The Facebook page. I think that if this thing becomes law, it will set off civil disobedience and litigation unseen in decades. And there will be two fronts on which to battle it — the constitutionality of the legislation itself, and of the means by which it was passed.
[Early afternoon update]
How unpopular is ObamCare? Really, really, really unpopular. And they don’t like the way it’s being done, either.
Yeah yeah. Reminds me of all those folks who were moving to Canada if Boosh got elected. People are remarkably compliant with respect to the encroachment of government control, and the ones who scream the most about it before the chains are attached just look the more moronic for it. Those who don’t comply end up being referred to as “felons”.
The real work of trying to stop the tide is a long, slow and not all that rewarding process, usually unaccompanied by screaming and chest beating.
Found this on Instapundit.
http://www.nejmjobs.org/rpt/physician-survey-health-reform-impact.aspx
Looks like the docs are considering going Galt.
How exactly will these people not comply – not buy health insurance? Then what do they do when they get sick or injured?
Those with money will pay cash to the doctors who already opted out of the system, just like they do already. No cash, they’ll go for “free Medicare” just like they’ve done since Medicare came around.
Or are you going to deny them?
“Screaming, chest beating felons!”
Eric Weder – so instead of paying their fair share up front, I get to pay for them via Medicaid and higher bills for unpaid-for emergency room visits.
Way to be team players.
Chris: That’s o.k., if they fail to pay “their fair share” of other people’s healthcare costs , they can be hauled off to jail for tax evasion.
Oh, those insolent proles! Don’t they know they’re supposed to be “team players” because I said so!?
Like Dr. King said: flood the courts, embrace the prisons.
Chris said:
“How exactly will these people not comply – not buy health insurance?”
Yes, I will not buy health insurance.
“Then what do they do when they get sick or injured?”
If I experience a catastrophic health event, I will purchase a policy at that time. The proposals forbidding denial of coverage based upon pre-existing conditions will guarantee that I am able to purchase a policy. The restrictions on premium price ratios of 2 to 1 (House bill) or 3 to 1 (Senate bill) guarantee that I will not pay significantly more than other adults who were previously enrolled. This plan will save me approximately $500 each month based on my current premiums once I factor in the 2.5% of modified AGI (House bill) or $2,250 (Senate bill) penalty assessed to those without acceptable coverage.
If this behavior is not a “team player” behavior, perhaps the proposals shouldn’t encourage it. If the price of saving $500 per month is being thought of as not a “team player”, that’s a price I’m willing to pay.
And never mind the fact that I’ll lose my current policy once it is no longer grandfathered, since it doesn’t offer the minimum services (maternity care) required to be covered.
Oh, and by the way, under both of the proposals, my actions will be complying with the law as it is proposed.
Gerrib, remember when I said the bill would take away liberties? You insisted it wouldn’t. Then I said, you promise to not support a bill unless it allowed people to opt out? You did. So this year, it’s “not a team player”?
It’s ok, Gerrib. I knew you were a liar.
Hal,
Violating Inner Party directives (or even thinking about violating them) is a capital offense. If it isn’t illegal yet, it will be.
Hal: I’m glad you pointed this out.
I’d like to add one additional action: Publicize this tactic so that the like minded folks can do this as well. Soon the government system will be grossly unbalanced and ripe for repeal.
Leland – you have a choice of programs, which is the “opt-out” I was talking about, as well as the option to not seek treatment. It’s just like you can “opt-out” of calling the fire department when your house is burning down. (I suspect you will opt-in).
I still haven’t figured out how it’s “taking away liberties” to provide you a service you will want, unless you are literally suicidal.
I am continually amazed at the frankly selfish behavior advocated on this site. Not only advocated, but boasted about, as if it were something to be proud of.
Yeah, that’s what the guy who stuck me up the other day told me when I didn’t want to give him my money. I was being “selfish.”
Chris:
Is it selfish behavior for me to reduce my family expenses by $6,000 per year at essentially no cost? One could go there I suppose, but then one could also suggest that it is selfish of me not to put up the homeless man from the street corner in the spare room as well. That would cost a lot less than $6,000 per year, but I certainly don’t hear any accusations of being selfishness when I don’t that.
Now that I think of it, I cannot figure out how my actions damage anyone else anyway? If they don’t damage anyone else, how can they be construed as selfish in the first place? Certainly everyone else is free to avail themselves of this same option provided by the proposals as well.
I just don’t see that you have any room to complain, when I plan to fully comply with the letter of the law of a proposal, passage of which you appear to support.
In other words, if you don’t support my proposed behavior, you don’t support the proposals before congress. I’ll spell it out for you.
I plan on fully complying with the letter of the proposed law.
Chris doesn’t support my planned behavior.
Chris doesn’t support the proposed law.
Q.E.D.
It’s just like you can “opt-out” of calling the fire department when your house is burning down.
I am continually amazed at the frankly infantile behavior posted by commenters on this site. Not only posted, but boasted about, as if their idiocy was something to be proud of.
Actually, his analogy is better than he thinks. Insisting that insurance companies must insure pre-existing conditions is like demanding that you be allowed to purchase fire insurance while your house is burning.
Oh dear, the poor thing is getting the vapors from all this “selfish” behavior. Fetch him his fainting sofa.
I wonder if Chris paid substantially more taxes last year than he was legally required to, or did he take all the deductions he could? Did he deduct his charitable contributions? Did he excoriate people who did? I suspect selfish hypocrisy.
So, the poll shows that people pushed with directed questions, most of which had bugger all to do with the proposed legislation, were against it.
Wow. I’m shocked. Shocked I tell you!
I pay the taxes I am required to pay.
Not contributing your share of costs for your health care is the equivalent of not wanting to pay taxes for the fire department until you have a fire.
I don’t want that to be the case – which is why I want mandatory coverage. It’s also why I wanted a public option, so that there was a low-cost alternative to private insurance. But these things were resisted as socialist / communist / fascist plots to sap our Precious Bodily Essenses, so we got a weak mandate and no public option.
I’d rather have half a pie then none at all, so yes I support this bill.
Not contributing your share of costs for your health care is the equivalent of not wanting to pay taxes for the fire department until you have a fire.
No it’s not. That’s been debated here ad nauseum and you continue to be stuck on stupid with it. Your being infantile.
Your “share” is what’s codified in law.
When the cannibal pot is this vast, there is no way to know that the “share” you pay into any given program reflects its true cost. Regadless, they can take the balance of “my share” out of what I pay into the public school system (or some other program) but do not use.
Chris:
What is my share of costs for my health care? Who determines that?
Last year neither I nor any member of my family used any health care. That’s right no one in my family visited a doctor’s office, or went to the hospital or urgent care. What is my “share of costs” for that?
If you read my proposal carefully, you will see that I plan on following the letter of the law of either of the current proposals, thus fulfilling all of my obligations under which ever (if either) of them becomes law. At that point you can complain that I’m behaving selfishly, incorrectly in my view, but you cannot complain that I’m not complying with the law.
Hal Duston – unless you and your family plan on staying healthy and accident-free forever, what you spent last year is not particularly relevant.
What would be absolutely fair is to take total cost to provide needed healthcare and divide it by the number of the people in the US. But that’s so communistic that I suspect you blew a gasket just reading it.
I’m intrigued. Do you have a link for this normative argument of yours, or did you just make it up on the spot?
Chris:
Are you saying that the most fair method is for each and every individual to pay exactly the same regardless of any other factor whatsoever? In other words, under this proposal, no action I take would reduce the amount I would owe for my health care costs. In that case why would I not visit the office for every little cut, sprain, and sniffle since it would have no readily visible impact on my health care costs?
Chris, like all collectivists, doesn’t understand anything about moral hazard or tragedy of the commons. Like the mugger, he just thinks we’re being “selfish.”
What would be absolutely fair is to take total cost to provide needed healthcare and divide it by the number of the people in the US.
I notice you left it there; you didn’t finish it with something like “and tax everyone the same amount”. Interesting. Even the poor??
I know — it’s at odds with the leftist ideal of a progressive income tax, so I wonder where he got it from.
What is the moral hazard for Type 1 diabetes (AKA, “juvenile diabetes”)? What is the moral hazard for getting rear-ended at a stoplight? What is the moral hazard for any of the dozens of non-lifestyle-induced cancers from leukemia to prostate cancer?
I do understand the tragedy of the commons. It’s not especially applicable to health care. If I hand somebody $1000 in cash, they might go on a vacation. It’s highly unlikely that they’ll go check into a hospital. Overconsumption of the resource of health care is not a big problem.
Curt Thomson – why in the world would I tax the poor the same as the rich? Why would it be right to make some Wal-Mart cash checker have to decide between food and taxes, while assessing a larger amount to me is the difference between flying to Vegas first class vs. coach?
What would be absolutely fair is to take total cost to provide needed healthcare and divide it by the number of the people in the US.
why in the world would I tax the poor the same as the rich?
You are incoherent. Put the crack pipe down and try a nice pilsner instead, do you good.
“What would be absolutely fair is to take total cost to provide needed healthcare and divide it by the number of the people in the US.”
Or, perhaps we should have everyone pay for the healthcare they actually need. I would think that would stimulate people to try to be healthy, and not feel down about having to pay for those that don’t. Wouldn’t that be even more “fair”. And, if you were afraid you might run into an unfortunate situation, you could buy something called “insurance” that would cover you in that contingency. Now that would be cool. And, the people selling you that insurance would look at your lifestyle and your history and judge their cost to you based on how they evaluated their risk of payout. So someone with a healthy lifestyle would pay less than someone with a destructive lifestyle. Now, wouldn’t that be fair?
Whether it’s any of your business what he does, depends on whether it’s your money you gave him.
Under ObamaCare, it’s just as likely to be mine — and I’d just as soon keep it anyway.
Thomas – if you can figure out how to “stimulate” people with prostate cancer on how to be healthy, perhaps you should consider a career in medicine.
How about having them buy insurance before they get prostate cancer, which generally occurs late in life, and is highly predictable (an almost certainty for men, if they live long enough)? If you were trying to make your case, this was an egregiously idiotic example.
Rand – gee, good think we’re requiring people to buy insurance.
BTW, I still haven’t heard how non-lifestyle cancers are a moral hazard. Maybe that’s because they’re not.
Rand – gee, good think we’re requiring people to buy insurance.
Well, it’s a relief to know that we’re not asking them to give up their freedom…
Why it almost like people will need to, like, actually think for themselves and, like, show some actuall, um, what is that word…..GUMPTION. Oh, that means, like, taking responsibility and stuff, for ones own actions. Psshh, yea right….
Bleed the beast Hal. That is one thing that Technocrats never count on when they conduct their little thought experiments in their carefully controlled bubbles. Actual real human people are far more erratic than their carefully controlled experiments can ever predict.
Cash for clunkers? Oh, we need more money cause we ran out in 2 weeks.
Switch to digital television? Oh, we need to spend 2 billion on educating people about the transition and infuse another several hundred million cause we underestimated the cost of digital converter boxes
Medicare? Oh, other administrations always seem to come along and pile even more promises than we ever envisioned and expanded the scope of the program beyond it’s predicted projections.
I’ve heard of the fallacy of a slippery slope but when it comes to the gov’t they prove several times that it is not a tacit of philosophical argument without merit.
How unpopular is ObamCare? Really, really, really unpopular.
It’s no less popular than Medicare was in 1965, and now Medicare is so popular you have the GOP feigning outrage at Medicare cuts. No doubt in 2020 they’ll be running against imagined ObamaCare cuts.
· Eight Americans in ten (81%) oppose allowing the government to decide what kind of health care coverage Americans are able to purchase.
Do they realize that’s already the case?
Eight Americans in ten (82%) support the idea that more money should be invested in the development of cures for the most devastating diseases.
And yet virtually the entire GOP voted against the ARRA, which included big boosts in NIH funding for just that.
Six in ten Americans (60%) agree that a current Democrat proposal to send the Senate health care bill to the president without voting up or down on it is “unfair.”
Of course nothing is going to the president without being voted on; why do they care whether it’s two separate votes or one combined vote?
Hmm, am I supposed to be feeling all guilty because my lack of health insurance is supposedly costing people like Chris Gerrib money? Because the thought of that actually makes me feel the opposite of guilty.
Hmm, am I supposed to be feeling all guilty because my lack of health insurance is supposedly costing people like Chris Gerrib money? Because the thought of that actually makes me feel the opposite of guilty.
I was going to reply to this.
But I thought it was better just to repost it and go and have a drink.
Good health.
See you next month. Don’t let the door hit you in the…oh, who am I kidding? Let it.
“It’s no less popular than Medicare was in 1965, and now Medicare is so popular you have the GOP feigning outrage at Medicare cuts. ”
Thank you for comparing this crap bill to Medicare, the underfunded by trillions Medicare. Which in 20 years will be the underfunded national healthcare and Medicare. You keep touting Medicare. Before Medicare, you bought insurance. Then, the government made you pay into Medicare. No wonder it’s popular, you have to contribute by LAW. What are you going to do? Pay into it and not try to get your money back? Hmmmm sounds familiar.
Good point: previous generations didn’t pay nearly enough into Medicare.
They’re selfish and not team players.
Chris:
But your proposal doesn’t involve handing me $1,000. Your proposal involves handing me unlimited health care visits at no additional cost to me. Your proposal permits me to visit the doctor as frequently or as rarely as I wish with absolutely no impact on my health care bill. Under it I have zero incentive to not visit the office for every cut, sprain and sniffle, since, after all, they’re covered.
But, back on the original topic, under my above proposal, I WILL comply.
Yep. Definitely the opposite of guilty.
Well, actually, Hal, you probably won’t go to the Doctor for every little cut or sprain, because waiting rooms are miserable places to be and the wait will be a long one. At least while you have “better” things to do. As has been reported, there are groups of folks that already visit their doctors quite often, for the companionship.