Individual Mandate Tax = Back Door To Single Payer

[GarroHorus]

If you do not buy health insurance and the government taxes you for failure to buy health insurance, then the government has taken the responsibility for covering you should you need health care.

Eventually, everybody will be paying the tax as profitability in health insurance decreases and the government picks up the slack. It'll take years, much like medicare has taken years to get where it is today.

[Harmony Blue]

1. I am in complete agreement

Universal healthcare is now within reach, but we must stay vigilant.

[flamingdem]

2. This is what the dem naysayers need to understand

We're on our way to sanity with healthcare and affordable coverage for all

[Harmony Blue]

5. Now that it is a tax

we are moving closer to how it is in Canada, and other western Democracies of the world.

[Poll_Blind]

3. Patriot Act = Back Door to Freedom nt

PB

[emulatorloo]

7. There is a reason Scalia is so fucking pissed

The Republican corporate judges voted to kill Obamacare.

Insurance cartel spent millions to poison people's perceptions.

Koch brothers spent millions to destroy it.

Corporate Republicans are determined to repeal it.

Those are the facts. There is a reason they did that:

Because they recognize that Obamcare is step one towards single payer.

DU'ers can try to spin this as a victory for healthcare industry, but the facts don't support it.

[flamingdem]

17. absolutely

we won!

[emulatorloo]

4. Agreed.

[cbdo2007]

6. Yep, they will come out with their own health plan for average citizens....

because that is the only way to forego the tax.

[BOG PERSON]

8. it's not a subsidy for health insurance companies?

[Bandit]

20. Only in the short term

In the long term it will lead directly to a system very much like medicare. Business will begin to stop providing health insurance for their employees because now they know the government will provide for them. Government now has an obligation to assist those that can not afford the high premiums which will be most Americans. Without having to provide health insurance, business will once again become competetive with foreign companies who don't have those expenses, and employees will start making more money in place of the health insurance they once were provided. IMO it will become a win win situation for everybody. Yes out taxes will go up a bit but we will get much more for our buck than we currently do.

[slackmaster]

9. I have a slightly different take on it

This could force the private insurers to get their act together. They're now in COMPETITION with the federal government.

It's usually better for consumers when we have more options.

[OneGrassRoot]

10. I sure hope so. I can't wrap my brain around the implications.

Glad others are seeing a rather monumental silver lining to how this decision was arrived at, striking down mandate but establishing it as a tax instead.

[Harmony Blue]

12. This is the best possible outcome

I disliked the mandate with a passion of a thousand fiery suns, but making it a tax is how it is done in other countries of the world. Huge victory and this much closer to universal health care.

[OneGrassRoot]

14. Fabulous!

Thanks!

[Laelth]

22. It's an outrageously regressive, Republican tax, but yes.

The individual mandate is now, officially, a tax, albeit a tax dreamed up by the Heritage Foundation, no less.

Why do I not feel better?

-Laelth

[Recursion]

11. Yup. Just like Medicare is actually provisioned by private providers...

...my own guess is that the insurance system will morph into something like that, as employer procurement becomes increasingly unaffordable. It's the ugly way to get there, but it gets there.

[WinkyDink]

15. Medicare comes out of S.S. OF COURSE politicians aren't our doctors.

[WinkyDink]

13. "as profitability in health insurance decreases"---Bwahahahahahahaha! Good one!

[GarroHorus]

18. Mandated no more than 20% profits

That will be a sharp decrease from the 30-40% they enjoy today.

[flamingdem]

19. This is what the insurance industry loathes

nt

[zipplewrath]

27. the insurance yes

But not the health care providers. They can still reap large profits. And the insurance companies can increase their profits by allowing health CARE costs to increase. They get their cut.

This bill will probably cause a change in the health insurance industry. You may see health care providers (hospital chains mostly) starting to acquire health insurance companies. They'll keep to the 15%, and take their profits on the health care side.

This bill will do little to bring about universal health CARE other than its absence of any real cost controls. Once enough people can't afford health care, regardless of their insurance, there will be a demand for single payer in some form. The GOP will probably bring it to us as well. Wait until you see what THEY want to mandate.

[panader0]

16. Rec'd

[Laelth]

21. Interesting. I'll have to think about this, but I don't deny that it's possible. n/t

-Laelth

[Harmony Blue]

23. There is a good chance

but we can't become complacent. Now is the time to make the push. If the American public starts to see the positive of a tax for healthcare for many, they will be open to the idea of universal health care.

Debating against someone who doesn't know what universal health care looks like is futile. They have build up pre-conceived notions and have never traveled outside the U.S.

[Laelth]

24. Needless to say, I would prefer a progressive tax structure.

Instead, the ACA creates a fairly regressive tax structure, targeting for extra taxes only those who do not buy minimum health insurance coverage--most of whom won't buy health insurance because, I suspect, they can't afford it.

But, we'll see. Every law that Congress passes is subject to change.

-Laelth

[JNelson6563]

25. But we need all or nothing!1!

Incredible isn't it?

Some forget that most of the greatest stuff in history did not happen all at once. The change we have achieved in health care is a big step in the direction we want to go. We're not there yet but we are making progress and that is worth celebrating.

And by celebrate I mean sitting in mom's basement writing negative screeds on the internets.

Julie--who feels sorry for the fatalists

[TomClash]

26. Until individuals simply refuse to pay the tax

Then what happens?

[Leopolds Ghost]

28. In ancient Rome, the origins of serfdom came from a piece of legislation

Last edited Thu Jun 28, 2012, 09:08 PM - Edit history (1)

Designed to reform rural policy by preventing people from abandoning debt-ridden farms.

I rec'ed the OP for idealism, but the notion will nevertheless come back to us in ironic ways.

It'd sure be nice if the health insurance industry will get more progressive over time as it is forced to consolidate and become even more market driven thanks to a pool of captive consumers like you have in telecommunications (thanks to the Telecom act) that worked out, we have such a progressive telecom and media industry today thanks to the invisible hand of the market preferencing nonprofits and government services...


[font size="1"]I BET IT WILL HAPPEN
IN 2012[/font]

[Angleae]

32. The IRS takes it out of your tax return.

Or otherwise finds a way to collect

[Laelth]

29. I agree. k&r n/t

-Laelth

[shcrane71]

30. But as our election system is completely corrupted, Citizens United is selling all our

politicians to the highest bidder, and most of our regulatory agencies are a joke, we have to wait for the anointment of our next president to see if the corporations will allow us to have single payer.

[Comrade_McKenzie]

31. Today, the health care system in America learned to crawl. Soon, it shall sprint. nt