Posted on 06/11/2007 12:22:06 PM PDT by neverdem
ITS a seemingly simple solution to a nationwide problem: if people do not have health insurance, just require that they buy it. The idea of making coverage compulsory to help reduce the number of uninsured Americans currently 45 million is gaining momentum. With a law passed last year, Massachusetts became the first state to mandate coverage. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California has supported the idea, proposing that his state do the same. In Illinois, mandatory health insurance has become part of a broader discussion of health reform.
Requiring people who can afford health insurance to buy it the same way that car owners must buy auto insurance appeals to those who believe that mandatory coverage is fairer than asking everyone else, directly or indirectly, to pick up the health care costs of those who choose not to buy it.
In Massachusetts, lawmakers were able to pass the measure because it was viewed as a grand compromise among employers, the government and individuals.
But the state is discovering that making health insurance mandatory is easier said than done. It has spent the past year dealing with questions about how much basic coverage people need, and how much they can be expected to pay. (The poorest residents receive free or subsidized coverage.)
The state has had to work with insurers to create a market for individual insurance where affordable policies were not readily available. With a half-dozen companies, it developed an array of plans that it offered for the first time last month.
Up to now, Massachusetts has maintained the publics support for the mandate, said Paul B. Ginsburg, a health economist who is president of the Center for Studying Health System Change, a Washington research group. So far, there has not been any evidence of uproar, he...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
I did not know the Constitution allowed for the government to coerce its citizens into entering a contract merely based on being alive.
But according to the dems and the MSM - all the uninsured are just normal down-on-their luck families - just like you and me...
Funny the NY Times runs with this. I’m sure they want the Gov’t to force everyone into a one-sized-fits all system.
In my travel clinic, when people who have booked a $25 000 trip to a malaria and yellow fever hot zone find out they have to pay $45 for the visit, 20% of them walk out.
“I did not know the Constitution allowed for the government to coerce its citizens into entering a contract merely based on being alive.”
...
Next up - mandatory donations to the DNC!
The MSM will only discuss the true complexity of the issue after some draconian socialist “solution” is installed.
this was most likely Hilliary/Zoe Bairds plan B back in 93/4....Baird was the General Counsel for one of the major insurance carriers when she was nominated, Aetna IIRC.
Yeah, and if one of these uninsured single males catches a deadly disease, does anyone think they will accept their fate and quietly die away? No, all of them will demand the taxpayer to cover their uninsured butts.
LOL you mean like the contract you signed with the government that allows them to forcibly take your money and give it to people who wont buy health insurance?
Does the constitution mandate that hospitals treat all comers, as the courts have decreed?
So how is this different from what we have now?
No, federal law does. There is also no contract with the federal government signed by the individual that allows for wealth redistribution. However this contract is with a private entity that the individual is compelled to sign. It’s just like compelling a person with a drivers license to purchase car insurance even if they don’t own a car. Because they MIGHT drive a car.
Can ANYBODY site a source for this number? I see it all the time. What/where is the source?
The courts have decreed no such thing.
CONGRESS, representing YOU, passed a law requiring such a thing. The courts have zero to do with it.
The courts have decreed no such thing.
CONGRESS, representing YOU, passed a law requiring such a thing. The courts have zero to do with it.
You don’t have to by it. You just lose your Personal Exemption on your State Income Tax form if you don’t. Which is a Win-win for those who already don’t pay income tax, and who use the ER as their primary care. I wonder how many foreclosures this will lead to?
Must get universal coverage through before we give a hundred million illegals their citizenship.
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