because, during his 2004 presidential campaign, he advocated a "gradual approach to health reform" but today he "embraces universal health care." According to the Register, his current health care proposal is "choreographed to endear him with his party's left in 2008."

[FocusNexus]

Links to articles they used at link above.

If any of the Dems become president, I don't think anyone can stop socialized medicine.

[samtheman]

If any of the Dems become president, I don't think anyone can stop socialized medicine.

It won't just be socialized medicine. They'll tax and spend us into a depression then build a billion bureaucracies to cope. It will be all socialism, as far as the eye can see.

[Perdogg]

I wonder if he is providing any healthcare coverage for his campaign workers, does any one know?

[JZelle]

Or he could just sell his house.

[reagan_fanatic]

Be afraid. Be very, very afraid.

[Badeye]

If it doesn’t come from the mouth of Elisabeth ‘The Big E’ Edwards, its meaningless.

As we’ve seen over the past year, whenever something is ‘important’ to the Breck Girl, his wife utters commentary about it.

[Ender Wiggin]

He is proposing the Massachusetts health care system- works the same, you don’t sign up, they take your state tax personal exemption and “escrow” it for you.

If you still don’t sign up, there are escalating tax penalties.

[SkyDancer]

So if you have good health coverage now we’d have to cancel it and get this government thing??

[untenured]

I have heard some libertarian-minded people (Steven Landsburg, for one) entertain the possibility that mandatory health insurance, like mandatory car insurance, is justifiably. They do not generally consider the practical consequences of turning over the entire health-care industry to government supervision. On both practical grounds (innovation would grind to a halt) and historical grounds (health care, if it isn’t already, would become irretrievably controlled by the government) the current push toward increasing “coverage” is extremely dangerous.

[Petronski]

Smells like WillardCare.

[Southside_Chicago_Republican]

I’m asking an honest question because I’ve always wondered about some other federal programs and policies. Can anyone tell me what part of the Constitution would authorize the government to do this?

[massgopguy]

Sounds like a violation of the 13th Amendment.

[babble-on]

I think that mandatory coverage is one of the least radical “solutions” out there. It would change relatively little about the current system.

[Grampa Dave]

FYI and ping lists.

Fascism with the elite liberals in control will make the old Euro Fascists look warm and cuddly.

[babble-on]

no, I think just the opposite. If you have coverage now, nothing changes, and if you don’t have coverage now and CAN afford it, you have to buy it. That would cut the famous “45 million uninsured” down by about half.

[tumblindice]

Although our foreign “guests”, as now, will of course be exempt.

[leadhead]

Hope he can get the healthcare industry to go along with his scheme. Our family doctor of 29 years has just stopped accepting Blue Cross because they have made payments to him so low.

[fredhead]

I wonder how this would affect us retired military people, who do not purchase insurance, but rely on our military benefits (Tricare) for our health care needs.

[Secret Agent Man]

“When somebody chooses not to be in our health care system, then what they’re choosing is that the rest of America is going to pay for their health care”...

Choice above all, John. Choice above all. My body, my choice.

Go sit on the Festivus Pole and F#CK YOURSELF, John.

[theBuckwheat]

The effect of this is to substitute tyranny for liberty, for here is the simple end of all this: he is willing to send armed agents to force your grandmother, your son or your wife into this program. Any benefit program that is enforced by the threat of deadly force is totally, absolutely the opposite of the ideas expressed by the Founders in the Constitution.

Edwards’ plan also proves that F.A. Hayek, in The Road to Serfdom, understood the dangers and indeed the evil of good intentions expressed in socialism: that when government substituted its choices in the form of directives, rules and laws to nullify, negate and preclude peaceful and mutually beneficial exchange, it could not but introduce distortions, and temp people to find ways to avoid the edicts by various means. This only leads to more imposition of even more draconian directives, rules and laws to force people to obey the first set of directives, rules and laws. The end result is always the same: the destruction of liberty and personal choice and the increase in economic inefficiency.