Tag Archives: Individual Mandate

News

CBO says that Obamacare will require 1 trillion tax increase

Leave a comment

Story at the Weekly Standard. (H/T Weasel Zippers via ECM)

Excerpt:

…In its real first 10 years (2014 to 2023), the CBO says that the bill would cost $1.8 trillion — for insurance coverage expansions alone. Other parts of the bill would cost approximately $700 billion more, bringing the bill’s full 10-year tab to approximately $2.5 trillion — according to the CBO.

In those real first 10 years (2014 to 2023), Americans would have to pay over $1 trillion in additional taxes, over $1 trillion would be siphoned out of Medicare (over $200 billion out of Medicare Advantage alone) and spent on Obamacare, and deficits would rise by over $200 billion.

…the CBO says that health care premiums would rise… Nationwide health care costs would be $234 billion higher than under current law. How’s that for “reform”?

…The CBO estimates that, from 2015-25, private insurers would receive $1.0 trillion in subsidies from the American taxpayer — the insurers’ apparent price for giving up their freedom and being controlled by the government. Congress would mandate that Americans buy the insurers’ product and would redirect massive sums of taxpayer money to make that mandate more feasible.

That’s to freak out my fiscally conservative readers.

My socially conservative readers are already horrified that taxes collected from them will soon be used to pay for abortions. Obama doesn’t want people who are irresponsible about sex to be “punished with a baby”.

Videos

MSNBC anchor asks Democrat Congresswoman about choice and competition

2 Comments

This is from Newsbusters.

Excerpt:

RATIGAN: So, here’s a couple of the issues that come up I would love to get your response to, and I want to show you this, and you can explain it to me. As you know, in addition to everything you just described, this does very little to bring real competition and choice into the insurance marketplace. It does very little to reform the insurance monopolies. It does very little to create more choices for everybody in America for their healthcare. But at the same time, it mandates that everybody in America face penalties if they don’t buy healthcare.

So the result of that has been the following: you know the monopoly scenario. I want you to take a look at the insurance stocks in this country on news that a bill may be passed that mandates the creation of millions of new customers but does not reform the monopoly structure. Take a look at the insurance stocks since November 17th. WellPoint up thirteen percent, that’s over a course of a few weeks, United Health up ten percent, Aetna up twelve percent, Humana up six percent. Those health insurance companies are up because being an unreformed oligopoly, monopoly, and having now the benefit of a government that is assigning the expense of covering the uninsured without reforming the monopoly. It basically allows the taxpayer to take the hit to pay for the uninsured, but it does not deal with the underlying symptom as to why there are so many uninsured, which is we have an unreformed private insurance monopoly in this country that is now being guaranteed more customers by the government. Why is that a good thing for America?

Holy snark! Please watch this! I can’t believe that this news guy is from the hard-left MSNBC network.

He is basically pointing out that government is going to force a bunch of uninsured Americans to buy the products of these medical insurers, and force ordinary productive taxpayers to pay the bill. So it’s a massive transfer of wealth from ordinary productive taxpayers to big medical insurance companies, for the benefit of Obama’s key voting groups.

Commentary

MUST-READ: Why Obama’s health care plan is just wealth redistribution

1 Comment

Story from the Wall Street Journal.

Excerpt:

President Obama proposes to require insurers to sell policies to everyone no matter what their health status. By itself this requirement, called “guaranteed issue,” would just mean that insurers would charge predictably sick people the extremely high insurance premiums that reflect their future expected costs. But if Congress adds another requirement, called “community rating,” insurers’ ability to charge higher premiums for higher risks will be sharply limited.

Like the homeowner who waits until his house is on fire to buy insurance, younger, poorer, healthier workers will rationally choose to avoid paying high premiums now to subsidize insurance for someone else. After all, they can always get a policy if they get sick.

To avoid this outcome, most congressional Democrats and some Republicans would combine guaranteed issue and community rating with the requirement that all workers buy health insurance—that is, an “individual mandate.” This solves the incentive problem, and guarantees that both the healthy poor 25-year-old and the sick higher-income 55-year-old have heath insurance.

But the combination of a guaranteed issue, community rating and an individual mandate means that younger, healthier, lower-income earners would be forced to subsidize older, sicker, higher-income earners. And because these subsidies are buried within health-insurance premiums, the massive income redistribution is hidden from public view and not debated.

If Congress goes down this road, health insurance premiums will increase dramatically for the overwhelming majority of people.

This is the best explanation of what is really at stake if Obama’s socialized medicine plan passes. Please read it.

What no one realizes is that when one group is funding the lifestyle choices of another group, they stop producing wealth. Maybe they just retire, or maybe they move to another country. But the result is the same: economic growth is stifled and unemployment goes through the roof. These are the unintended consequences of the policies of well-meaning but naive socialists.

Share