Can’t get enough of Obamacare’s individual mandate? Get ready for “mandate plus.”
Isn’t it amusing how we are always hoodwinked.
The Obama administration always said there was a practical reason it needed the mandate, which starts next year. It wasn’t to be mean to people — it was supposed to pull in enough healthy customers to help pay for all the sick people who will get coverage. That’s why the White House stuck with it all the way to the Supreme Court — however unpopular politically, it was the best tool to make the new health system work.
Here’s the catch: The individual mandate penalties will be pretty weak as they are phased in over two years — only $95 when they start in 2014, much less than it costs to buy insurance. And yet, everyone with pre-existing conditions will have to be accepted for coverage right away.
Now they tell us. After the ‘mandate/tax’ been declared Constitutional, and the elections are safely over.
That’s why insurance companies are telling the administration the mandate won’t be enough for the first two years. They want more incentives — such as a late enrollment fee — to get healthy people to sign up quickly. Without getting the healthy folks in, the fear is that everyone’s health insurance premiums could shoot through the roof when all those sick people get their coverage…
This is a win-win for Obama. He gets to blame the insurance companies for being greedy and wanting higher mandates. And insurance companies will have to charge more for their premiums, which will drive more people into the government’s system.
" . . . But now, these groups are asking HHS to impose the measures on its own, saying it has the power to keep the health insurance market stable in the first two years… . . .
You see, you don’t need Congress to impose new or higher taxes. The Secretary of HHS can do it. ‘As the Secretary shall determine…’ Isn’t that neat?
Just stand back and watch this little tax quickly become a huge tax. "
RIGHT'S RIGHT 
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Mon Jan 14, 2013 9:44 am
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