First, watch Nancy Pelosi give her rational for Placebocare:
Did you catch that explanation?
Well, the point is that we want to make sure that everyone has access to health care. For a long time now people who haven’t had health care or provided it had placed the burden on others. Everybody is paying the price for uncompensated care. I don’t need to tell you that in a hospital. This is to say we all need to do our part and that is the point of the bill.
If we follow the logic of Ms. Pelosi’s statement, by implementing Placebocare, we should all see reductions in the cost of our insurance. After all, if we’re paying a “hidden tax” today for those who get “health care for free”, we should see a reduction if everyone starts paying “their fair share.”
Except we won’t!
Pelosi will point to the recent CBO analysis which claims that premiums will decrease slightly under the House plan. The problem with the analysis is that the CBO does not consider the cost transfer of over $1 trillion, in the form of taxes on “premium plans”, those who refuse to buy insurance, and others, as a part of the insurance cost. Let’s see, if we don’t have the program, we don’t have the taxes. It sure seems to me like they ought to be considered part of the costs of insurance.
As I pointed out here, studies are showing that rather than reducing the costs of health insurance, the implementation of Placebocare will actually increase the costs of health insurance. In fact, according to the studies by Wellpoint, insurance premiums could increase by nearly 2X for certain segments of the population.
Pelosi is attempting to claim that a transfer in payments based solely on the health care program is not really a cost to be considered when comparing the two programs. In fact, Pelosi’s argument is that if you are robbed at the point of a gun, rather than complain, you should thank the robber for making your wallet less cumbersome to carry.
Yes, Pelosi thinks we should all be happy to be victims. In fact, she believes so much that we should be victims that if someone has the common sense to avoid victimhood, that’s a big problem!
Should you choose to not buy insurance, the House bill provides for numerous penalties up to and including jail time. When asked whether she thought jail was fair for people who choose not to be victims, Pelosi replied:
the legislation is very fair in this respect.
Just remember, if you don’t succumb to victim hood, Nancy Pelosi believes you should go to jail. I wonder when she will expect those who survived the Fort Hood terrorism attack to begin serving their terms?