Obama said that he would “fine parents” in order to enforce the mandate in his health plan.

[agdlp]

In a conference call to announce the personal endorsement of Linda Nelson, president of the Iowa State Education Association, Obama said that he would “fine parents” in order to enforce the mandate in his health insurance plan that all children be covered

I would sign them up in school in the same way they would get inoculated. I would fine parents if form some reason they refused. I am happy to be very clear on how we would enforce the mandate,” Obama said. He went on to say that he believed that the vast majority of American parents wanted to ensure that their children did receive health coverage


http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/11/28/485042.aspx

[1corona4u]

1. And, what was it he said last night......

something about those who "gamed"(gaming) the system.....by not being covered....I'll have to look for that comment...

[jannyk]

14. He said something to the effect that he'd go after them for

the arrears of 'premiums'. In other words, if you didn't take the 'plan' and then showed up in the emergency room, they'd come after you for the all the payments you hadn't made.

It was a really bad answer and sounded as if he'd just thought it up - so just how well thought out is this plan of his?

[1corona4u]

18. Yep, I found it....

"APPLAUSE)

BLITZER: Senator Obama, let me just fine-tune the question, because I know you want to respond.

On this issue of mandates, those who don't, whether it's 10 million or 15 million, those who could afford it but don't wind up buying health insurance for one reason or another, they wind up getting sick, they go to an emergency room, all of us wind up paying for their health care. That's the biggest criticism that's been leveled at your plan.

OBAMA: If people are gaming the system, there are ways we can address that. By, for example, making them pay some of the back premiums for not having gotten it in the first place."



http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/01/31/dem.debate.transcript/index.html



So, if for some reason someone doesn't have insurance, they are 'gaming the system'. Nice.

[ErnestoG]

2. To protect their kids? I see nothing wrong with that.

Some parents shouldn't be entrusted with a pet rock, let alone a human child.

[movonne]

5. Right on...

[halobeam]

7. still brings the matter of a fine and a mandate closer to Hill's pkg. the deeper you look into it.

I am currently trying to find out who would be able to keep the cost of the insurance at it's lowest. I think there lies the answer on who would get more ppl insured.

[557188]

9. Protect the children!

Why do we let them outside? They could get hit by a car, kidnapped or sunburned!

If it was about "protecting the children" Obama's plan would be Universal Government funded Health Care. That is real change for this country.

[ErnestoG]

17. If you had a glimmer of realistic knowledge about the chances of universal health care...

passing in any form at this point in time, you never would have posted that.

I have supported Universal Health Care for years. But the cold reality is that NONE of these candidates sport such a plan in its purist form. So you have to choose from whats on your plate. Silly jabs about protecting the children notwithstanding.

[REDFISHBLUEFISH]

3. Guess he is not worried about their rent either!

His argument against Hillarys "forced plan" was...What do you do fine poor people who cannot afford it and double the penalty?

Yep apparently so!


FOOT MEET MOUTH!

[noamnety]

4. I wish people would understand

that schools do not have the resources to become a one-stop shop for health care "enforcement."

We keep getting more and more missions like this that have nothing to do with actually educating our kids, and these extra "oh by the way, spend a few weeks trying to track down the insurance status of all the students in your district and enforce this for us, will ya?" extra missions come at a time when we are cutting actual teaching positions.

Pretty soon we're going to have to drop the pretense that we are doing any teaching at all, and just reclassify ourselves as social services to do testing, check vaccines, send in private info to recruiters, etc. More administrators, less teachers.

[Midlodemocrat]

8. IMHO, the schools are already 'top heavy'.

Why in the world does an elementary school need three assistant principals? And why in the world does a high school need 4 APs, a Dean of Students and a Security Officer?

It's truly getting out of control.

[MediaBabe]

10. Thank you for that reminder. n/t

[movonne]

11. Maybe we should have more teachers and less adminstrators..and

it would be good for the economy..

[557188]

6. Ya know

Instead of fining parents for health care it'd be easier to just give everyone universal government health care.

Yup, real change!

[ErnestoG]

13. I'd agree with you. That's my preferred solution, but you know the chances of it...

ever seeing the light of day, for the foreseeable future, are about equal with a sno-cones chance in hell. So what do you do? Pick someone's plan that is the best second choice. It's all we have, unfortunately.

[kimmerspixelated]

19. I'll second that!

I'm sure if we quit funding the war, we could find some spare change for it, no prob!

[Abacus]

12. Yeah?

Hillary would mandate it not just for children, but for everyone, enforced with fines. I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here. I am happy with a mandate for children, who have no means to procure insurance on their own, and dislike the idea of a mandate for everyone.

[1corona4u]

16. Could you please reference where Hillary said there would be

"enforced fines". I've not seen that before.....link with text?

[southern_dem]

20. To be fair

she hasn't said in any debate how she would enforce it, just that she'd it would be mandated.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

15. he needs to get Edwards plan and listen to Edwards

then he could do a good job on Health Care.

Too bad everything was set against Edwards - he needed big money to compete, his platform
was excellent.

I always had trouble picking between Obama or Edwards.

If you look up their donors at www.opensecrets.org you will see that Edwards didn't get the
big corporate donors and no lobbyist money.

Obama got very little lobbyist money, Hillary got a high amount of lobbyist money.

[Igel]

21. "I would sign them up in school ..."

And if you're in Texas and you homeschool?

In some states, you have to notify the local school that you intend to homeschool. In Texas, you don't have to notify anybody. In fact, notifying the school can apparently yield difficulties with principles that don't like homeschooling. Perhaps he's simply unaware of how things are run outside of his home state.

Is he saying that they'd have inoculations in school? I remember that in the late '60s and early '70s, but haven't seen it since then. Rubella, IIRC, and a polio booster dose in junior high. It created hell for some of the parents that didn't want their kids inoculated, made them stick out and subject the kids to peer pressure punishing them for the parents' decision.