Question: If a $600/month insurance policy only costs the individual $33, what does it REALLY cost?
Answer: $600, with $567 less in purchasing power for the hard-working taxpayer who is subsidizing it.
Smoke and mirrors make for bad policy. When we buy any type of insurance, we weigh the benefits of the policy against the loss of the money we must put out to purchase the policy. When we ask the taxpayers to subsidize our policy, all such reasoning disappears.
Most of us have limited funds, so we must choose carefully. Wise people insure against major loss, such as our house burning down. Most of us believe that paying $1,000 per year is reasonable, as the cost to rebuild a house is hundreds of thousands of dollars. Insurance gives us peace of mind, even though the chance of our house burning down is statistically very low.
For many reasons, we have allowed health insurance to defy all the principles of insurance. There is something emotional about health insurance. Maybe it is because we fear death and want to be sure it does not happen to us any time soon. Maybe it is watching others suffer from illness and want insurance to assure that they get well, do not suffer, and have all their bills paid.
We have actually been duped into thinking that someone else ought to pay for all the health care we need. Politicians gain support and votes when they assure the masses that they care about their health. And insurance companies are more than happy to offer generous policies since commissions and CEO compensation are a percentage of the premiums.
Dr. Alieta Eck is not likely to be a U.S. Senator come October 17. She’s yet to choose a campaign manager for her primary race against Steve Lonegan in the August 13 special primary. She does not have a fundraising base nor the personal wealth to pay for a statewide campaign.
Lots of New Jerseyans lost personal wealth when Jon Corzine was governor. Eck told me she lost $200,000 to Corzine in the MF Global debacle. Fortunately she got $180,000 back, but that won’t fund a statewide primary or general election.
Based upon my interview with her, I don’t think she is quite ready to debate Lonegan, or the eventual Democratic nominee, most likely Cory Booker, on any issue other the healthcare, yet. But that could change. Eck is smart.
Governor Christie Continues Prudent Approach to Federal Health Care Implementation with Veto of State-Run Exchange Legislation
Veto Avoids Saddling State Taxpayers with Huge, Open-Ended Exchange Costs Without Comparative Details of Alternatives from the Federal Government
Trenton, NJ – Continuing a careful and thoughtful approach that appropriately considers the best interests of the state’s residents and taxpayers, Governor Chris Christie today vetoed legislation that would have begun to establish a State-based health care exchange in New Jersey in line with the federal Affordable Care Act. Though December 14, 2012 is the deadline for states to decide whether to establish a State-based Exchange, the federal government has failed to provide critical information and to answer basic questions about the operation and implementation of each of the options provided, making any decision made now hasty, incomplete, and perhaps fiscally detrimental to the taxpayers of New Jersey.
Governor Christie has consistently stated that once legal issues surrounding the Affordable Care Act were settled, New Jersey would comply with the federal mandate, but only in the most responsible way among the available alternatives. The creation of health care exchanges is provided for in the Affordable Care Act as the vehicle for eligible individuals and businesses to access care, with three exchange options being given to states: Federally Facilitated, Partnership, or State-based. Though the federal government’s deadline for states to select the type of exchange they will participate in is nearly here, New Jersey and all other states still await substantial federal guidance on all three options.
“We will comply with the Affordable Care Act, but only in the most efficient and cost effective way for New Jersey taxpayers. Such an important decision as how to best move forward for New Jerseyans can only be understood and reasonably made when fairly and fully compared to the overall value of the other options. Until the federal government gives us all the necessary information, any other action than this would be fiscally irresponsible,” said Governor Christie. “Thus far, we lack such critical information from the federal government. I will not ask New Jerseyans to commit today to a State-based Exchange when the federal government cannot tell us what it will cost, how that cost compares to other options, and how much control they will give the states over this option that comes at the cost of our state’s taxpayers.”
Governor Christie has previously and continually cited the importance – both from a fiscal and health care policy perspective – of having additional clarity and guidance from the federal government on a host of critical issues related to implementation of the Affordable Care Act at the state level. Absent this critical information about cost, cost-sharing, scope of control, and the federal rulemaking landscape, New Jersey cannot fairly evaluate the best or most fiscally prudent path to follow for its residents.
“Financing the building and implementation of a State-based Exchange would be an extraordinarily costly endeavor,” continued Governor Christie. “While the federal governmental has enabled states to apply for grant funding to cover some of the initial costs of such an endeavor, the total price for such a program has never been quantified, and is likely to be onerous. Without knowing the full scope of which Exchange option would be most beneficial and cost efficient for New Jerseyans, it would be irresponsible to force such a bill on our citizens.”
On this our Independence Day I think that it is time for the Republican geldings to stop their whining over the Roberts Supreme Court decision and to think about what can be done with the decision. He reigned in the Medicaid expansion. That ruling stopped the Federal government from extorting the states. This portion of the ruling could have implications that we have not yet discovered.
The Obama Administration has granted ObamaCare waivers to 1,200 organizations. These were “thank you” to their supporters. They were granted under the false notion that ObamaCare was constitutional under article 8, the “commerce clause”. Apparently the regulation of commerce was construed to mean giving out goodies to your friends. However since ObamaCare was found to be constitutional under article 7, the taxing power, are the exemptions still valid? Under the tax laws enforced by the IRS we are all treated equally. If I get a deduction for dependent children, so do all citizens who meet the dependent child test. The IRS cannot arbitrarily decide who will get the child exemption based upon political favoritism. The question now becomes are all of the 1,200 exemptions null and void. If they are null and void I’m sure that Obama’s supporters that received them are going to be very unhappy and some of this unhappiness could exhibit itself on Election Day
Just as a note, Fox News played the tape of the Solicitor General making the case for article 7. Apparently this was plan B if the commerce clause was going to fall apart, which it did.
In today’s deeply disappointing decision on Obamacare, a majority of the Supreme Court actually got the Constitution mostly right. The Commerce Clause — the part of the Constitution that grants Congress the authority to regulate commerce among the states — does not authorize the federal government to force Americans to buy health insurance. The Court, in a 5–4 decision, refused to join all the august legal experts who insisted that of course it granted that authorization, that only yahoos and Republican partisans could possibly doubt it. It then pretended that this requirement is constitutional anyway, because it is merely an application of the taxing authority. Rarely has the maxim that the power to tax is the power to destroy been so apt, a portion of liberty being the direct object in this case.
What the Court has done is not so much to declare the mandate constitutional as to declare that it is not a mandate at all, any more than the mortgage-interest deduction in the tax code is a mandate to buy a house. Congress would almost surely have been within its constitutional powers to tax the uninsured more than the insured. Very few people doubt that it could, for example, create a tax credit for the purchase of insurance, which would have precisely that effect. But Obamacare, as written, does more than that. The law repeatedly speaks in terms of a “requirement” to buy insurance, it says that individuals “shall” buy it, and it levies a “penalty” on those who refuse. As the conservative dissent points out, these are the hallmarks of a “regulatory penalty, not a tax.”
The law as written also cuts off all federal Medicaid funds for states that decline to expand the program in the ways the lawmakers sought. A majority of the Court, including two of the liberals, found this cut-off unconstitutionally coercive on the states. The Court’s solution was not to invalidate the law or the Medicaid expansion, but to rule that only the extra federal funds devoted to the expansion could be cut off. As the dissenters rightly point out, this solution rewrites the law — and arbitrarily, since Congress could have avoided the constitutional problem in many other ways.
