Stop the presses....

Hell hath frozen over. I agree with Barack Obama:



Ok, ok... I know. This is just another in a long line of deceitful, underhanded, and downright hypocritical statements Obama has made. I mean, we can't really hold him to what he said in a primary, can we? He was just trying to win an election after all and, let's be honest, we can't really expect to hold true to what they say are their core beliefs.

At what point do people start waking up to the fact that this guy is a snake oil salesman?


* The reality is, Obama was never against the individual mandate, no matter what he says in this video. One of the main aspects of health care reform that he was pushing was the removal of the barricade pre-existing conditions presented into the health care marketplace. Obama, as did Hillary Clinton, knows that you cannot force health insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions without also forcing the general public to buy insurance. If insurance companies were forced to cover pre-existing conditions, without the individual mandate, then the incentive to purchase insurance is nullified. Why purchase insurance until you become sick if you know that, once you do become sick, you can then purchase the insurance to cover the costs of your medical care?

More simply put, let's push this into the auto insurance industry. Let's say auto insurance companies were forced to cover 'pre-existing' conditions. That would mean that I could decide to forgo the purchase of insurance at this time. If I do get into a major accident that totals my car, under the no denial of pre-existing conditions clause, I could contact Insurer X, purchase insurance and then say, "Oh, by the way, I got into an accident last week and totaled my car. Pay for it."

This is why the individual mandate is so important to this bill and to the Democrats. The ONLY reason the insurance companies signed on is that the Federal Government is forcing you to purchase their product. The fine, which can be up to 2.5% of your gross income, is the incentive to purchase the insurance, which allows the insurance companies to accept the pre-existing condition clause of the bill. Without the individual mandate, the pre-existing condition clause would cause the complete and total destruction of the health insurance industry.

Also, what Barack Obama stated is absolutely true. Under this bill - going on the percentage of insured stated in the bill - 95% of Americans will be insured. That then leaves 5% uninsured, and facing a fine of 2.5% of their gross income, making them far worse off than they were before this bill. Now, instead of not having insurance, they don't have insurance and they're getting their pay check hammered by the IRS by 2.5% off their gross income.**

All of this and I haven't even touched on the fact that the individual mandate is blatantly unconstitutional. If the Supreme Court continues it's slide toward the left with it's broad definition of the commerce clause, and the allow the individual mandate to stand, then that effectively means there is nothing that is truly out of bounds for the government to require you to purchase.

** The delicious irony in this is that the law was written by tax cheat Charlie Rangle (among others, obviously) and will be enforced by tax cheat Timothy Geithner.