Posted on 01/13/2014 12:49:46 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
The Obama administration is trying to persuade millions of uninterested, or perhaps reluctant, Americans to purchase health insurance through the Obamacare exchanges. But the heart of Obamacare is coercion. If Americans fail do what the law's Democratic authors believe is best, the federal government will punish them, through the progressively higher penalties of the individual mandate, until it hurts more not to buy coverage than it does to give up and purchase it.
But what if many of those Americans rebel? Even if they know having health insurance is better than not having it, what if they refuse to be forced to buy the kind of coverage dictated by the government -- which may not really meet their needs -- at prices they don't want to pay? What then?
"I don't think Obamacare can survive without people wanting to buy it," Robert Laszewski, the respected health care analyst whose writings on Obamacare have become essential in recent months, told me in an email exchange recently. "How the hell are you going to enforce a mandate to buy something that people don't think is valuable enough to buy? If the uninsured don't start to see value in Obamacare and buy it, is the Democratic solution to fine the heck out of them until it hurts so much they have to buy it? Great political strategy!"
Of course, that's exactly what the strategy is. Democrats designed the penalty for not having "minimum essential coverage" to start low and increase rapidly. For this year, according to a chart prepared by the Kaiser Family Foundation, the penalty is $95 per adult and $47.50 per child. But the penalty cannot rise above $285, or one percent of family income, whichever is higher. (Obamacare uses a measurement called Modified Adjusted Gross Income to determine penalties -- a measure that is usually higher than the Adjusted Gross Income many taxpayers are familiar with.)
In the second year, the penalty will rise dramatically, to $325 per adult and $162.50 per child, or two percent of family income, whichever is higher. The year after, the penalty will take another big jump, to $695 per adult and $347.50 per child, or 2.5 percent of family income. The only limit on the penalty is that it cannot be higher than the national average premium for a Bronze Plan purchased on the Obamacare exchanges. According to the Congressional Budget Office, that could be as much as $5,000 in 2016. And after that initial increase in the penalty, future penalties will rise according to the cost of living.
But Democrats in Congress feared public reaction to actually forcing Americans to write a check to the government to cover the penalty. So instead, the Internal Revenue Service, which is charged with enforcing Obamacare, will subtract the penalty from the tax refunds of those Americans who incur the penalty, provided they are due a refund. Otherwise, the IRS will not have a way to collect the money.
"In the first year, the mandate is useless," said Laszewski. "One percent isn't strong enough. The IRS can't really collect it anyway from anyone who wants to flaunt it. Then we get to the second and third year. Two percent in 2015 and 2.5 percent in 2016. Now we have real money. The IRS still can't collect it, but lots of people will still be troubled by it because they won't like getting nasty letters from the IRS."
As Laszewski sees it, the mandate could become extremely unpopular -- it's already by far the least popular part of Obamacare -- if policies are not what the public wants to buy. Who would want to be forced to buy something he or she doesn't want? That something is not insurance itself -- it is insurance that is ill-fitting and overpriced. "The problem is that the government will be hard pressed to collect a fine on something lots of people don't believe has value," Laszewski said. "This is when it will become a huge political albatross. At the core Obamacare is not sustainable, and the mandate/fine is not politically sustainable, if there are lots of middle class people who see Obamacare as a poor value."
I got in touch with Laszewski after reading an interview he did with the Washington Post's Ezra Klein in which Laszewski explained that if Obamacare had been designed by businesspeople, it might have had more features to appeal to customers. But it was designed by lawmakers and lobbyists and is something quite different. "The problem with Obamacare is it’s product driven and not market driven," Laszewski told Klein. "They didn’t ask the customer what they wanted. And I think that’s the fundamental problem with Obamacare. It meets the needs of very poor people because you’re giving them health insurance for free. But it doesn’t really meet the needs of healthy people and middle-class people."
Of course, the individual mandate forces people to buy coverage whether it meets their needs or not. And Laszewski sees a real possibility that it won't work. If enough dissatisfied Americans simply don't buy the product, he said, that would create political momentum "to get rid of the mandate/fine -- which is effectively the same thing as getting rid of Obamacare." And if that happens, the American health system will be in entirely uncharted territory.
Sponsoring FReepers are contributing
$10 Each time a New Monthly Donor signs up!
Get more bang for your FR buck!
Click Here To Sign Up Now!
I heard on the radio that Boehner already invited him.
Right now most uninsured people are not rebelling against the law because they aren’t really aware of the law. Nobody has sent any uninsured person a bill for either insurance or the mandate. So they are going on with their lives. They haven’t needed health insurance up to this point, and if they are like most people, they won’t need it until they are old enough to get Medicare.
I’m not worried about the insurance industry collapsing, after all they participated in this attempt to destroy our country. We will just begin our own “pools” and insurance will be reborn without the creeps who attempted to destroy us.
Not I. I would be gone as well but my minor children would be compromised, so I will continue the struggle here. I am teaching them Chinese & Japanese in the hope that they develop an intellectual skill that is valued there in the manner that it used to be valued here before we became a nation of caregivers and burger flippers.
The direction of America's fate is very clear. - When the mass of world wide immigrants reaches a critical mass, then the next (communist) step will be taken to modify the constitution and its goodbye the 2nd - then the real killing begins...
Yeah, seen them before. Seen you in arguments with them.
I don't share their hatred, I feel you were prudent.
HOWEVER
Your message on this very thread seemed like a 'tweak'. It seemed like you were strutting and (mildly) mocking. I admit to feeling a small twinge of irritation at you. That is what prompted me to write.
You might want to look at how these messages can and are being interpreted, how you are coming across, etc. Oftentimes it is not the message but the tone that makes people mad.
How does the mandate violate civil rights?
THE SUMMER OF 2014:
______________________
______________________
Today is the last watershed day for America, because it is the last chance for the US Supreme Court to exercise a Constitutional Check and Balance on the current rogue, tyrannical and oppressive Federal Administration.
Chief Justice John “Traitor” Roberts will probably again refuse to abide with the clear Constitutional Law, and again rewrite the US Constitution to his own liking, in similar manner to what Roberts did with the Constitutionality of the Obamacare Case when he un-Constutionally converted a legal fine into an illegal tax.
Today the US Supreme Court takes up the issue of whether or not an Administration can act without Congressional Approval on matters relating to personnel appointments.
The topic of bypassing the House on approving the spending of taxpayer’s dollars by the Administration will not be considered today, except tangentially, as the appointed personnel will be paid with taxpayer dollars, which would be a bypassing of the Constitutional Control of the Purse by the US House of Representatives.
We taxpayers view this as a clear cut case where we have “Taxation Without Representation” because our Representatives have not been part of the decision-making process.
Examples of a few Imperial matters of record include the following:
* Senator Reid’s Democrats recent voting to turn the US Congress into the US Parliament,
* Boehner’s refusal to appoint House Special Prosecutors for each of the Five Obama Administration Scandals,
* Obama’s four years of Imperial actions, and
* the recent history, ( Traitor Roberts’ Obamacare decision), of the US Supreme Court’s proven reluctance to provide their Constitutional duty of a Check and Balance on the other two Branches of the US Federal Government.
With the usual US Supreme Court private straw vote today that always follows the 30 minute Official Hearing before the Court, America’s future fate will be sealed, and later proclaimed between now and the Summer of 2014.
Either way that the NINE SUPREMES rule on this case, “The Summer of 2014” will prove to be the Summer that decided whether or not our Founding Fathers fought King George the Third of England in vain - - - .
____________________
____________________
THE SUMMER OF 2014.
Concur - I harbor no ill will towards AlexW, but I do think he intentionally gloats and tweaks.
“...Who knows maybe Obama will become so despondent he resigns from office....”
Nice thought, but don’t put money on it, friend.
He’s lovin’ himself some POTUS power right now. Infatuated with it.
Yep, you've got everything you need.
Except self-respect.
Leaving a young boy fatherless.
There's a real legacy to be proud of.
You mean to be an American overseas in a world that hates Americans and blames all their problems on American?
No, thanks.
If a person is immanure (yes, I spelled it this way on purpose), to “Obozocare”, why would that person post - oh, it’s that “I’m better off than you ‘cause I left the United States” thingy.
Tell me this, when such legislation is passed on strictly partisan vote, why doesn’t the opposition party (if any!) openly call its supporters and registered voters to boycott the program?
A guilty conscience needs no accuser.
You are ABSOULUTELY gloating, tweaking, etc... It’s your pattern here on FR to “poke” others in the eye.
I too have the means to leave the US and avoid all the BS. But I won’t... My children and soon to be grand-children are here and THAT is why I stay.
If you have any DELUSION that you won’t avoid trouble, stop fooling yourself. Who do you think EVERYONE else is going to blame if things go sideways? AMERICA... and American’s abroad will be EATEN by the locals...
I’ll stay here and continue the good fight... If I succeed then life will be better for my family... If I don’t, I’ll know that I did what I could and I can live with that...
There are many people who do not feel that way about U.S. citizens.
If you go overseas with a chip on your shoulder, you'll find a fight there just as you would in the U.S.
True in places where the governments and people are already hostile to the United States and its citizens.
However, there are places in the world where that is not the case and Americans are not blamed for the government's problems.
You’re correct.
Today.
But, in case you haven’t noticed, the whole world is going broke, on a massive, industrial scale. Entire countries. Including this one.
In 1930, a lot of Germans, Frenchmen and Poles had no problem with their Hebrew neighbors.
But, add a few years of grinding economic problems, and the services of a skilled “community organizer”, and ten years later they’re shoveling said former Hebrew neighbors into ovens by the trainload.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.