We Don't Need No Stinking Consequences

For anyone rolling their eyes at the Glibertarian/Wingnut response to yesterday's judicial decision that yes, the health care reform insurance mandate is legal and clearly covered by the Commerce Clause, Maha skillfully puts a number of arguments to bed here.

One of the reasons the mandate is important is that it reduces the amount we’ll all pay for our insurance. This will be especially critical when insurers will no longer be able to refuse to insure people with pre-existing conditions. Obviously, the young and healthy would have no incentive to purchase insurance until they need it. Then the cost of insurance will be a great deal more burdensome to everyone else.

The “uncompensated care” link leads to an argument that the costs to the health care system of people who can’t pay for their care are relatively small. I don’t buy it, but I don’t have time to check the research now. The point is, again, that we’re not just talking about the costs of taking care of the uninsured.

As Jonathan Cohn wrote, “it’s not possible to regulate the insurance industry, in a way that would make coverage available to all people, without compelling every person to get coverage.”

The final argument from the Right is that all decisions to purchase or not purchase anything has an impact on the cost of that thing; lots of people buying toasters enables lowering the price of toasters. I assume that would be true, since manufacturing and shipping probably would have lower per-unit costs. That works for books, anyway, which is the one thing I know about manufacturing.

However, having to pay a couple of bucks more to purchase a toaster is not a burden to everyone in the same way a large, uninsured population is a burden to everyone — including libertarians, although they’re too blinkered by their beloved ideology to see it. 

Meanwhile, the Wingers are trying to convince everyone they can that this decision is the darkest day in American history and that the Constitution is now dead, which is a level of wailing and teeth gnashing that should be saved for the inevitable Supreme Court decision.