Senator Clinton Might Garnish Wages to Force Citizens to Pay for Health Insurance
"Hillarycare" crashed and burned in 1993 because it was overly bureaucratic and complicated. She has now gone in the opposite direction--mandatory private coverage. But, I don't think this policy idea is going to fly, either. When asked how she would force people to buy health insurance, she apparently stated that the wages of refuseniks could be garnished. From the story:Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton said Sunday she might be willing to garnish the wages of workers who refuse to buy health insurance to achieve coverage for all Americans. The New York senator has criticized presidential rival Barack Obama for pushing a health plan that would not require universal coverage. Clinton has not always specified the enforcement measures she would embrace, but when pressed on ABC's "This Week," she said: "I think there are a number of mechanisms" that are possible, including "going after people's wages, automatic enrollment."
Clinton said such measures would apply only to workers who can afford health coverage but refuse to buy it, which puts undue pressure on hospitals and emergency rooms. With her proposals for subsidies, she said, "it will be affordable for everyone."
I have been furious at the Clintons since 1993 because they wasted the one political window of opportunity in my lifetime to straighten American health care out. And now, the mess is worse. Solving the matter will require incremental change, a willingness to limit the scope and breadth of coverage and avoid mine fields like abortion, as well as a mix of public and private coverage opportunities. Perhaps a good place to start would be to reduce Medicare eligibility to age 60. That would bring healthier people into the Medicare system, allowing for a better actuarial spreading of the risk, while at the same time, taking people who are more expensive to care for than young people out of the private pool, thereby helping with affordability in the private sector.
This much is sure: We are all going to have to be flexible in at least some regards or the job will never get done.
Labels: National Health Care
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 6:25 PM
6 Comments
6 Comments:
This woman is absolutely ridiculous! So not only do my taxes go to pay for people on welfare and illegal aliens and their medical coverage, but my wages will also be garnished???? Is she smoking crack??
Look at what is happening in the UK with their National Health System. They are running out of money and are now selecting who they feel are "deserving" of medical care.
Why she just hand us gray uniforms and instead of letting us buy our own things, just hand it to us as we wait in really long lines.
We will be the new USSR. Only we will be the USSA. The United Soviet States of America.
So if I can afford to buy health insurance but refuse I am causing undue pressure on hospitals and emergency rooms? Not if I never go to them.
How about people who don't pay for it don't get service? Or is that too heartless?
Yes, mattress, I do believe it is too heartless in Billary World.
They want the lazy deadbeats to have everything and they want those of us who actually work to get what little we have, to pay for the deadbeats.
There is much I would like to say..but all of my comments pale in light of the fact that according to the United States Constitution...it is NOT the role of government to provide healthcare!
The problem is a big one...but there needs to be another method to help the uninsured!!!! What...I don't know! But even if the government were allowed under our constituion to provide such a service.....you know it will not work. The government seems to bungle everything.
Hillary's proposal has real problems, as she will find soon enough if she wins.
Requiring someone to buy medical insurance to fix the problem of the uninsured is a lot like solving the problem of affordable housing by requiring everyone to buy a house. It ain't gonna work. And the jury's still out on the new Massachusetts individual mandate, which has disturbing provisions and loopholes.
But I do see grave constitutional problems, and not just with the 9th and 10th amendments. Follow the logic. A government requirement that you spend money on something, whether you want to or not, whether it is to a government entity or not, is a tax. Requiring every adult, regardless of income or circumstance, to buy something such as insurance is the definition of a poll tax, which is broadly prohibited in the body of the Constitution. An individual mandate is therefore unconstitutional.
Other questions arise. Would people be thrown in jail for not buying medical coverage? It might seem like a silly question, but scratch the surface. Few people know that the original Clinton healthcare proposals in 1993-1994 were heavily based on the bureaucratic German system, not the single-payer British or Canadian systems, and the German system is full of strict requirements, registration and tracking of all citizens, and punitive provisions that the Clinton package copied. Going to jail for not keeping the insurance companies in business might be a real possibility.
Trying to make the analogy with drivers having auto liability insurance is a joke. No one is mandated by law to own a car or drive. Even today a few states still do not expressly require drivers to have liability insurance. (My home state allows uninsured registration for a $500 annual fee. It does not provide coverage, but allows the vehicle to be legally used on public roads.)
I also see a risk to some from the government's use of "imputed income" to make certain economic calculations. In brief, if you own your home free and clear or have a low mortgage payment, the difference between that and what you would have to pay in free-market rent on that same home is one type of imputed income, according to the feds. Certain government types look at that difference as money in your pocket that should be counted as income, in other words, and taxed in some fashion. My suspicion is that imputed income will be used somehow to compute individual liabilities for medical insurance should Hillary's proposal pass. I got hit with a different imputed income problem when applying for financial aid for university in the early 1980s, so I have experience firsthand with its effects.
Democrat challenger Barack Obama's campaign ran one ad saying that Hillary would force struggling families to buy medical coverage whether they could afford it or not. The Clinton campaign screamed bloody murder. I can't understand why: it's true! But the prospect of something like this smacking American families just might derail her run down the road.
This all boils down to the fact that you are considered "property" by the state.....ie slaves. Clinton is mearly the most upfront with this manifesto.
To suggest that Medicare (which I don't find in the Constitution either for some reason) be expanded is equally as absurd. Since it is corrupt, immoral and inefficient, it should be given a broader role to make it better?? True government reasoning.
Mort
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