22 January 2017
Trump’s Healthcare Bait and Switch
One of President Trump’s first executive orders was to order
a relaxation of the mandate on federal agencies to enforce non-participation
penalties on taxpayers eligible for coverage by the ACA. It is my understanding that that feature of
Obama Care was included in order to assure that enough funds would be available
to finance its benefits by forcing greater participation by healthier and
younger potential subscribers. The
result of elimination of this disincentive from the ACA would appear to be the
need to subsidize the Plan with general federal revenues in order to pay for
the healthcare of those who choose not to pay for their own private plans.
What it comes down to is that there is no silver
bullet. Somebody has to pay for ersatz
universal health care. Obama Care is an
attempt to disguise an expensive plan to cover everyone with healthcare
insurance by forcing those not covered through their employers or under costly
independent private plans to subscribe for a government-brokered private plan
whether they thought they needed it or not.
It modeled itself on Social Security, which has young wage-earners
financing retirees’ benefits through payroll deductions.
So who’s complaining that a champion of smaller government
is responding to disappointment that Obama Care cannot be a free ride by
allowing evasion of its primary mechanism for avoiding insolvency? The relaxation of penalty requirements on
those who refuse to participate will inevitably lead to relying on general
federal revenues in order to finance ACA’s benefits. Universal health insurance is too attractive now that we have it. The ultimate accomplishment of Obama Care may
then turn out to be acceptance of universal healthcare by conservative policy-makers. Was it “bait and switch?” Perhaps a deft use of that tactic.
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