Fears about hyperinflation is Libertarian hysteria.

Originally Posted by Odin

Fears about hyperinflation is Libertarian hysteria.

That's sure the way it turned out in Russia, Germany, Zimbabwe, etc. etc...

Originally Posted by Justin '77

That's sure the way it turned out in Russia, Germany, Zimbabwe, etc. etc...

We have a key advantage.. our debts our to ourselves, or to foreign entities but denominated in our own dollars! Quite a different situation! Further, right now we are simply replacing money that was lost when the banking industry blew up. The wealthy hate government spending because it dilutes their power. Later they will see their wealth taxed along side the newly created wealth that comes as a result of the government projects. The effect will be to redistribute the money to people and projects that benefit the nation.

Originally Posted by scotths

We have a key advantage.. our debts our to ourselves, or to foreign entities but denominated in our own dollars! Quite a different situation! Further, right now we are simply replacing money that was lost when the banking industry blew up. The wealthy hate government spending because it dilutes their power. Later they will see their wealth taxed along side the newly created wealth that comes as a result of the government projects. The effect will be to redistribute the money to people and projects that benefit the nation.

Umm... not really. While I was abroad in Wien, the world & the US were in talks of how to solve the global recession. It essentially watered down to this:

China buys up America's debt/backs up the dollar & everyone hopes and prays that the Chinese economy continues to boom.

The same thing happened 82 years ago in 1927 when England & Europe turned to America to back up the pound & everyone hoped and prayed that the American economy would continue to boom. Then 1929 happened...

So yeah... when China's economy goes we're screwed.

~Chas'88

Originally Posted by Seattleblue

I'd love to see Obama step up and tell them that their plan isn't good enough. That would be real leadership.

I don't think he will.
TBH he's lucky enough it's in as good of shape as it is. It was faring a lot worse before Pelosi decided to revive the "public option."
And if you think the public would forgive him for it, think again. Republicans would probably interpret "not good enough" as "not liberal enough" and whatever support Reid managed to scrape up would roll their eyes, shrug and leave.
Congress isn't a perfect democratic model, but these gentrified, well off, and probably a little more slightly corrupt politicians are who we have representing us right now, and I'm surprised they were able to scrape up as much as they did given the Senates unfortunate rural over representation and all those Blue Dogs.

So, you basically think we haven't had our 1929 yet? If that is the case, then in 1928 we are already stimulating the economy with government spending. When the 1929 event occurs the public will likely be prepared for more stimulus since we've already established that as ok... There won't be 3 years of inaction this time!

Originally Posted by Chas'88

Umm... not really. While I was abroad in Wien, the world & the US were in talks of how to solve the global recession. It essentially watered down to this:

China buys up America's debt/backs up the dollar & everyone hopes and prays that the Chinese economy continues to boom.

The same thing happened 82 years ago in 1927 when England & Europe turned to America to back up the pound & everyone hoped and prayed that the American economy would continue to boom. Then 1929 happened...

So yeah... when China's economy goes we're screwed.

~Chas'88

The next question is, come "1929" will Obama's economic band-aids make things better than they would be or worse? Meh kind of a moot point because if we aren't there yet, he's probably gonna be blamed for it. Sucks to be him.

Originally Posted by scotths

So, you basically think we haven't had our 1929 yet? If that is the case, then in 1928 we are already stimulating the economy with government spending. When the 1929 event occurs the public will likely be prepared for more stimulus since we've already established that as ok... There won't be 3 years of inaction this time!

We haven't had our 1929 or 1933 yet. It doesn't matter, we still have the same rules that got us into this problem the first place. So another burst from the Stock Market is still in play.

Originally Posted by writerGrrl

The next question is, come "1929" will Obama's economic band-aids make things better than they would be or worse? Meh kind of a moot point because if we aren't there yet, he's probably gonna be blamed for it. Sucks to be him.

The young people support him.. That's what matters! That's the clue that there won't be a swing the other way...

Originally Posted by scotths

So, you basically think we haven't had our 1929 yet? If that is the case, then in 1928 we are already stimulating the economy with government spending. When the 1929 event occurs the public will likely be prepared for more stimulus since we've already established that as ok... There won't be 3 years of inaction this time!

Globally we haven't reached 1929, because our "next best hope" aka China hasn't reached there yet--I'd give it a year or two before it happens for China. Personally as a country I'd say we're in 1930. Globally we'll be playing the role of England in this scenario--for whom their 1929 came in 1927.

~Chas'88

Originally Posted by Chas'88

Globally we haven't reached 1929, because our "next best hope" aka China hasn't reached there yet--I'd give it a year or two before it happens for China. Personally as a country I'd say we're in 1930. Globally we'll be playing the role of England in this scenario--for whom their 1929 came in 1927.

~Chas'88

Does it matter that china has already begun spending money on stimulus on a very large scale? They don't have the impediments to it that we do! I think that is the key.. The sooner national governments gain control and begin injecting money into the right places in the economy to begin the building of a new infrastructure the better..

Originally Posted by scotths

Does it matter that china has already begun spending money on stimulus on a very large scale? They don't have the impediments to it that we do! I think that is the key.. The sooner national governments gain control and begin injecting money into the right places in the economy to begin the building of a new infrastructure the better..

Well, each 4T is solved by a different solution than the one that solved the previous one. So I don't expect last saeculum's solutions to solve THE problem, but rather unintentionally cause THE problem of this saeculum that we'll have to confront. If we weren't forced to come up with new solutions society wouldn't have evolved to where it is right now.

I see S&H theory as a long slinky or a spring stretched out, with there being a cyclical looping line that moves from point A to point B.

~Chas'88

Originally Posted by Chas'88

Well, each 4T is solved by a different solution than the one that solved the previous one. So I don't expect last saeculum's solutions to solve THE problem, but rather unintentionally cause THE problem of this saeculum that we'll have to confront. If we weren't forced to come up with new solutions society wouldn't have evolved to where it is right now.

I see S&H theory as a long slinky or a spring stretched out, with there being a cyclical looping line that moves from point A to point B.

~Chas'88

In that case I think it already has happened! In the last saecellum we created massive hierarchal bureaucracies and corporations and divided the world among a few massive powers and fought a global war. I think we are seeing right now the repudiation of those 2 ideas...

In the first case we are seeing more and more the hazards of such massive hierarchical organizations. We are seeing a shift in policy that will allow smaller organizations to be competitive and a shift to modifying the free market rather than regulating directly. For instance, cap and trade will allow the free market to determine where money can best be spent to reduce emissions and force expenditures to do so. The banking crisis will likely lead to a shift back to community banking in which bankers know their customers and can lend with that information. The new electric grid will allow for smaller entities capable of storing or creating power to be profitable. An insurance exchange will allow different insurance companies to compete on an equal playing field in which insiders no longer will have the advantages they used to.

I think this in part relates to the new form of communication we have this time. Last time, radio was new and the structure of the emerging society was strongly based on the one-to-many communication model. This time we have the internet which lends us to a society structure more around an interconnected web rather than a pyramid. Nevertheless, we still need government spending and regulation to force money to flow where it needs to flow.

Regarding the second, our country is turning more and more away from the idea of acting as the world's policemen. We are realizing we can't simply bully other countries into submission as we did in the past, but are moving towards a policy of careful diplomacy.

In other words, I think a lot of people are interpreting Obama as week because he isn't applying the strategies of the last last 4t. The left because he isn't being aggressive in direct regulation (ie carbon tax, single payer etc..) while the right because he isn't ramping up the military and installing missiles in eastern Europe to continue the cold war model.

UPDATE.. I would add that these policies seem to be leading to a small government progressive approach. I think this will be opposed by a big government conservative party. Hard core right wing libertarian types will find themselves disillusioned with both parties!

This past Saturday, it was almost funny to see GOP Senators standing up to yell at us of how the Health Reform Bill would be a budget buster, create deficits as far as the eye could see, and end the Western way of life as we have come to live it.

However, as pointed out by one of their heretics -

http://www.forbes.com/2009/11/19/rep...-bartlett.html

Republican Deficit Hypocrisy

The human capacity for self-delusion never ceases to amaze me, so it shouldn't surprise me that so many Republicans seem to genuinely believe that they are the party of fiscal responsibility. Perhaps at one time they were, but those days are long gone.

This fact became blindingly obvious to me six years ago this month when a Republican president and a Republican Congress enacted the Medicare drug benefit, which former U.S. Comptroller General David Walker has called "the most fiscally irresponsible piece of legislation since the 1960s."
.
.
.
Just to be clear, the Medicare drug benefit was a pure giveaway with a gross cost greater than either the House or Senate health reform bills how being considered. Together the new bills would cost roughly $900 billion over the next 10 years, while Medicare Part D will cost $1 trillion.

Moreover, there is a critical distinction--the drug benefit had no dedicated financing, no offsets and no revenue-raisers; 100% of the cost simply added to the federal budget deficit, whereas the health reform measures now being debated will be paid for with a combination of spending cuts and tax increases, adding nothing to the deficit over the next 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office. (See here for the Senate bill estimate and here for the House bill.)
.
.
.
The national debt belongs to both parties. But at least the Democrats don't go on Fox News day after day proclaiming how fiscally conservative they are, and organize tea parties to rant about deficits, without ever putting forward any plan for reducing them. Nor do they pretend that they have no responsibility whatsoever for projected deficits, at least half of which can be traced directly to Republican policies, according to Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag.

It astonishes me that a party enacting anything like the drug benefit would have the chutzpah to view itself as fiscally responsible in any sense of the term. As far as I am concerned, any Republican who voted for the Medicare drug benefit has no right to criticize anything the Democrats have done in terms of adding to the national debt. Space prohibits listing all their names, but the final Senate vote can be found here and the House vote here.

And remember, Medicare Part D was the smaller of the two Repug policies that got us where we are today. Through all the hot air fog being spewed by the Repugs these days over stimulus and health reform do you remember what the big 'E ticket' (Boomers know what that means ) item was and still is? Well, here's a reminder -

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/news_110309_nyu/

Next year’s deficit is expected to be about the same size, and current projections show $9 trillion in deficits over the next 10 years, averaging about 5 percent of GDP.

Deficits of this size are serious – and ultimately unsustainable.

So how did we get here?

Of the $9 trillion in deficits projected over the coming decade, nearly $5 trillion comes as a result of failing to pay in the past for just two policies — the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts and the creation of a Medicare prescription drug benefit.

The cost of the tax cuts will total about $4 trillion over the next decade, including the additional interest on the debt the federal government will have to pay since the tax cuts were deficit financed. The Medicare prescription drug bill will add about another $700 billion to the deficit – bringing us to about $5 trillion total for the cost of just these two policies.

In addition, roughly $3.5 trillion can be attributed to automatic economic stabilizers

Yea, all this Repug hypocrisy and hysteria would be funny except that there's a large number of people in the US that are stupid enough to buy into it.... again.

The only question is whether the stupid people are now in the majority… again?

Originally Posted by Justin '77

That's sure the way it turned out in Russia, Germany, Zimbabwe, etc. etc...

I never said there wouldn't be inflation in the long term, it's just not going to be hyper-inflation.

Originally Posted by Chas'88

Umm... not really. While I was abroad in Wien, the world & the US were in talks of how to solve the global recession. It essentially watered down to this:

China buys up America's debt/backs up the dollar & everyone hopes and prays that the Chinese economy continues to boom.

The same thing happened 82 years ago in 1927 when England & Europe turned to America to back up the pound & everyone hoped and prayed that the American economy would continue to boom. Then 1929 happened...

So yeah... when China's economy goes we're screwed.

~Chas'88

*SHUDDER*

Originally Posted by Odin

*SHUDDER*

With the reaction I'm getting here, you'd think it wasn't publicized here in America. It was all the talk in Europe when I was over there. Hmm... the propaganda of corporate controlled media must be the root.

Yeah. Let's hope China continues to go well. There was a big debate when I was over there about China saying it wanted more say in this deal since everyone else in the world was telling China that it had to buy up the debt without having much say in the deal.

Oh wait, I remember. At the time I checked Newsweek to see what they said in comparison to the Austrian news I was getting and along with a very non-informative article they showed a picture comparing the heights of the world leaders and their wives. Everyone was in a flurry talking about how Michelle Obama was taller than Queen Elizabeth II.

It's a wonder we haven't gotten rid of the corporate news media because it isn't doing any good.

~Chas'88

Originally Posted by The Rani

No. Was it anything like the Neurontin hoax of the 1990s?

Laetrile - derived from a Latin word for "joyfulness" - was the "brand name" of the chemical compound amygdalin, found naturally in the seeds of such fruits as apricots. In the 1970s, it was aggressively marketed in certain circles as a cure and/or preventative for a wide range of cancers, and a physician in Mexico, Dr. Ernesto Contreras, opened up a "treatment clinic" at which it was dispensed.

So as to prove that in the 1970s politics made as strange bedfellows as ever, Laetrile's advocates ranged from the Village Voice to the John Birch Society (and a front group called Americans For Freedom of Choice in Cancer Therapy was formed) - but the American Cancer Society condemned Laetrile therapy as quackery, and some U.S. states, along with Canada on a nationwide basis, banned its use for that purpose.

Hmmm...

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/11/19/fighting_a_coericion_clause_99203.html

The court says the constitutional privacy right protects personal "autonomy" regarding "the most intimate and personal choices." The right was enunciated largely at the behest of liberals eager to establish abortion rights. Liberals may think, but the court has never held, that the privacy right protects only doctor-patient transactions pertaining to abortion. David Rivkin and Lee Casey, Justice Department officials under the Reagan and first Bush administrations, ask: If government cannot proscribe or even "unduly burden" -- the court's formulation -- access to abortion, how can government limit other important medical choices?


http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/11/11/the_us_house_of_presumptuous_meddlers_99099.html

That's easier than answering questions like these:

1) How can the government subsidize the purchase of medical services without driving up prices? Econ 101 teaches -- without controversy -- that when demand goes up, if other things remain equal, price goes up. The politicians want to have their cake and eat it, too.

2) How can the government promise lower medical costs without restricting choices? Medicare already does that. Once the planners' mandatory insurance pushes prices to new heights, they must put even tougher limits on what we may buy -- or their budget will be even deeper in the red than it already is. As economist Thomas Sowell points out, government cannot really reduce costs. All it can do is disguise and shift costs (through taxation) and refuse to pay for some services (rationing).

3) How does government "create choice" by imposing uniformity on insurers? Uniformity limits choice. Under House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's bill and the Senate versions, government would dictate to all insurers what their "minimum" coverage policy must include. Truly basic high-deductible, low-cost catastrophic policies tailored to individual needs would be forbidden.

[I think Rani's mentioned #3 a few times]

4) How does it "create choice" by making insurance companies compete against a privileged government-sponsored program? The so-called government option, let's call it Fannie Med, would have implicit government backing and therefore little market discipline. The resulting environment of conformity and government power is not what I mean by choice and competition. Rep. Barney Frank is at least honest enough to say that the public option will bring us a government monopoly.

[I mentioned #4 to Herbal Tee]

Originally Posted by haymarket martyr

WARNING: The poster known as jamesdglick has a history of engaging in fraud. He makes things up out of his own head and attempts to use these blatant lies to score points in his arguments. When you call him on it, he will only lie further. He has such a reputation for doing this that many people here are cowed into silence and will not acknowledge it or confront him on it.

Anyone who attempts to engage with glick will discover this and find out you have wasted your time and energy on an intellectual fraud of the worst sort.

-So cry many Boomers like Haymarket & Playwrite whenever they fail to explain their hypocritical self-justifications, their double-standards, and their double-think forays into evil. Perhaps their consciences bother them, perhaps not. Who knows.

1. But since when should the insurance companies - and those who do their bidding - get to dictate what happens to those, who, in their infinite wisdom (?), they refuse to provide coverage to, because they're "too sick," "too poor," etc.?

2. Why should the United States as a whole take a position on health-care policy that is even further to the right of that taken by arguably its most right-wing state - i.e., Utah?

3. And LOL @ the copout "If we cover everybody, where are we going to find enough doctors, etc., to provide care to them?" Isn't this rather like opposing the abolition of slavery on the grounds that it would make the emancipated slaves unemployed?

I'd say this Millennial - and he's from a bright-"red" neighborhood on Staten Island's East Shore - has it about right; no, make that exactly right:


Health-care reform is about ‘we,’ not ‘me’

Letters to the Editor/Staten Island Advance
November 25, 2009, 7:33AM
By Michael Hoffmann,
New Dorp


I don’t need health-care reform right now. I’m a student and still covered by my father’s insurance. But a recent health scare revealed the problem with our health care system.

I felt a small lump on my right testicle. Within a week I was examined by two urologists. Then next week, I was able to have a sonogram performed, even though the urologists were certain nothing was wrong. Shortly after, I went in for a follow up and it was confirmed that there was no reason for concern.

Sounds great, right?

What if my father had lost his job during the recession? What if my family wasn’t so lucky to have two well employed parents? Imagine someone in my position that didn’t have access to high priced health insurance:

“Well, the lump isn’t that big, I’ll wait.”“The discomfort isn’t that bad, I’m sure it’s nothing.”

“Man, this isn’t going away. I guess I’ll go wait in the emergency room and just get it checked.”

“What? Cancer? It may have spread.”

What may have been a treatable and manageable condition may have just become an expensive ordeal that will cost every taxpayer by employing our current health-care system, the emergency room. I shouldn’t have been able to avoid this situation, weeks of worry and the possibility of a condition worsening, because my family has money.

Health and peace of mind is not a commodity to be bought and sold.

I don’t need reform. I’ll be fine. But reform isn’t about “me.” It’s about “we.”

Originally Posted by jamesdglick

Hmmm...

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/11/19/fighting_a_coericion_clause_99203.html

The court says the constitutional privacy right protects personal "autonomy" regarding "the most intimate and personal choices." The right was enunciated largely at the behest of liberals eager to establish abortion rights. Liberals may think, but the court has never held, that the privacy right protects only doctor-patient transactions pertaining to abortion. David Rivkin and Lee Casey, Justice Department officials under the Reagan and first Bush administrations, ask: If government cannot proscribe or even "unduly burden" -- the court's formulation -- access to abortion, how can government limit other important medical choices?


http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/11/11/the_us_house_of_presumptuous_meddlers_99099.html

Ah, yes, that would really be interesting to see a Supreme Court justice equate an abortion decision to the decision of whether to buy health insurance or not. You might want to check in with your local rabid anti-abortionist on that one.

What's even funnier about Will's piece is the statement that the government has never forced anyone to buy an item or service. Maybe he should go out and cut the catalytic converter off his car (retail at about a grand) and see what happens.

Originally Posted by jamesdglick

That's easier than answering questions like these:

1) How can the government subsidize the purchase of medical services without driving up prices? Econ 101 teaches -- without controversy -- that when demand goes up, if other things remain equal, price goes up. The politicians want to have their cake and eat it, too.

Yes, if subsidies were the only thing going on in the bill, your sophomoric econ statement would likely be correct. But even within that your sophomoric context, one would have to know by what degree costs would be driven up and then trade that off against having 35 million currently uninsured people getting insured under the bill. A lot of people (at least those who are not completely selfish SOBs and/or not already living off the gov't teat) might be okay with paying a little more to help their fellow countrymen? By the way, on average, another 123 Americans will have died by the end of today due to lack of health insurance -
http://www.reuters.com/article/healt...58G6W520090917
- but yea, I realize you and what passes as the GOP today don't give a crap about that.

Originally Posted by jamesdglick

2) How can the government promise lower medical costs without restricting choices? Medicare already does that. Once the planners' mandatory insurance pushes prices to new heights, they must put even tougher limits on what we may buy -- or their budget will be even deeper in the red than it already is. As economist Thomas Sowell points out, government cannot really reduce costs. All it can do is disguise and shift costs (through taxation) and refuse to pay for some services (rationing).

How do you in one breath complain about the cost of providing insurance to 35 million people and in the next breath complain about putting just some limits on the availability of any and every medical test and procedure someone can dream of? Is this just about you? Seems a little hypocritical given that you have a lifetime lock on the government health care teat.

Originally Posted by jamesdglick

3) How does government "create choice" by imposing uniformity on insurers? Uniformity limits choice. Under House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's bill and the Senate versions, government would dictate to all insurers what their "minimum" coverage policy must include. Truly basic high-deductible, low-cost catastrophic policies tailored to individual needs would be forbidden.

No, actually the minimum is zero coverage, if the cost of the insurance exceeds 8% of household income or one can otherwise show financial hardship. Also, there is more to choice that what is the minimum insurance allowed including what level of insurance above the minimum and provided by whom including non-profit if the public option is allowed into the market exchanges.

Originally Posted by jamesdglick

4) How does it "create choice" by making insurance companies compete against a privileged government-sponsored program? The so-called government option, let's call it Fannie Med, would have implicit government backing and therefore little market discipline. The resulting environment of conformity and government power is not what I mean by choice and competition. Rep. Barney Frank is at least honest enough to say that the public option will bring us a government monopoly.

[I mentioned #4 to Herbal Tee]

The CBO has already shown that the public option will have higher premiums because the pool that it draws will be the higher risks than what the insurance companies would be able to take on with affordable payments - the public option will not compete directly with the private insurers. However, that will set a cap on what the insurance companies can charge to their lower risks pools. This is not rocket science. Anyone with half-a-brain should be able to figure this out if they would just stop listening to you teabagger worn-out 3T memes (e.g., govt conformity! govt power! lions, tigers and bears, oh my!) and outright lies (e.g. the public option is not completely financed by the insured payments).

Ezra nails it with a little help from MIT economist and CBO -

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezr...nate_heal.html

CBO estimates that Senate health-care reform will lower costs by 20%

MIT economist Jon Gruber digs into (pdf) the latest numbers from the Congressional Budget Office and finds good news for advocates of reform:

In a letter to Senator Reid on November 20, the Congressional Budget Office (the official government scoring agency) reported that they estimated the cost of an individual low-cost plan in the exchange to be $5200 in 2016. This is a plan with an “actuarial value” (roughly, the share of expenses for a given population covered by insurance) of 70%. In their most recent communication with Congress, CBO also projected that, absent reform, the cost of an individual policy in the non-group market would be $5500 for a plan with an actuarial value of 60%. This implies that the same plan that cost $5500 without reform would cost $4460 with reform, or almost 20% less. ...

This conclusion is consistent with evidence from the state of Massachusetts. In their December 2007 report, AHIP reported that the average single premium at the end of 2006 for a non-group product in the U.S. was $2613. In their October 2009 report, AHIP found that the average single premium in mid-2009 was $2985, or a 14% increase. That same report presents results for the non-group markets in a set of states. One of those states is Massachusetts, which passed a health care reform similar to the one contemplated at the federal level in mid-2006. The major aspects of this reform took place in 2007, notably the introduction of large subsidies for low income populations, a merged non-group and small group insurance market, and a mandate on individuals to purchase health insurance. And the results have been an enormous reduction in the cost of non-group insurance in the state: the average individual premium in the state fell from $8537 at the end of 2006 to $5143 in mid-2009, a 40% reduction while the rest of the nation was seeing a 14% increase.

One of the tricky things about policy debates is that the cost of doing something gets a lot more attention than the cost of doing nothing. The Congressional Budget Office is part of this problem, as its mandate is to estimate the impact of policy changes, not current trends. But current trends are bad! One of the costs of not passing health-care reform, it seems, is that policies in the individual market will cost about 23 percent more than they will under reform. A vote against change is, in effect, a vote for that. Mmm ... status quo-alicious!

Another adult weighs in -

http://taxvox.taxpolicycenter.org/bl...4/4389079.html

Off to the Big House: Penalizing Non-Buyers of Health Insurance

“Democrats health bills depend on forcing individuals to buy insurance or face severe fines or imprisonment.” George Will, Nov, 19, 2009

Before we spin off into a Thanksgiving reprise of last summer’s death panel lunacy, let’s be clear. Nothing in Will’s statement is true.

This is what is true: Both the House health bill and the measure now being debated in the Senate include a “play or pay” fee on those who don’t buy insurance. Some call it a tax, but whichever word you prefer, if you don’t get coverage, you pay. But “severe fines,” as Will claims? Hardly. Under the Senate bill, someone who refuses to buy would pay an initial annual penalty of $95. Will probably spends more than that for one of his bow ties.

And imprisonment? Give me a break. There is no such penalty in either bill. The argument, as I understand it, is that those who don’t buy insurance and refuse to pay the fine could be charged with criminal violation of the tax laws and, if convicted, could be sentenced to prison. Some of the tax cheats recently caught up in the UBS scandal got a few months for failing to pay millions of dollars in back taxes, but I have never heard of anyone being sent up the river for failing to pay $95 in taxes. More likely, the IRS would garnish their wages for the 95 bucks. Not exactly hard time in the big house.

In truth, the problem is not that the penalty is too harsh. It is that it is much too weak. Here’s why: Serious health insurance reform is built on four pillars: insurance companies must not deny coverage or boost premiums because someone is sick, everyone (even the young and healthy) must have insurance, a mechanism must exist for people to buy in the individual insurance market at reasonable prices, and the government must provide subsidies to make insurance affordable for the working poor.

Unless coverage is both guaranteed and mandated, reform falls apart. Government should not require people to buy insurance while allowing carriers to pick and choose their customers. But neither should it require insurers to sell to all comers, but allow the healthiest to opt out. If only the sick buy, insurers must raise rates or go bust. And the higher they raise rates, the more likely only the sickest will purchase. In the insurance biz, they call this the death spiral.

The fine for non-buyers eventually rises to $750 in the Senate bill. The House penalty is much stiffer for many-- 2.5 percent of income. If insurance reform is going to work, it needs to combine the carrot of both subsides and (hoped-for) market-driven lower prices with the stick of non-buyer penalties. While they don’t say so publicly, this low tax on going bare is a big reason why insurance companies now oppose the health bills.

Will not only has his facts wrong, but his ideas would doom insurance reform to failure. But that, I suppose, is the idea.

It infuriates me that people like the writer of that last article scold us, want to turn us all into de facto tax cheats if we don't do as we're ordered- going so far as to make the comparison, and then try to slip "health insurance reform" by us as a substitute for "health care reform". People like that are so blinded by their driving need to see their ideology win that they will sacrifice the good of real people to do so. This is the sort of polemic thinking that will drive us into crises if people don't start questioning the motives and assumptions of our rulers.

What a crock of shit. The author claims that because there is no jailtime penalty written in the bill that there is no jailtime penalty at all. As if a fee or tax were not enforced by threat of imprisonment...

That's what makes them fees/taxes. If they weren't collected under threat of imprisonment, they'd be simply 'voluntary contributions'.