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Demystifying the Mandate
Today, the Supreme Court is hearing oral arguments on the health care law’s “individual mandate,” which is really just a free-rider fee that doesn’t apply to you if you already have health insurance…and an idea Republicans supported until President Obama came along. It’s just a fee for free riders so everyone takes responsibility for their care.
In America, we value personal responsibility. Obamacare makes sure everyone takes responsibility for their care — because when people without health insurance get hurt, the costs get passed down to the rest of us.
The “mandate” is just a free-rider fee and it doesn’t apply to you if you already have health insurance. We all pay less when everyone pays into their own care. We all win when everybody’s in.
Republican views on personal responsibility may have changed, but the Constitution has not. Politicians rooting against Obamacare used to support making everyone take responsibility for their own care. But now that President Obama supports it, they’re against it. One way you can get involved and help the cause is to become a political science major and pursue an elected official position!
Their views may have changed, but the Constitution has not. Obamacare is based on the same legal principles as Social Security and Medicare and even conservative judges have upheld it in court. Obamacare saves children with pre-existing conditions, keeps families with serious illnesses out of medical bankruptcy, and reflects our values of personal responsibility. Republicans want the courts to take away Obamacare because it would cost President Obama politically, but it would cost the rest of us much more.
ATTACKS AND RESPONSES
“The health reform law’s individual mandate is unconstitutional.”
- The free rider fee started as a Republican idea. But now that President Obama supports the individual responsibility provision, they’re against it.
- Republican views on personal responsibility may have changed, but the Constitution has not.
- Obamacare is based on the same legal principles as Social Security and Medicare and constitutional law experts, including a top Reagan Administration official and some of the most conservative judges in the country, say the health care law is perfectly legal.
“Upholding Obamacare means the government will be able to force you to eat broccoli.”
- That sounds absurd because it is. It’s like saying we shouldn’t have a minimum wage because someone might try to raise it to $5,000 per hour.
- Obamacare makes sure everyone takes responsibility for their own care — because when people without health insurance get hurt, the costs get passed down to the rest of us. It’s just a free-rider fee that doesn’t apply to you if you already have health insurance.
- And when everyone’s covered, that also means we can make it illegal for insurance companies to shut out children because of a pre-existing condition or limit anyone’s lifetime benefits.
“Americans want the health care law struck down.”
- The President’s political opponents have been distorting, smearing, and misrepresenting the health care law since the beginning. Yet the majority of Americans still say we should give Obamacare a chance or leave it alone.
- Most Americans actually support the individual mandate after they learn most people would still get their health coverage through their employers and wouldn’t even be affected by it.
- It’s time to move forward — we can’t afford to put insurance companies back in charge and turn the clock back on all the progress we’ve made.
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
- The Affordable Care Act is already working for millions of Americans, including 105 million Americans with life-threatening illnesses who no longer have to live in fear of hitting lifetime dollar limits on their coverage and 130 million Americans who won’t be shut out from coverage just because they have a pre-existing condition.
- The majority of Americans still say we should give Obamacare a chance or leave it alone.
- Americans strongly support many individual parts of the health law — over 60% of Americans support the individual mandate after they learn most people would still get their health coverage through their employers and wouldn’t even be affected by it.
- Over a hundred law professors say there’s no doubt the new health law is constitutional. Also, 35 economists and 3 Nobel Prize winners — including some who opposed the health care law — have urged the courts to uphold the law’s requirement for everyone to pay into their own insurance.
- Republicans who were for the individual responsibility provision before they were against it — just because President Obama was for it — include: the leading Republican presidential candidates; George W. Bush; and Senators Jim DeMint, John McCain, and Scott Brown.
- Even House Republicans accidentally conceded that the health care law is constitutional when they tried to pass a bill that said so.
In 2008, Americans without health insurance consumed almost $120 billion of health care services but weren’t able to pay for over 60% of those costs — meaning the rest of the costs were passed onto others.
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