Can We Have Health Reform Without an Individual Mandate?

[SHRED]

Yes, It's Called 'Medicare for All'
John Nichols
August 13, 2011

~SNIP~

Those of us who favor fundamental healthcare reform have always been uncomfortable with the individual mandate. So was candidate Barack Obama, who distinguished himself from Hillary Clinton (a mandate backer) by saying in a February 2008, interview: “Both of us want to provide health care to all Americans. There’s a slight difference, and her plan is a good one. But, she mandates that everybody buy health care. She’d have the government force every individual to buy insurance and I don’t have such a mandate because I don’t think the problem is that people don’t want health insurance, it’s that they can’t afford it. So, I focus more on lowering costs. This is a modest difference. But, it’s one that she’s tried to elevate, arguing that because I don’t force people to buy health care that I’m not insuring everybody. Well, if things were that easy, I could mandate everybody to buy a house, and that would solve the problem of homelessness. It doesn’t.”

Candidate Obama was right.

The individual mandate was always a bad idea. Instead of recognizing that healthcare is a right, the members of Congress and the Obama administration who cobbled together the healthcare reform plan created a mandate that maintains the abuses and the expenses of for-profit insurance companies—and actually rewards those insurance companies with a guarantee of federal money.

~SNIP~

“So if the individual mandate to buy private health insurance gets struck down by the Supreme Court or killed off by Congress, “ says Reich, “I’d recommend President Obama immediately propose what he should have proposed in the beginning — universal health care based on Medicare for all, financed by payroll taxes.”

FULL ARTICLE: http://www.thenation.com/blog/162765/can-we-have-health-reform-without-individual-mandate-yes-its-called-medicare-all

_________________


Looks like this is heading to the Supreme Court.
I say good. Kill this nasty mandate bullshit and get on with what Reich described.

It will be round two of the struggle and the for-profit insurance industry will be screaming bloody murder.


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[mmonk]

1. But neither party is for keeping much less expanding Medicare.

[sfpcjock]

14. I don't think that is really true.

Obama is for fixing the unfunded mandate of the GOP Medicare D (for drugs) plan, not for ending Medicare.

[Shagbark Hickory]

16. But he's not the decider. Congress is. And congress don't want it.

[FarCenter]

2. No. The existing reform legislation fails. Nothing else will pass the Congress.

[grahamhgreen]

7. Not true. At worse, it would force private insurers out of business, and usher in a PO.

[Warren Stupidity]

3. Not on the oligarchs table.

Instead we are going to get Medicare for Fewer.

[badtoworse]

4. The short answer is no. It's not going to happen in this Congress...

...and I'm not optimistic about the next one.

[Davis_X_Machina]

5. What do you mean? It's sheer rightness...

...is so obvious Congress can't not pass it.

Reason dictates it.

[salin]

13. "reason" I think that fled congress quite some time ago.

indeed I would say most of the GOP on the hill (and some dems) have become totally separated from reality and reason.

So instead let's have 20 more years of no change except escalating costs, predatory insuring and watch 10 million more (or even more) Americans lose coverage with each passing year. Because any pressure to change the pre HCR system has gone away on the GOP side who now believe their rhetoric that this was the best system in the world.

Didn't they just show us how far they will act on their disconnected belief system?

I weep for us all.

[eilen]

15. Congress is incompetent

and frozen in their intransigence while Republicans are in majority. Even if the Democrats get a majority, there is the problem of 3rd Way Blue Dogs.

Even if they manage to pass something decent, the bill has to clear the filibuster loving Senate, where every tantrum giving attention whoring Senator can threaten a filibuster to bring attention to their own pet peeves (or sponsored pet peeves).

If we want healthcare reform, we have to do it ourselves on the state level. The Federal Gov. is basically paralyzed and other than cutting funds to states, agencies, organizations and people, they are locked in a vicious electoral circle jerk of mammoth proportions and are almost worse than useless.

What we will need is some kind of flexibility to do this from the Feds, if we can get their attention.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

6. can we? yes. will we? highly doubtful. n/t

[grahamhgreen]

8. Killing the mandate but keeping the rest is now the quickest way to real reform.

It will force crapsurance providers to play ball.

[Davis_X_Machina]

9. They'll simply do what they've always been able to do...

...and lobby, having killed the mandate, for the elimination of the other provisions that make the now-mandateless model unprofitable, on the grounds that the model is now unprofititable.

I think the odds of that passing are better than the odds on single payer.

[grahamhgreen]

19. There is cohesion on the left and right ti kill the mandate. It could pass.

[snappyturtle]

10. I hope Reich is correct but I think we would be lucky if the mandate was killed

by Scotus; don't believe that will happen because it would upset the insurance industry.

[obxhead]

11. kick

[Harmony Blue]

12. Good

Time to make single payer a reality.

[WinkyDink]

17. Ask Canada. Or Europe.

[Davis_X_Machina]

21. Just don't ask Switzerland or the Netherlands...

...with their purchase mandate-and-subsidy systems.

Because we know they can't work, and they force you to buy broccoli too.

[eridani]

22. They work because the government is an absolute dictator over insuance companies.

Same thing goes in Germany, France and Japan

--They treat insurance companies as public utilities.
--They absolutely forbid denying any claim.
--They have fees directly set by the government for health care services.
--They have just one universal benefit plan in which items to be covered are specified by the government.
--They do not allow age rating.
--They have no deductibles, though co-pays may be required.

[Davis_X_Machina]

23. There is in fact age rating... at least...

...Switzerland certainly allows it -- why else ask for the age of each insured? -- and there are certainly various levels of deductibles. It's the second thing you enter, right after the age of the insured.

You can see how it works here at their largest comparison engine.

[ipaint]

24. "a 25-year-old and an 80-year-old individual pay a given insurer the same premium"

Regulations also restrict the allowable policies and profits that a private insurer may offer, as noted by healthcare economics scholar Uwe Reinhardt in a review in JAMA. Reinhardt writes that,

"To compete in the market for compulsory health insurance, a Swiss health insurer must be registered with the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health, which regulates health insurance under the 1994 statute. The insurers were not allowed to earn profits from the mandated benefit package, although they have always been able to profit from the sale of actuarially priced supplementary benefits (mainly superior amenities).
Regulations require "a 25-year-old and an 80-year-old individual pay a given insurer the same premium for the same type of policy..Overall, then, the Swiss health system is a variant of the highly government-regulated social insurance systems of Europe..that rely on ostensibly private, nonprofit health insurers that also are subject to uniform fee schedules and myriad government regulations."<3>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Switzerland

Quit spreading lies and propaganda.

[hobbit709]

18. When we get actual healthcare instead of insurance.

[TheKentuckian]

20. I don't think the Supreme Court will kill it. They are crazy but in different ways than the yahoo

newbie Congresscritters.

The Supreme Court plays a deeper and longer game and the mandate sets a precedent they can use to dictate every penny a poor person spends.
Certainly they are not acting on the oppose Obama on reflex playbook. They'll support corporate power and corporate welfare.

[RegieRocker]

25. Yes there is a way. Make a health plan that us cheaper than anything out there.

Then if your stupid enough to pay more then so be it.

[RegieRocker]

26. Sure. Government health insurance plan cheaper than anything else

available. Then if your stupid enough to pay more so be it.