...That she thinks Obamacare doesn't go far enough?
I don't like the decision actually (well, ok, mainly just one part of it) -- I think the individual mandate is a mistake, with the law in the current form, because it forces a payout to the insurance companies or the government, pick one, and what happens if the government suddenly decides that your insurance doesn't meet the minimum requirements set by its oversight board at any point during the year? Yeah, that's right -- you pay their 'tax' anyway, screw you. I don't remember reading anything in the bill about grace periods to get oneself covered properly if that happens, and the burden does seem to fall on the individual for all this far more than it really needs to, or probably should, IMHO.
I admit, I'm a conservative. I will also admit, I'd rather have actual health care administered by the government, rather than some convoluted insurance scheme badly overseen and/or administered through the government, despite the fact that I do tend to look upon the federal government with a lot of mistrust these days. I worry that Obamacare will be more the latter than the former, given the mess that Medicare/Medicaid already is. Frankly, I don't see why they didn't fix that system first (since it involves an additional layer of bureaucracy over private health insurance, doesn't that sound familiar?), get it working (like, say, figuring out how to plug the leaks where the scammers are siphoning millions out of it, because medical insurance fraud is apparently more profitable and safer than drug running these days), and then talk about expanding -that- (I'm sure that would have been a hell of a lot easier to get support for if they had gone that route, because then they'd have a good track record to show for it), but I guess Congress doesn't really care about actually fixing problems, since they don't have to share our insurance plans :-P
But yeah, I tend to be mistrustful about our government's ability to actually fix problems rather than give payouts to industries, and the arguments that some of the justices apparently didn't listen to on that, about how the individual mandate is pretty much likened to the government telling individuals that they have to buy a private product or get taxed for not doing so, gives me fucking chills down my spine. The corporations already have their claws deep in the government with their special interest groups, and now their Super PACs -- do they really need another reason to meddle? Ugh.
Anyway, I rant. It's a problem. Somebody needs to pay for it. I don't think they're going about it the right way. I would love to have my skepticism proven wrong. I just doubt that in practice that it's going to end up anything other than a clusterf--k. A lot of this depends on how the actual public policy gets written up, which hopefully will enact things in the bill-now-law a hell of a lot better than they were so vaguely written into the huge-ass document they passed.
Anyway, yeah, my two cents. Feel free to delete my comment if you like -- I don't mean to troll, and I realize I'm commenting someplace where it looks like nobody will agree with me. (But if this does stay up and anybody does want to comment and try to change my mind and make me feel better about the whole thing, especially let me know if I'm wrong about the no grace period to get new insurance before the tax penalty kicks you in the teeth thing, with chapter and verse -- I'd feel a lot better about things in the short-term at the very least, if I'm wrong about that one. I haven't tried reading through the document again lately; not since it's been passed anyway, I found it too depressing the first time.)
Re: It is far from Universal
I don't like the decision actually (well, ok, mainly just one part of it) -- I think the individual mandate is a mistake, with the law in the current form, because it forces a payout to the insurance companies or the government, pick one, and what happens if the government suddenly decides that your insurance doesn't meet the minimum requirements set by its oversight board at any point during the year? Yeah, that's right -- you pay their 'tax' anyway, screw you. I don't remember reading anything in the bill about grace periods to get oneself covered properly if that happens, and the burden does seem to fall on the individual for all this far more than it really needs to, or probably should, IMHO.
I admit, I'm a conservative. I will also admit, I'd rather have actual health care administered by the government, rather than some convoluted insurance scheme badly overseen and/or administered through the government, despite the fact that I do tend to look upon the federal government with a lot of mistrust these days. I worry that Obamacare will be more the latter than the former, given the mess that Medicare/Medicaid already is. Frankly, I don't see why they didn't fix that system first (since it involves an additional layer of bureaucracy over private health insurance, doesn't that sound familiar?), get it working (like, say, figuring out how to plug the leaks where the scammers are siphoning millions out of it, because medical insurance fraud is apparently more profitable and safer than drug running these days), and then talk about expanding -that- (I'm sure that would have been a hell of a lot easier to get support for if they had gone that route, because then they'd have a good track record to show for it), but I guess Congress doesn't really care about actually fixing problems, since they don't have to share our insurance plans :-P
But yeah, I tend to be mistrustful about our government's ability to actually fix problems rather than give payouts to industries, and the arguments that some of the justices apparently didn't listen to on that, about how the individual mandate is pretty much likened to the government telling individuals that they have to buy a private product or get taxed for not doing so, gives me fucking chills down my spine. The corporations already have their claws deep in the government with their special interest groups, and now their Super PACs -- do they really need another reason to meddle? Ugh.
Anyway, I rant. It's a problem. Somebody needs to pay for it. I don't think they're going about it the right way. I would love to have my skepticism proven wrong. I just doubt that in practice that it's going to end up anything other than a clusterf--k. A lot of this depends on how the actual public policy gets written up, which hopefully will enact things in the bill-now-law a hell of a lot better than they were so vaguely written into the huge-ass document they passed.
Anyway, yeah, my two cents. Feel free to delete my comment if you like -- I don't mean to troll, and I realize I'm commenting someplace where it looks like nobody will agree with me. (But if this does stay up and anybody does want to comment and try to change my mind and make me feel better about the whole thing, especially let me know if I'm wrong about the no grace period to get new insurance before the tax penalty kicks you in the teeth thing, with chapter and verse -- I'd feel a lot better about things in the short-term at the very least, if I'm wrong about that one. I haven't tried reading through the document again lately; not since it's been passed anyway, I found it too depressing the first time.)