The mandate is egregious. The government is attempting to pass a law requiring us to purchase the products of private, for-profit corporations, without meaningful regulation on those prices, and without any public alternative. The government is doing this while the rest of the Western World has public single-payer systems that are demonstrably better. The government is doing this because lobbyists serving the parasitic rent-seekers at the tops of the health insurance and pharmaceutical corporations succeeded in coercing, threatening, and buying government officials.

The plan that is implemented apparently originated in *the Heritage Foundation*, an infamous hard-right think tank nakedly serving ideological and plutocratic ends.

There really is no further debate needed on the mandate. Again, it is completely egregious.

Next up: the Coca-Cola Corporation succeeds in getting a Federal “reform” enacted on public water utility contracts with private household residents: in order to have potable water service to your residence, you will have to buy 12 cases of Coca-Cola products per month.

There won’t be any employer “paid” for medical benefits in another decade or two. Maybe after ACA, employers will get rid of them sooner.

Another VERY excellent and important post, Jon, well done!

Thank you.

I hope this one might be front-paged as well, as it debunks today’s twit witted “wisdom” …

DW

I agree.

Thus our wages (read ‘compensation’) continue to decrease.

It isn’t even just about people leaving businesses. Businesses also can and have chosen to jettison health care as health care costs have eaten up more of their payroll costs.

I think some of the people studying these issues really need to modernize and familiarize themselves with the modern worker. The days of working the same job with a benefit package for 20 years are largely gone.

But they’ll come in extremely attractive, crystal-blue polyethylene bottles, with exotic names like Dasani. Plus, Coke is an American company. You’re not a commi sympathizer are you? /s

That may be a deliberate part of the plan.

I am of a paranoid turn of mind to believe that the ACA was created and passed to eventually fail, so as to lead, out of necessity, to a single payer system. As for the mandate, I don’t see the corporate whores on the SCOTUS voting against it, since the present law is a boon to their friends in health insurance and big pharma.
Ultimately companies will have to scrap or cut back on the health insurance they provide in order to compete with the rest of the world.
Ironically, it will be the hated multi-nationals who will push for single payer.

I’m positive that it is. We certainly won’t see pay raises to correspond with the savings companies get when dropping their insurance contributions.

I’d love to believe what you’re saying. Can you be a bit more specific? Whose master plan would this be?

I would love if some progressive genius behind the scenes put all of this in play to fail, which would inevitably lead to a much more serious push for single payer.

Does anyone have any thoughts on the following:

1.) If the individual mandate is ruled unconstitutional, what is the probability of the entire thing being thrown out ?

and

2.) If only the mandate is thrown out what will be the affect of retaining the rest of the law ?

The ACA is such a cluster-f*ck I’m having difficulty sorting this out.

I am of a paranoid turn of mind to believe that the ACA was created and passed to eventually fail, so as to lead, out of necessity, to a single payer system.

I am of the paranoid turn of mind to believe the ACA was created to ensure that each member of the board at Cigna will be able to have a personal yacht.

Here was my situation a few years ago… I worked for a company that had a small staff. They offered insurance just because they “had” to. No dental.

Anyway… the plan they had was horrible. It was like $500 a month or more. And it truly wasnt a good plan. Only a couple of people who had ongoing health issues opted in. Probably under “obamacare” we would have simply gone with the plan because its just too much of a hassle and not cost effective to buy on your own…

Here is the the thing if I am going to be MANDATED to buy something then it should be Medicare for all. If the government demands I have something then they should offer it.

Every passing month makes the convoluted “historic” bill look that much more silly compared to a single payer not for progit system. The AmPeep are actually are ready there IMO, its just the Congress who believes its DOA.

I don’t see how the mandate can simultaneously be ruled unconstitutional as outside of the commerce clause AND ruled necessary for the entire thing.

If it is necessary to the entire thing, it is de faco under Congress’s power under the necessary and proper clause.

So you think it may be only the mandate which is thrown out with the remainder of the law left intact ?

Increasingly, yes, I *am* a commie sympathizer. Of course communism is not a particularly successful model but our current implementation of capitalism seems specially designed to revive communism. /s

Posted in wrong thread and deleted.

I consider the current system to be corporate communism.

Exactly. The ACA was passed in order to guarantee that, if any health care “reform” is enacted, it prioritizes first and foremost maintaining or enhancing the personal wealth and socioeconomic entitlement of the figures at the tops of the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries.

yes.

although if I had to bet, I’d bet that the mandate will be ruled constitutional.

Quite the opposite – if the “reform” is meaningless without the mandate, and the mandate is unconstitutional, then the “reform” is unconstitutional.

I consider the current system to be a proto-kleptocracy.

it wouldn’t be meaningless without the mandate (i.e. the preexisting condition ban, etc).

So they can’t really rule that the mandate is necessary and that it doesn’t fall under the necessary and proper clause.

If you recall, a single payer option was off the table even before the ACA was fully crafted and debated. We have a White House full of patient gradualists. A mandated system goes against the inherent nature of many Americans who like to tempt fate by calling it “freedom.” It’s all part of this exceptionalism BS.
A mandated system is ultimately doomed to fail. In the meantime the cost of medical technology and health insurance isn’t going to go down. It will only rise, while bandits like Blue Cross, Cigna, et al. will roll in the dough for their stockholders, all the while middle class income stagnates. Something has got to give. It’s only a matter of when.

Calling them “gradualists” is a bit of a reach. “Coerced” might be better.

how about “bought and paid for”?

We have a White House full of patient gradualists.

patient gradualists, LOL

You mean like “Hey youse guys, stall ‘em for just a couple more yeeaas ’till we get outa here wid da loot, and get da next protekshun rackit in place.”?

Will the defeat of the individual mandate mean someone who was born with a childhood condition, that is manageable but not curable, will always have to pay very high premiums because guaranteed issue and community rating provisions will be weakened considerably, too? And isn’t this the whole point of the mandate? Just asking.

Riding herd on rates is supposed to be up to the states. Somehow, that doesn’t give me the warm and fuzzies.

http://www.pnhp.org/news/2012/february/premium-increases-portend-an-ominous-future-under-aca

The mandate was a foolish political calculation by team Obama.

They figured that they could negate Romney by being like Romney, and it looks like it may blow up in his face.

Not to mention it’s also a giveaway to the industry, who were going to support the GOP candidate in a general election anyway no matter what Obama did.

So without a very strong public option those less fortunate, or unlucky, are counting on winning the lottery(to purchase ins.) as opposed to spreading the risk across a large enough population to align things more equitably?

“Spreading the risk” notwithstanding, you’ll still need the lottery or are you privy to some promises in writing the rest of us are not?

The GOP Wishes to Thank Obama for Criminalizing Poverty

PREDICTION: After attempting to qualify for exemption from mandate, conspicuously large numbers of applicants will find themselves facing IRS audits. Indeed, the IRS — with all it’s putative charms — will very likely become the de facto “enforcement” arm for the individual mandate. Or do the “reformers” expect to set up a whole new agency for that? I seriously doubt it.

Okay, that probably demonstrated considerable ignorance on my part. And there’s more where that came from. So, here goes:

From what little I truly understand (cough), my impression is that this “reform” offers me a real choice: I can either commit suicide, or I can wait patiently to be thrown in jail for “evading” my financial responsibilities. I hope I’m wrong, but it really does appear that I will be effectively criminalized by “Obamacare.”

Why? Because:

1) I CAN’T obtain traditional employment, nor could I sustain such for more than a few months at a time (presently, I can only tolerate NON-social volunteer work requiring only very limited skills — work for which the government gives absolutely NO acknowledgment whatsoever)

2) I CAN’T prove disability in accordance with (pathetically crude) government standards (my diagnosis, while accurate, has never been acknowledged by gov’t on its own merits, and is currently being stripped from the relevant diagnostic manual by a professional body that’s hell-bent on pandering to special interest groups)

3) I CAN’T afford even the vaguest shadow of a discount “health insurance” policy (my monthly income is LESS that what food stamps provide — and, no, I can’t qualify for food stamps. Do the math.)

4) I CAN’T make a career out of maintaining the constant pretense of absolute helplessness — a patently ludicrous pretense that’s presently required for even the most blatantly legitimate of disability claims. I don’t possess a fraction of the Machiavellian “social skills” required to effectively maintain such a pretense for so much as five minutes, much less a day, a month, a year, or a lifetime.

So. We’ve been all over this, my family and I, exploring every “option” and trying to find some way — ANY lawful way — of fixing any of the above, only to finally give up in the face of unmitigated frustration.

But now I stroll into Nirvana on the shoulders of the Great & Benevolent Health Care Reform™, which in its infinite generosity, offers me a “Real Choice” (see above). Yeah. Wow. I can have my hemlock with, OR without, a side order of interminable gang-rape. My choice. Just, Wow.

At this point, it seems my only other “option” would be to commit outright fraud.

I Refuse To Commit Fraud.

Therefore, I’m a criminal.

Someone please tell me I’m wrong about this — and mean it.

*crickets*

[Oh. Sorry for the book-length comment. I'm caffeinated. Sue me.]

Wow, again. Did I fart, or something?

Well, never let it be said that I don’t know how to clear a room.

Except for the crickets, of course.

I feel for you dkmnow, and I can’t answer your question, though it IS a travesty what the DSM (whatever number) is doing. What I can do for you is let you know that *I* am queen of killing threads here at FDL (and I have my flatulence relatively under control [cough, gag])

According to the RAND Group study, the number of uninsured will increase by 12 million without a mandate, and the overall premium increase for all insured will go up 2.4%. Explore the report at: http://www.rand.org/health/feature/individual-mandate.html