General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: It time to put an end to the GOP talking point repeated here on DU again and again. [View all]girl gone mad
(20,634 posts)This is one of the most common ways insurers remove unwanted customers now.
Hospitals are reimbursed in one form or another for virtually all uncompensated care. Any added costs won't go away under the ACA because uncompensated care won't go away. This bill really doesn't resolve the issue. it shifts a fraction of those uncompensated costs from the Medicare DSH program on to young working people, but it doesn't eliminate the problem of unaffordable co-pays, denied claims, or unhealthy patients being pushed off of private plans to lower quality plans or government care.
ETA: I actually think this is a terrible way to deal with uncompensated care from a macroeconomic perspective. When Medicare pays for the costs, we're efficiently putting more money into the private sector. By forcing young workers to bear these costs, instead, we're taking money out of the private sector. Worse, we're doing it on the backs of a segment of the population which is already facing too many challenges, from student debt to diminishing employment opportunities.
The Constitution does not give the federal government the right to create commerce, and the power to tax is a governmental, not private, power. In this case, I agree with the lower court ruling, which said in part, "This economic mandate represents a wholly novel and potentially unbounded assertion of congressional authority: the ability to compel Americans to purchase an expensive health insurance product they have elected not to buy, and to make them repurchase that insurance product every month for their entire lives."