Why the ObamaCare Ruling Stinks

[freedom fighter jh]

52. If enough people pay the tax, I wonder if that can become the public option.

I heard (anyone know for sure?) that the tax's purpose is to compensate the system for insurance for emergency care. We are all covered for emergency room visits in that if you go there they have to treat you; insurance pays for emergency services for those who have it, and someone else -- government? the hospital? -- has to pick up the tab for those who don't. Isn't the tax, then, similar to the public option, where you choose to pay the government and not a company, and the government insures you? The big difference, of course, is that the tax covers *only* emergency room and leaves you without insurance for anything else.

As much as we complain (rightly, in my opinion) that the mandate is unfair because it requires you to buy insurance from a private company, the result if you refuse the mandate -- paying money to the government for at least *some* coverage -- looks similar in principle to the public option. It is a step down, because those who needed it used to have this coverage without paying a special tax for it. But I wonder if it has the potential to expand into a complete public option.

Now that the SC has said the ACA will go forward, I'm trying to see the bright side, trying to find a way to turn it into something better.