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The House on Tuesday shot down legislation to repeal one of the most controversial elements of the Democrats' healthcare reform law: the requirement that most Americans purchase healthcare coverage.
Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.), who offered the bill as an amendment to a larger tax bill for small businesses, said the insurance mandate "violates basic principles of freedom and individual choice."
"No American should be forced to purchase health insurance they don’t want and can’t afford," Camp, the senior Republican on the Ways and Means Committee, said just before the vote.
He wasn't persuasive enough. The vote was 230 to 187 to kill the amendment, with 21 Democrats and one Republican crossing party lines.
Though opposed by candidate Barack Obama in the runup to the 2008 presidential election, the individual mandate evolved into a cornerstone of the Democrats' health reform law, enacted in March. The mandate takes effect in 2014.
Supporters have argued that getting millions more Americans into insurance pools is necessary to keep coverage affordable for the sickest people. But critics, including a number of state attorneys general, have challenged the mandate's constitutionality.
The healthcare mandate is required in the bill because it is one of the "triggers" that will help to bring healthcare under federal control over time. This is why the progressive Democrats want it to stay in the plan.
Actually the mandate does the opposite.
Without the mandate, insurance companies would have to take patients with pre-existing conditions but wouldn't be able to compensate with millions of new healthy people that the mandate brings. Premiums would shoot up, causing more people to drop the insurance, leaving a sicker-on-average group of insurees... raising premiums further and so on. This would cause a collapse of the health insurance industry, which would bring people to clamor for government intervention. Either the GOP doesn't understand this or they're just trying to score cheap political points.
But we can go with your vague conspiracy theories instead if you want. Those dang Democrats just want the government to control everything, just for the heck of it!
Uh, if it is mandated that everyone must have an insurance plan, and employers are not forced to provide, AND many Americans cannot afford to purchase a plan, or, like my healthy self, they refuse to purchase one, how will we be provided one?
Not so much a "conspiracy" as it will be a reality.
If they can't afford one, they'll be given public assistance to do so. If they just simply refuse to purchase one, then they'll be punished just as they normally would for breaking the law.
I think the Republicans did this so that the can point at Democrat incumbents who voted for the bill and then voted to prevent this repeal of the insurance mandate. It was a political move for the November elections.
IOW, "steal from the 'haves' and give to the deadbeat class".
IOW, "steal from the 'haves' and give to the deadbeat class".
Wealth redistribution, anyone?
Politics over substance and the good of the country. As this was originally a republican idea, and something that must be if the other reforms are to hold, it is just more siliness.
I agree. Anyone who doesn't want more federal involvement in health care should support this. Repealing it will completely destroy the private health insurance industry and move nearly EVERYONE onto the federal plan...which would be fine with me, but I'm assuming it wouldn't be fine with the so-called "conservative" crowd.
Uh, if it is mandated that everyone must have an insurance plan, and employers are not forced to provide, AND many Americans cannot afford to purchase a plan, or, like my healthy self, they refuse to purchase one, how will we be provided one?
Not so much a "conspiracy" as it will be a reality.
If they can't afford one, they'll be given public assistance to do so. If they just simply refuse to purchase one, then they'll be punished just as they normally would for breaking the law.
No they won't.
I'm religiously inclined not to purchase health insurance.
I get away with it.
Yes, I believe there is an exception in the health insurance mandate for those with religious objections. But not for people who just don't want health insurance. And that's the way it should be, if you want some semblance of private health insurance to survive.
Ok, well it really doesn't matter even then because they can't enforce it, if you don't pay it.
It's written in the bill.
They can't pursue criminal charges. That doesn't mean they can't enforce the fine.
Funny, I had other conservatives trying to argue to me that they'll send you to jail for not having insurance.
Edit: And if this mandate isn't enforceable, why is everyone on the right freaking out about it? You guys need to get your talking points straightened out!
They can't pursue criminal charges. That doesn't mean they can't enforce the fine.
Funny, I had other conservatives trying to argue to me that they'll send you to jail for not having insurance.
Edit: And if this mandate isn't enforceable, why is everyone on the right freaking out about it? You guys need to get your talking points straightened out!
That's true. But I think the point is some will argue it anyway other than actually try and figure out what's in the bill and what might work or not work. Which is why the talking points change so quickly.
No, the fine is completely unenforceable.
"However, it is not subject to the enforcement provisions of subtitle F of the Code. The use of liens and seizures otherwise authorized for collection of taxes does not apply to the collection of this penalty. Non-compliance with the personal responsibility requirement to have health coverage is not subject to criminal or civil penalties under the Code and interest does not accrue for failure to pay such assessments in a timely manner."
JCX-18-10
I'm not a conservative, they're right wing like you.
I'm center left.
Like you, they didn't read the pertinent portions of the bill.
Check page two. The section you quoted was changed. What was that about not reading the pertinent portions?
Yea yea, even then you can claim financial hardship, which allows you to opt of out penalties.
Don't you love so many exceptions to rules. :mrgreen:
Well, the purpose of the provision is merely to prevent people from gaming the system by waiting until they get sick to sign up for insurance...not to force everyone under the sun to buy insurance without regard to their reasons.
I still don't see how it prevents gaming, you could sign up for insurance before you file for taxes and use it as a basis to avoid the fines, then dump it after the fact.
Harry Guerrilla said:I'd like to see real reform, so far this is some kind of amalgamation of nonsense, with lots of loopholes and excuses.
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