Pay just $695 for ... nothing.

No, no, no. We've got it all wrong on this "mandatory" health care law, says former WaPo writer Garrett Epps, "a novelist and legal scholar (who) teaches courses in constitutional law and creative writing** for law students at the University of Baltimore." Heh.

Here's how he spins it, with that creativite writing/law background and all:

There will remain a small but significant number of Americans who can afford health care insurance but choose not to buy it. But contrary to the sound bite above, even they are not required to "maintain a minimum level of health insurance." If they wish to keep their uninsured status, they may do so by paying an addition to their income tax bills--ranging from as little as $695 for an individual taxpayer to $2,085 for a family of six or more. The claim that the government is "forcing individuals to buy a commercial product" is worse than spin; it is simply false.

Well, thanks but no thanks, Mr. Epps. I'd prefer to continue spending annually that $695* er... "donation", to satisfy my individual health needs in the way I best see fit. I don't think the government has the right to demand payment for non-services out of me, just to continue to prop up a troubled industry that apparently has troubles making profits on service voluntarily contracted for, yet can afford to pay their administrators untold bonuses.

Under the Constitution, you can't force such involuntary "contributions" out of people on behalf of a well-lobbied private industry, for services not consumed or desired.

Our Bill of Rights protects individuals from such overreaching legislative "solutions", even if a majority of citizens should go along with such a power grab and transfer (which polls show, they don't.)

Back to the creative drawing board, Professor Epps.

* You'd be surprised how far a well-spent $695 can take you, in some parts of the country especially, if you think of it in terms of real money, not just excess government largesse. Or "throwaway".

UPDATE: Regarding this part of his "creative" argument, Epps errs because the administration has already committed itself: It's not a tax.

This brings us to the contention that the act somehow regulates "inactivity." Let's you and I test this proposition: why don't you just remain totally inactive in 2014, when the Act first takes effect.

Quit your job and get rid of your investments. The government will not regulate you. (True, it may offer you government-financed health care; but again, that is a benefit, not a regulation or punishment.)

But if you decide actually to work (I recommend that, by the way), you are not being "inactive." You are taking part in commerce. The Constitution gives Congress plenary authority "to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes."

A system of regulation might easily include requiring you to pay taxes if you choose to burden commerce; willful refusal to maintain adequate health coverage for yourself and your family is such a burden. To claim otherwise doesn't pass the straight-face test.

Finally, there's this:

Conservatives like to prate about "individual responsibility" when it is a question of forcing the poor to work; asking the solvent to pay for themselves seems quite in line with these conservative values.

Again, Mr. Epps makes the fatal error of confusing having health insurance with having good health. A deal, sir? Take back the mandate and the $695 penalty/tax/shakedown, and let those with no outstanding unpaid healthcare bills off the hook. If you don't consume, and don't treat, (as so many of the voluntarily non-insured do now for their minimal needs), you're not required to pony up to carry the overconsuming insureds, or the consuming non-paying non-insureds. Deal? Then, those treating and consuming medical services would have an incentive to see costs brought down, and treatment made more economically efficient.

What we have now... those costs can continue to balloon, we're just counting on the non-consumers to continue that way and be forced into this messed up system, so we can shift their premiums to pay for the "nobody turned away for pre-existing conditions" promise the government found it so easy to make. It's a bit like the Social Security Ponzi scheme that nobody wants to touch today, preferring to let our wealthy elders continue to collect from a system that was originally sold as a "safety net" for poor elderly. (So now we have the young working poor essentially subsidizing your wealthy Grandma's Cabo trip. Don't worry though -- she's inviting you along, and you'll inherit any extras she leaves behind. But not so for those without wealthy elderly in their inheritance family trees... Which is why it has to be a need-based social system, nevermind what the numbercrunchers like Krugman, with elderly parents themselves presumably collecting, tell us. He's biased, a liberal spokesman, remember. Not a neutral numbercruncher -- where would we find that in this telegenic age? )

Instead of first tackling that problem though, political experts who have now moved on to more lucrative positions, instead gave us another HUGE government program, currently being rejected by the people, with fuzzy details on how this will actually work in reality.

Again, thanks for the offer of help, but no thank you. Not without an opt-out. And one that isn't priced at $695 for starters, either. Good day!




** Remember back in the good old days, when the creative artists weren't afraid to quit their day jobs and immerse themselves in their creative pursuits? It's this double-dipping and cross-consulting (economist/journolist; law professor/creative writing teacher; spokesman for a cause/indpendent analyst) that's messing up the mix nowadays, I think.

And the country is beginning to show it, the natural conflicts of interest that arise in pursuing the "truth" of the matter. Ah truth, ever elusive, but surely still worth pursuing, no? (or is there a $695 opt-out there too, where if you pay the piper, we can just close our eyes to the natural consequences of systemic failure as a whole?)