The Health Insurance Mandate - Obama's ultimate smoke screen

[cbdo2007]

I've been thinking about a few issues regarding Health Care Reform and some basic items keep resurfacing as just being so strange, that I couldn't figure out what was happening. One of these issues deals with the Health Insurance Mandate and why in the world would Republicans be against this when it forces personal responsibility on people and is basically a giant gift to the Health Insurance industry by forcing everyone to buy their products or pay a fine.

It finally hit me, that maybe Obama has never wanted the Health Insurance Mandate at all, and only included it as a tail for the Repubes to chase around and around, while ignoring the other 99% of the Health Care Reform bill that Obama and congress passed.

It worked! Tomorrow in Missouri, the Republicans are putting "Obamacare" up for a vote by just putting the Health Insurance Mandate provision up for a vote. This was a Republican idea originally, even backed by MO Senator Kit Bond in 1993, and one which is a conglomerate of many conservative ideals all packed into one issue. Tomorrow, the Repubes will be out in full force voting against something they themselves believe in, just because it was pushed through by Obama.

How will this come back to bite them? Easy, in the upcoming election it will be easy to pit the Repube candidates who disagree with the Health Insurance Mandate as promoting wasteful government spending and freeloading. It will force them to reevaluate their own beliefs and do a 180 on issues they are consistently pushing for.

Most importantly for Obama is that his likely contender in 2012 will be Mitt Romney, who passed his own Health Insurance Mandate in Massachusetts, so it effectively removes Health Care and the Repubes current obsession with repealing "obamacare" completely from the 2012 election. Obama is using this issue as a smoke screen. He doesn't believe in it and he knows most people on both sides don't agree with it. So let them duke it out while all of the other pieces of the bill are silently enacted and we lower health care costs and insurance costs for all.

Thank you Obama.

[Oregone]

1. If he was that 3D Chess-like crafty...

He probably could have managed to pull off getting single-payer at least on the table.

[the other one]

2. Rec'd for originality

[cbdo2007]

10. haha, thanks - I'll take that.

[mmonk]

18. .

:spray:

[Desertrose]

3. How nice for you that you know what he thinks.

Actions speak louder than words....or thoughts for that matter.

[dkf]

4. You are celebrating the mandate which makes everyone spend a considerable percentage of their income

For A product they will possibly never use because paying that premium doesn't buy you a thing in and of itself? You are happy it was possibly a political trick? Are you crazy?

[Myrina]

7. +10

:applause:

[cbdo2007]

11. I'm not celebrating anything, I told you I'm against it.

And it will probably end up being overturned by most of the country. The "good" part is that Obama threw the Repubes a bone so they would ignore and fight over this one small piece, while ignoring many other parts of the bill that needed to be passed and are a step in the right direction for really solving many of our health care problems.

[zipplewrath]

5. Wow, if it were only true

"...we lower health care costs and insurance costs for all."

I don't know what planet you live on, but here on earth, health care costs have been rising faster than inflation for decades, and nothing is this bill is going to change that. Nothing is going to stop the associated health insurance from going up for an awful lot of people. You gonna claim this bill cures cancer next?

Obama wanted the mandate, for the same reason he wanted cadillac taxes, and the vast majority of the rest of the bill, and why he didn't care all that much about the public option. This bill will reduce the rate of increase of the federal costs of health care. Much of that savings comes from Medicaid costs, but it will be realized in other ways as well. There will be increased revenues from penalties paid by individuals, and companies that don't provide health insurance. Some of the people who will now get it through their employer won't be accessing medicaid any longer. Neither will those who buy it through various other methods either. This was first and foremost a cost savings measure.

He can't get control of the federal budget if he doesn't get control of his medicare and medicaid costs.

Of course, if he's stop wasting it in Afghanistan.....

[Skittles]

8. CORRECT

more people will have health insurance; actual access to affordable healthcare - no

[cbdo2007]

12. I know you probably wanted single payer to fix everything overnight and

probably find life on other planets, but unfortunately the real world takes longer than 5 seconds to fix everything.

I guess you've missed all the articles today about the $8 billion in Medicare costs already saved and the $575 billion to be saved over the next 10 years? Knowledge is your friend, not back seat driving.

[zipplewrath]

17. Public option actually

I wanted health CARE reform. Instead I got insurance reform that legislated mandates. The savings in medicaid/care are due mostly to reductions in payments to doctors, which will probably end up reducing the number of doctors accepting it, which will reduce access to health care for many. Oh, and even though the government is saving money, the cost of health care is still going up and so is the cost of health insurance. And I hope you don't have a "cadiallac" plan.

I wanted what I was promised, you know, no mandates, no cadillac taxes, a public option, cost controls on health CARE. Didn't really get it did I. But strawmen about single payer are so much easier to throw around.

[pscot]

6. I am awed speechless

n/t

[Autumn]

9. I want some of those

pills.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

13. I'm not inclined to agree that this was a "chess move" by Obama

As I understand it, getting to a state of universal (or near-universal) health coverage in this country will be difficult- if not impossible- without everybody being mandated to pay into the same system. Otherwise, you pretty much end up with the same situation we have today. We can argue about who we want to pay and who will provide us with the best care of us for the best price but the fact remains that whether you pay it to the health insurance companies or to the government (presumably in the form of higher taxes), everybody needs to be compelled somehow to pay into whatever health care delivery system is at the moment in order for universal health coverage to eventually be achieved. Is there another mechanism that will work instead of a mandate? Is anger over the mandate mostly because we will be paying insurance companies instead of the government? What's the teabaggers' problem with the mandates (or the Republicans for that matter)? I suspect that it has a whole lot more to do with the fact that Obama once again one-upped them on HCR (and they weren't able to make it Obama's "Waterloo") rather than being upset about being required to buy health insurance coverage (something that a lot of people do already). :shrug:

[flamingdem]

14. UNREC for another post distracting from the issue, WINNING AGAINST REPUKES

who are the ENEMY.

[cbdo2007]

15. You forgot to read the OP, where I explain how this helps us win against Repukes.

Thanks for the kick though...

[phleshdef]

16. I believe the mandate actually IS a backdoor to getting something more single payerish.

I don't have a crystal ball, so time will tell. But it seems when government establishes the standard of telling people they have to get insurance for healthcare or pay a penalty then government is also in the position of making sure every single person can actually obtain insurance for healthcare. In the long term, I think thats what the ramifications will be.

I mean, they could have just raised everyone's taxes a few percent and then gave a tax credit for having health insurance and would have got pretty much the same effect that they get with the mandate, but instead, they took the reverse method of structuring that mechanism. And pretty much all our progressive heroes in Congress supported it in the end. I think that might be because they know that it will ultimately put the responsibility of ensuring access in the hands of the government, ultimately making access to paying for your own healthcare a true right.