Yet people (the president included) continue to claim that a FEDERAL mandate to buy insurance is no different than being required to cover your car. (Completely ignoring that you have to BUY a car before you must get insurance…the govt’s basically saying they own your body…insure it or be taxed)
So isn’t a FEDERAL mandate unconstitutional unless you plan on writing an amendment to the Constitution so that such a mandate is in accordance with the Tenth Amendment??
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0909/27384.html
The questions from ABC’s George Stephanopoulos highlighted a politically dangerous new aspect of the health reform debate for Obama – as critics from Republican leaders to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce say his reform proposals amount to a middle-class tax increase. Obama promised during the campaign that Americans earning less than 0,000 a year would not see any tax increases from an Obama administration.
Obama strongly denied that the mandate amounts to a tax increase – saying it was no different than requiring people to have auto insurance and charging a penalty if they don’t. He also said it was important for everyone to have insurance so that people who do carry insurance don’t have to shoulder the load for people who don’t. The excise tax is designed as an enforcement mechanism to ensure people will carry insurance.
megarin………"I don’t believe it’s the government’s job to protect me from myself."
THANKYOU!!!!~
ritch…………"You appear to be missing the point."
No I didn’t miss the "point". I understand two faced politicians are trying to sell a insurance/pharmaceutical industry bailout by throwing out bullsh*t lines like this. Would you like to explain further??
me, too…………..I UNDERSTAND what they’re saying. But isn’t what they’re saying unconstitutional??
Megarin 10:20 am on September 28, 2009
Another difference, as I see it, is that car insurance is designed to protect other people. As long as you own your car outright, you’re usually not required to have comprehensive, only liability. Requiring people to have health insurance is requiring them to protect themselves, and I don’t believe it’s the government’s job to protect me from myself.
Texas Conservative 10:20 am on September 28, 2009
Beats the heck out of me. If you don’t want to pay for for car insurance, you can just ride a bike or take public transportation.
But if you don’t want health insurance what are you supposed to do, kill yourself?
DAR 10:20 am on September 28, 2009
I’ve been wondering exactly the same thing. It pretty much demonstrates that the federal govt has no constitutional power in this area. States regulate insurance, states license doctors….
Defend Liberty 10:20 am on September 28, 2009
DRIVING is optional. You can opt out of insurance by not driving.
Under Obamacare there is no opting out.
The whole comparison is bogus
But don’t forget changing the constitution is at the core of all of this.
Health care is the yummy meat that the bitter pill of socialism is wrapped around. Don’t swallow it.
NATAS 10:20 am on September 28, 2009
So, should a person wait to get sick before getting insurance?
Invisible 10:20 am on September 28, 2009
Because they are trying to sell a steaming pile of you know what.
FREERIDER 10:20 am on September 28, 2009
No comparison. Only the stupid people get caught up this government rubbish. Intelligent people know the difference between real comparison and spewed government puke. Don’t be fooled.
Dismal River Frank 10:20 am on September 28, 2009
It’s the best they can do. It’s very sad.
CaptainFreon 10:20 am on September 28, 2009
Good point. Socialist security and medicare, Medicaid are all in the same boat… illegal as heck, irregardless of what the supreme court said.
The Pen is Mightier 10:20 am on September 28, 2009
Because Obama and the Left are stupid and think we’ll eat up all the BS they try to feed us. They think we aren’t as informed as we really are.
Jennifer W 10:20 am on September 28, 2009
They don’t realize that the majority of people who live in poverty don’t own cars and don’t pay for car insurance. I know it is difficult to comprehend that some people really are that poor, but there you have it.
RitchWilliams 10:20 am on September 28, 2009
You appear to be missing the point. But that’s okay. Tell you what. We will not impose a mandate on individuals to buy health insurance if they sign a document that removes the mandate that a hospital provide them with medical care when they get into a car accident or discover a lump under their arm.
Do we have a deal? I am absolutely fine with that! You sign away your ‘right’ to health care and we’ll wave the mandate that you buy the insurance to cover yourself when you need it.
Hey! This is great. Wish all problems were this easy! Besides, if you won’t take responsibility for ‘you’, why should society?
smellyfoot ™ 10:20 am on September 28, 2009
Major difference between the two, that no one ever points out – Carrying car insurance isn’t to protect you, it’s to protect the people around you. Federal mandate on insurance is to protect you from yourself…..thanks mom……
Obama does not have a good track record with the English language. He also believes that allowing Bush tax cuts to expire does not equal a tax increase (because he thinks they never should have been made in the first place).
Ritch – I agree. Society should not be forced to pay for the health coverage of the irresponsible. But I don’t advocate creating a new bureaucracy because of it….
callenqhranch 10:20 am on September 28, 2009
All they are trying to do is make a point: If you drive a car you have to have minimum coverage (not enough to pay for damage to another vehicle, or hospital bill of your unintended victim).
It is an ill-thought out comparison…
For only those who own/drive must maintain insurance only on the vehicle they drive….and it is almost always those with minimum who cause the most damage and never pay for the accident or the deaths they may cause…
So in this case: I suppose they are preparing the country that they will be raising auto insurance minimums in the very near future….since they seem to be obsessed with insurance…
Me, Too 10:20 am on September 28, 2009
At the same time a mandate for carrying Health Insurance is being proposed, it is combined with financial help for those who can’t afford it at all and for those who are having trouble paying it. You can’t very well exclude people from Health Care, simply because they are too poor to carry insurance. We cannot have people dying on the sidewalks, or babies being delivered in bus stations. We can’t fine people with no money. We can’t have our jails filled with the needy.
It is true that car insurance prices, etc., are supposedly handled by state governments. Perhaps that explains why the price is constantly going up. At the moment, it costs so much for young drivers that many of them are rattling around without insurance at all. It is said that this is caused by the number of accidents involving young drivers, but insurance costs have literally driven them off the road. Add that to the fact that, even if they have jobs, their salaries are low…and often parents cannot afford to help them, because they, too, are jobless or poorly paid.
Anyone depending upon state and local governments instead of federal government is not studying facts. Where federal government will often fix an unfair situation, local governments are so stressed for money and often so greedy, they do not. An example is the property taxes. Although the value of your house has dipped considerably, your property taxes remain the same.
The final bill for Health Reform is a long way from reality. Just call or write your Legislator, let him or her know how you feel, and await the final results.
Noah H 10:20 am on September 28, 2009
If it’s not constitutional someone will take this issue to the Supreme Court. As far as ‘forcing’ people to carry health insurance we may be in uncharted waters here. But we’re all going to have to come to grips with the reality of the 21st century. Unlike fifty years ago, there are now cures and treatments today that didn’t exist then. These cures and treatments cost money and since we as a nation have decided that treatment can’t be denied to those who can’t pay for it, then it follows that we need a mechanism raise money to pay for these treatments and cures. Right now we pay for the folks without insurance via taxes. No problem there, but if the uninsured could pay even a little that would take some of the strain off of the tax system. Right now there are several million people with no venue for paying in. Creating a venue for paying in would relieve at least some of this tax burden. If we did that we’d set up an equation based on the greatest good for the greatest number with fewer ‘free riders’…that’s why I back Universal Health Insurance. Everyone pays, nobody pays too much.
Pascha 10:20 am on September 28, 2009
They are trying to legitimize the idea, but it is not even a proper comparison.
States require car owners to have only liability insurance, not collision insurance for damage to their own cars, or even accident health insurance for injury to themselves.
They are also maligning the uninsured, most of whom are financially responsible people and in good health. All the uninsured are not responsible for the few idiots who use the emergency room for minor ailments and then stick the hospital with the bill. Most of the uninsured are also more responsible about taking care of their own bodies than those who think it is the doctor’s job to keep them healthy. Most of the uninsured do not cost the insured anything.
But a lot of insured drive up the costs to everybody by running to the doctor all the time and going to the emergency room when not necessary. Maybe there should be an insurance surcharge on those use medical services needlessly.
B.Kevorkian 10:20 am on September 28, 2009
Well, they are both insurance mandates.
Insurance is a lot like socialism, in that it’s a collectivist system. Everyone who opts in contributes, those in need recieve payouts. The differences are of course, that you don’t have to opt in, that you pay in based on an estimated level of risk, and that you can be expelled from the system if you collect too much. You could also say that there’s an organization skimming profit off the top – but that’s not a difference, it’s just a corporation rather than a government bureaucracy.
Anyway, the flaw in any voluntary collective is that people who expect to recieve a net benefit from joining are a lot more likely to joing than those who expect to be net contributors. Forced participation is an obvious way to overcome that difficulty – though, of course, it carries problems of it’s own. For instance, when forced to ‘buy’ insurance, people can try to game the system to get as much of thier money’s worth as possible. In most states, for instance, insurance fraud is rampant – anytime there’s the most minor accident, someone claims expensive injuries, and accidents are arranged or even faked. With health insurance, it’s even easier, since diagnosis is such an iffy thing, and providers get squeezed for cost savings, giving them an incentive to game the system, as well. Medicare, for instance, has a long history of systematic fraud.
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