If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, in all probability it is a duck. Substitute "tax" for "duck", and this one passes all those tests. So why didn't they just call it a tax in the first place? Citizens are accustomed to taxes -- they know what they are. It seems to me that a more useful debate (on the merits, rather than the mechanics) might have ensued.heathicus wrote:If someone chooses to own and drive a car, they need a minimum amount of insurance to cover damage or injury to OTHER people (the specifics vary from state to state). Nobody is forced by law to own and drive a car as a consequence of being an American citizen.
The Obamacare individual mandate to buy insurance, or suffer the consequences of law, is a requirement of simply being a citizen. It's not a result of a choice that any citizen is free to make or not make.
Personally, I think that government intervention is not necessarily unjustified in principal, but is totally misguided as implemented. IMHO, the government could and should have ensured that both the costs and likely outcomes of the various medical procedures are monitored and made transparent to health-care consumers. So that we can make our own informed choices about our health care and financing/insurance choices. But it seems that Obamacare has muddied the waters even more.
I once asked my own doctor, a friend, what a CT scan that he recommended would cost. He honestly didn't know. And it was to be performed by his own medical group. The typical attitude is "Huh? Why should you care? You aren't paying for it!". Which is why we have a medical system which is brilliant at many things, poor at others, and is greatly overpriced. BTW, my brother, a very successful radiologist, is in complete agreement with this. And he adds that at least a third of the procedures his practice orders are not actually necessary in their professional opinions, except for CYA with the malpractice lawyers. I'm sure it doesn't hurt that they get paid handsomely for them, either.
