![Some conservatives have charged that Marco Rubio has proposed an individual mandate for health insurance. [Credit: ABC News]](https://i0.wp.com/www.dougsbriefcase.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Credit-ABC-News.jpg)
Some conservatives have charged that Marco Rubio has proposed an individual mandate for health insurance. [Credit: ABC News]
Obamacare Does NOT Have A Mandate
Doug's Brief Case
A brief case for my way of thinking.
Doug nails it.….again. Tomato/Tomaato. I’ll see your Mandate and raise you a Tax Penalty. Unfortunately, most people outside the Beltway lose focus rather quickly once the words “mandate” or “tax preference” are uttered. Whoever among the Presidential candidates emerges successful on November 8 would be well advised to drop all the sleep-inducing health care vernacular and rather move us all forward with a different set of nouns & verbs to explain how he/she will “fix” our health care system. My first suggestion would be to make absolutely certain the country understands that health care (Doctors, Hospitals, drugs, devices, etc.) is decidedly separate from health care financing (Insurance, government, churches, etc.). They are certainly related but quite separate. My second suggestion is for the November 8 winner to make it clear to all that while some of the parts are unto themselves “broken,” none of the parts will ever work “for” the country until they work together (by hook or by crook) for the common good rather than their own good. For example, health care financing costs (insurance) track inextricably and quite predictably with the “thing” they pay for—the cost of health care itself. It’s not rocket science; it’s actuarial science. And yet during the Obamacare debate, the Congress and the White House totally dismissed any meaningful effort at curbing health care costs even with such low-hanging fruit out there, e.g., use of Disease Management saves $30 billion a year, defensive medicine costs us $127 Billion a year and fraud costs the country $150 Billion a year. And there are tons more examples of how our Congress and President have side-stepped the real health care/financing issues and have opted for the Headline instead. We will never get this right until all the “players” stop circling their own wagons within their own arena and start holding hands with others.
Thanks, Jonathan. Very well said. We seem to have too many arguments over how best to finance medical costs (i.e., getting someone else to pay my medical bills) and too few over how best to minimize those costs.