Call the police – there’s gonna be a mugging!
I don’t need to wake up to news like this.
For those that haven’t heard – Mitt Romney, “Republican” governor of Massachussets has said he will sign a law that mandates that all persons “who can afford to” must purchase health insurance, or face the loss of their personal deduction on state income taxes until they’ve stored $10,000 in a state-controlled escrow account. They’ve finally figured out that healthy, single young men aren’t buying health insurance because, well, it’s not much of a bargain.
Their solution? FORCE those healthy young men to cough up the money so that other people’s unhealthy decisions can be subsidized. Why should a young, healthy person pay $300 a month for insurance, when better than 90% of what it covers is stuff they will never use. Of course – it’s a way of taxing one person to subsidize someone else, by calling it personal responsibility!
Calling compulsory insurance an “individual mandate” is perfect Marxist doublespeak. This is nothing more than the government, by force of arms, taking the earnings of one person to give to another. And the comments by supporters about the young healthy men (like me) who don’t buy insurance – trying to make us out to be leeches who feed from a system we don’t finance – are likely off base. I pay for all of my health care, out of pocket. I’d like to see the numbers of “well-paid” young men who skip out on medical debts. I’d also like to know why those debts (if they even exist) aren’t collected with the ferocity the state uses to collect on a speeding ticket.
This erstwhile conservative actually tries to gloss over the whole escrow issue. What part of “you cannot take my $10,000 from my pocket for something that I do not want” is beyond your comprehension here? Denying me the personal deduction on a tax that the state really had no right to collect in the first place is adding insult to injury.
This takedown of the plan however is much closer to reality.
Romney says “You’ll have choice, but your choices will have consequences.” But it’s apparent that the only choice here is to buy insurance, whether you want it or not.