7 ms·

Like taxes, this will likely be a largely individual endeavor. Maybe there will be PSAs, but their effectiveness is questionable. Many people (and the politicia

by Bsharp 13y ago

Like taxes, this will likely be a largely individual endeavor. Maybe there will be PSAs, but their effectiveness is questionable. Many people (and the politicians who signed it!) don't know the enrollment requirements, subsequent responsibilities, and consequences for failure to comply. Everyone is fighting over the validity and constitutionality of this law, instead of informing the public about what they need to do to avoid financial penalties. The debate will rage on no matter what, but whether or not you agree with this law (and I don't), the priority right now should be to help people make an informed decision about their compliance.

drivingmissm 13y ago
I think civil disobedience is appropriate, and that people should resist compliance and urge others to resist. I believe that the individual mandate is unconstitutional and that the law was passed in a party-line vote using shady Senate tactics. Further, we now know that President Obama flat-out knowingly lied when he told the public "if you like your plan you can keep it." The law needs to be delayed so that Congress can pass a bipartisan health care reform bill. This issue is too important to not have achieved a governing consensus.
- mikeash 13y ago
  This is as bi-partisan as you can get. The Democrats passed the Republicans' plan. The only reason it didn't get any Republican support was because the Republicans are completely nuts. There is no way to get their support for anything right now.
  - twoodfin 13y ago
    "As bi-partisan as you can get"? C'mon, that claim doesn't pass the laugh test. Plenty of legislation has passed both houses of Congress in the last five years with large bi-partisan majorities. Leahy-Smith[1] is just the first one I thought of. As for it being "the Republicans' plan", you're hanging an awful lot on some Republicans' support for an individual mandate (conceived, remember, in opposition to Bill Clinton's nascent proposals for an employer mandate) twenty years ago. The guy who most Republicans actually voted for wanted to change the system to allow health care plans to be sold across state lines, and de-couple employment and health care via a universal individual tax credit [2]. Neither of those are in PPACA. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leahy-Smith_America_Invents_Act http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leahy-Smith_America_Invents_Act [2] http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2008/10/the-mccain-health-care-plan-more-power-to-families http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2008/10/the-mccain-...
    - mikeash 13y ago
      "As bi-partisan as you can get" is intended to be in the context of health care reform. Sure, you can get bi-partisan support for funding veteran death benefits or whatever, but that's not what I'm talking about. The Republicans created the current plan. The most recent Republican candidate for President supported and passed this plan in his home state when he was governor. It's a Republican plan. The Republicans have no serious alternative proposal. They pretend they do only to the extent needed to convince people who aren't paying attention that they really mean the "replace" part of "repeal and replace". Sure, Obamacare isn't exactly the Republican plan in 100% of every detail. It's still the basic Republican plan overall, and the Republicans are not wrangling over details anyway.
      - twoodfin 13y ago
        Ross Douthat has a pretty good summary of at least the egghead Republican health care policy preference and its pros and cons. The whole thing is worth reading. http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/22/why-not-medicaid-for-all/?_r=0 http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/22/why-not-medicaid... Short version: Subsidized catastrophic care for real "insurance", and tax-advantaged HSA's for your more predictable medical costs. The former probably still requires something like the existing individual mandate, so it's unfortunate that Republicans seized on that as one of their primary objections to PPACA (an objection that Candidate Obama shared in 2008!) More practically, a Republican alternative would certainly not have made these catastrophic plans currently being cancelled illegal. This stuff is not fiddling around the margins: PPACA will only work if it substantially shifts costs from the old and sick (who need comprehensive plans) to the young and healthy (who would typically be fine with catastrophic ones). I don't know why you would expect the GOP to be happy about a wealth transfer like that, particularly when they couldn't expect to extract any leverage from their participation with a Democratic super-majority able to pass whatever it could agree on. All for a bill whose popular support never seriously cracked 50%? I wish Democrats had engaged with President Bush in '05 when he came out of the reelect gate for Social Security reform, rather then declare the whole thing DOA. But I certainly am not shocked they behaved like an opposition.
        13y ago
- ceejayoz 13y ago
  Obamacare's individual mandate comes from the Heritage Foundation - that's right, the organization now run by the Tea Party. http://americablog.com/2013/10/original-1989-document-heritage-foundation-created-obamacares-individual-mandate.html http://americablog.com/2013/10/original-1989-document-herita... It was essentially a bipartisan reform bill. Had Bush proposed the bill, Republicans would likely have voted en masse for it. As for the Constitutionality of it, the Supreme Court disagrees.
  - hga 13y ago
    This is the same organization that at the same time supported and prompted G. H. W. Bush's "assault rifle" import ban (which we are still living with, BTW). Whatever they might be today (I stopped paying attention to them back then), that has no bearing on what they were a quarter century ago.

by Bsharp 13y ago

drivingmissm 13y ago

I think civil disobedience is appropriate, and that people should resist compliance and urge others to resist. I believe that the individual mandate is unconstitutional and that the law was passed in a party-line vote using shady Senate tactics. Further, we now know that President Obama flat-out knowingly lied when he told the public "if you like your plan you can keep it." The law needs to be delayed so that Congress can pass a bipartisan health care reform bill. This issue is too important to not have achieved a governing consensus.

mikeash 13y ago
This is as bi-partisan as you can get. The Democrats passed the Republicans' plan. The only reason it didn't get any Republican support was because the Republicans are completely nuts. There is no way to get their support for anything right now.
- twoodfin 13y ago
  "As bi-partisan as you can get"? C'mon, that claim doesn't pass the laugh test. Plenty of legislation has passed both houses of Congress in the last five years with large bi-partisan majorities. Leahy-Smith[1] is just the first one I thought of. As for it being "the Republicans' plan", you're hanging an awful lot on some Republicans' support for an individual mandate (conceived, remember, in opposition to Bill Clinton's nascent proposals for an employer mandate) twenty years ago. The guy who most Republicans actually voted for wanted to change the system to allow health care plans to be sold across state lines, and de-couple employment and health care via a universal individual tax credit [2]. Neither of those are in PPACA. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leahy-Smith_America_Invents_Act http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leahy-Smith_America_Invents_Act [2] http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2008/10/the-mccain-health-care-plan-more-power-to-families http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2008/10/the-mccain-...
  - mikeash 13y ago
    "As bi-partisan as you can get" is intended to be in the context of health care reform. Sure, you can get bi-partisan support for funding veteran death benefits or whatever, but that's not what I'm talking about. The Republicans created the current plan. The most recent Republican candidate for President supported and passed this plan in his home state when he was governor. It's a Republican plan. The Republicans have no serious alternative proposal. They pretend they do only to the extent needed to convince people who aren't paying attention that they really mean the "replace" part of "repeal and replace". Sure, Obamacare isn't exactly the Republican plan in 100% of every detail. It's still the basic Republican plan overall, and the Republicans are not wrangling over details anyway.
    - twoodfin 13y ago
      Ross Douthat has a pretty good summary of at least the egghead Republican health care policy preference and its pros and cons. The whole thing is worth reading. http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/22/why-not-medicaid-for-all/?_r=0 http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/22/why-not-medicaid... Short version: Subsidized catastrophic care for real "insurance", and tax-advantaged HSA's for your more predictable medical costs. The former probably still requires something like the existing individual mandate, so it's unfortunate that Republicans seized on that as one of their primary objections to PPACA (an objection that Candidate Obama shared in 2008!) More practically, a Republican alternative would certainly not have made these catastrophic plans currently being cancelled illegal. This stuff is not fiddling around the margins: PPACA will only work if it substantially shifts costs from the old and sick (who need comprehensive plans) to the young and healthy (who would typically be fine with catastrophic ones). I don't know why you would expect the GOP to be happy about a wealth transfer like that, particularly when they couldn't expect to extract any leverage from their participation with a Democratic super-majority able to pass whatever it could agree on. All for a bill whose popular support never seriously cracked 50%? I wish Democrats had engaged with President Bush in '05 when he came out of the reelect gate for Social Security reform, rather then declare the whole thing DOA. But I certainly am not shocked they behaved like an opposition.
      - 13y ago
ceejayoz 13y ago
Obamacare's individual mandate comes from the Heritage Foundation - that's right, the organization now run by the Tea Party. http://americablog.com/2013/10/original-1989-document-heritage-foundation-created-obamacares-individual-mandate.html http://americablog.com/2013/10/original-1989-document-herita... It was essentially a bipartisan reform bill. Had Bush proposed the bill, Republicans would likely have voted en masse for it. As for the Constitutionality of it, the Supreme Court disagrees.
- hga 13y ago
  This is the same organization that at the same time supported and prompted G. H. W. Bush's "assault rifle" import ban (which we are still living with, BTW). Whatever they might be today (I stopped paying attention to them back then), that has no bearing on what they were a quarter century ago.