Danger!

I've been saying things like this for some time, and it appears it's catching on.

Today, Michael Waldman (KagroX) at Dailykos.com:

You're going to force me to pay an insurance company for shit insurance that as a free market actor I decided not to even try to buy?

Fuck the hell out of that.

Amen.

I started out presuming that Baucus, Conrad, and the conservaDems actually wanted health care reform that would work -- meaning it would work for citizens, not just for insurance companies. Then Baucus managed to diddle and delay a Finance Committee bill: delay serves nothing but killing good aspects of the bill.

Of course, wingnuts and astroturfers have spent the delay killing the public option, leaving the bill with a mandate which will shovel money to insurance company CEOs. It will changes some of their past abuses but will inevitably not consider the next wave of abusive practices that will make health insurance a hated commodity (i.e., insurers will plant--or find -- new loopholes to screw consumers).

Pre-existing conditions and lifetime caps will be gone, to some extent--but how will they work around that when they want to boost quarterly profits? And what about recission? (Supposedly it will be banned, but individuals will have to appeal the recission -- lovely during a medical crisis.) What about the next as-yet-unnamed scam the insurance companies come up with to screw people out of both their premiums and their life-saving care?

Think that'll get fixed before you die? Considering how hard taking on insurance companies proves to be, don't bet on it. Just mandatorily pay your money to Stephen Helmsley (2008 compensation: over $3 million) and prepare to get screwed.

People will end up hating their insurance and the Democrats -- not just the insurance companies -- will get blamed for it.

The stupidity of this scheme is just incredible.

At least keep a public option so one isn't a criminal if one doesn't reward Stephen Helmsley for his stock-dating scam.

Note to the unnamed White House official who included individual mandates in the list of so-called "goodies" that progressives will love: you are so utterly full of shit.


As Atrios put it: "mccain attacking obama on both corporatist and noncorporatist stuff. neat trick, they'll pull it off too."

They sure will. If people don't like their health insurance, they will blame Obama, and the Democrats. The Republicans will campaign against it, win, and rip out every change that was made. Welcome back, recission! Welcome back refusal due to pre-existing conditions! Welcome back, annual and lifetime caps! With half-measures, the Dems will apparently put together a healthcare system that people will hate. In a few years, Republicans will change it back to the current one!