During the second day of argument on the ObamaCare case, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito summed up what ObamaCare really is — a transference of money from the young to the less young:
JUSTICE ALITO: You can correct me if these figures are wrong, but it appears to me that the CBO has estimated that the average premium for a single insurance policy in the non-group market would be roughly $5,800 in — in 2016. Respondents — the economists have supported — the Respondents estimate that a young, healthy individual targeted by the mandate on average consumes about $854 in health services each year. So the mandate is forcing these people to provide a huge subsidy to the insurance companies for other purposes that the act wishes to serve, but isn’t — if those figures are right, isn’t it the case that what this mandate is really doing is not requiring the people who are subject to it to pay for the services that they are going to consume? It is requiring them to subsidize services that will be received by somebody else.
ObamaCare’s individual mandate forces young people who would normally use $854 per year for health care services, to instead pay $5,800 per year. Only in government mandates, would such a gross and unfair overpayment for services not rendered be accepted. If a business did something like this, its CEOs would go to jail — unless they’re Jon Corzine, anyway.
The mandate hits people who are, in Obama’s economy, among the most vulnerable. Unemployment among younger Americans is at its highest point since World War II. Obama’s policies have made it harder to get a job, harder to launch a company (we can thank ObamaCare specifically for that), and harder to keep a job. Despite Obama’s promise that “if you like your health care plan, you can keep it” (setting aside the arrogance of that statement for now), employers are more likely to drop health care plans once ObamaCare goes into full effect in 2014. For those who entered the work force in 2008 and after, the economy just has not recovered at all and should they be lucky enough to land a job with benefits, those benefits are on a knife’s edge.
The ObamaCare individual mandate hits the young twice, by making jobs for them more scarce while also requiring the young to subsidize the health care of the old. That’s where that extra $4,946 is going.
Then factor in the massive debt burden that President Obama has placed on the young. His policies amount to a giant systemic transfer of wealth from today’s young and their offspring, to the current generations in middle and old age.
Did Rahm Emmanuel get his big-think idea through? That those who are 40 and above should receive second-tier care? Because that’s right when men start becoming vulnerable to heart disease. And men are starting families and having children later- so they are fifty when they have a heart atteck: will they be able to have surgery, and then go back to work to finance their children’s college education?
The logical answer is most older and disabled people – “eaters” – will NOT receive care. The subsidies from the young will mostly go to protect the benefits of the elite, e.g., the political class, their government worker support group and any others the elites choose to allow to stay around because they provide something they want, who will continue to live the good life while the rest are either treated as slaves or “rationed” off. Believe me, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Obama and their pals are not going to be required to go quietly into the night, but you and I will not be so favored.
No, I think the long-term plan is drastically cut Medicare and transfer the money from all taxpayers to the mobs of children of third-world peasants that the liberals (Democrat and Republican) are inviting to move here, legally or not.
In a way you are right. In order to provide the demographics of lots of young people to feed the system, which is ultimately intended solely to maintain the elites in the manner to which they want to remain accustomed, they must import hordes from other countries as we are not producing enough drones ourselves. The problem is, they will be mostly uneducated and won’t help the economy grow sufficiently to keep things going for long. Also, lacking any education about or reason to adhere to traditional American values, they also may end up simply Balkanizing the country. It’s a trade-off that Europe seems to be slowly beginning to regret.
While Justice Alito is correct on the technical point, the point is irrelevant. While the cost shifting is bad public policy, it is a matter of public policy and is not a matter of law. It is most unfortunate that courts have delved so deeply into making judgements on public policy in recent decades. That is the realm of ‘activist’ judges and should have no place in a tripartite republic.
A poll taken recently (sorry, I’ve lost the reference) claimed that 50% of the public expects the Court to rule on the basis of the Justices’ political leanings rather than on the basis of law. The media certainly believe that as well, given the reporting on possible 5-4 decision scenarios. If the courts are to regain any level of respect as arbiters of law, the discussions and decisions need to return to matters of law.
Doesn’t Medicare force the young to subsidize the old? Doesn’t Social Security force the young to subsidize the old? What else is new? Everyone should be against Obamacare, not just the young; socialized medicine is always a Faustian bargain for everyone involved.
at some point you ask yourself the question Herman Kahn first asked. When inflation hits and you have to share your dog’s Alpo and gas is so high you can’t drive and are too old to walk and some half-wit at the OsamaCare office says that hip replacement won’t be cost effective for someone your age…and the young punks prowl about like alex and the three drudges….and you only have one more full magazine and cant afford to buy more shells…