You asked for precedent in asking people to buy something not required to live? It's the same as mandatory seatbelt laws. If you are injured in a car wreck, you will be treated at a medical facility whether you can afford it or not. While some people may think they'd never get in a wreck, they still have seatbelt laws in order to minimize the damage when it happens. Some people similarly gamble that they'll never get sick, and so don't get health insurance. When they do, they still end up having to go to the hospital, only they may be financially ruined and also burden taxpayers who are forced to pay for their bills.
but you cannot avoid living...you can avoid getting in to a car, and never putting on a seat belt :smile:. the constitutionality of it will be debated by people alot smarter than you or i, and i think it will likely pass muster, but you never know.
and besides, plenty of people still violate that law. (not me, i always buckle up no exceptions, and i will not start my car until all passengers do as well)
I agree with you, it is a fact that people without insurance are automatically treated, and thsoe without insurance wind up paid for by the govt (i.e. taxpayers)
i am just discussing the precedent itself...can a government force a citizen to buy health care?
i am not against the individual mandate, my main problem with this plan is that its costs are still highly speculative, and honestly, when was the last time government created a large program, from military spending to social security to medicare, that came in anywhere near the cost projections.
economically, considering the state we are in now, this is extremely dangerous on a number of levels.
Also, the government already mandates spending in other areas. What do you think taxes are? Do you think the government will allow your preteen child to not go to school because school supplies cost money?
yes, the government mandates spending in other areas, but there is a difference between paying your taxes, and forcing someone to purchase insurance.
as for a child not going to school, it is not up to the government to decide who goes to school...as evidenced by home schooling.
These are all things which are done for the greater good of society. Ironically, even though few Republicans will ever admit to this, health care reform is as much about financial security as it is about health. Care to guess what percentage of personal bankruptcies in the US are caused by medical bills? Somewhere north of 60 percent. Weren't we trying to solve a financial crisis here?
well, republicans will not ever admit alot of things, but neither will democrats....and a bill that spends this much, with no guarantee other than wishful thinking about the cost is as dangerous as anything.
Indeed, you are right about the cost of medical bills and their terrible effects on bankruptcy.
but you do not solve a financial crisis, which is the national debt, by piling on a ton more, with no tangible investment results possible.
and, just as a point of cost, remember how good our government is at estimating costs:
we always hugely underestimate costs, and are incapable of being honest about the actual impotence at containing costs as they come.
Medicare started in 1966 and cost $3 billion that year...and congressional estimates stated that by 1990, allowing for inflation, medicare would cost only $12 billion for 1990....unfortunately, the real cost of medicare in 1990 turned out to be $107 billion dollars for that year. By 1997 it had doubled to over $200 billion a year.
Now, considering what we know about our governments ability to properly manage its money, and the miserable failings at doing so by both parties, do you honestly believe that this plan is going to wind up "paid for"?
Medicare was estimated to grow by 400%, over 24 years (1966-1990) instead, it grew by nearly 3600%...or roughly 9 times the cost prediction.
Now, knowing how bad our government is with money, do you honestly think that the numbers are going to come in anywhere near the estimates that have offered?
I do not trust those numbers one iota, and congress has given me reason to not trust them for decades.
We are already looking at a crushing debt...and the higher it goes, the more debilitating it becomes. The wealthy can continue to be taxed to make up the differences, but only for so long...as of 2008, there were 840,000 families in the USA worth $5 million or more.
if you confiscated $2,000,000 dollars from each of those 840,000 families in this country, just as a one time tax next year...it would net only 1.68 trillion dollars to pay down a 12.6 trillion dollar debt...or about 13%. we would still have a debt of 10.9 trillion dollars (roughly)
i strongly support reigning in the insurance companies and adding price controls, as well as opening up the drug market to foreign competition as well as stripping the health care industry of it anti-competitive exemptions.
but i am not thinking about this from the moral, ethical, good for society side at this time. I am looking at it strictly from the finance P.O.V.
I am a finance guy, and this bill, in its massive creation, is extremely reckless...even if it passed with the votes for 40 mroe republicans i'd be against this. this must be done intelligently (fat chance with our government) slowly, methodically and must be sound fiscally.
As usual these cost estimates have been nothing but smoke and mirrors by our great government.
This was poorly conceived, poorly done, and will cause tremendous cost problems in the long run. It will not solve any "financial crisis", because the crisis we have now in finance terms is the massive size and scope of the federal government, the massive size and scope of the debt that government has run up, and the tens of trillions in unfunded entitlements including SS, Medicare, and government pensions, which are already totally untenable.
we are effectively bankrupt at this moment, and the passage of this bill, was like the family that is simply incapable of helping itself to stop spending, even when it is looking at the bankruptcy you mentioned right in the face...and just added another 10% (conservatively estimated based on how good our government is at doing cost projections :wink
to its overall family debt.
covering the uninsured is the right thing to do...and i support it...but i do not support fiscal recklessness...and that is what is being done by our government, democrat and republican alike.
as a finance guy, i find the continued spiraling of debt to be a complete disaster over the past decade and this bill exacerbates it.
