[ExI] health care individual mandate

[spike]

> ...On Behalf Of JOSHUA JOB
> Subject: Re: [ExI] health care individual mandate
> 
> ...Let alone the fact that the poor will be 
> getting tax breaks and subsidies so that they can afford to 
> buy health care... Joshua Job


This comment brings up an important point which I consider a key stumbling
block for the individual mandate.  How do we define poor?  Clearly those who
do not have any money cannot buy insurance.  But what we have here is a
first derivative problem.  The government's view of one's ability to pay is
based solely on what one earns, not on what one has.  The government has no
insight on $, only d$/dt, or $ dot for you physics types.

What this does is create enormous strains on the young and healthies just
starting their professional lives and working years.  Joshua and others,
take careful note of this, listen and think much.  There are plenty of guys
like me, Jeff, others, whose earning years are over or nearly so.  Our d$/dt
is low now, but our $ is in relatively good shape, certainly compared to
when we were your age.  Our needs are few at this stage, perhaps we own real
estate and a coupla good cars that could run for decades, our stuff is
mostly or completely paid off, yet being older we do need health care early
and often.  Contrast with the young and healthies, such as Joshua and his
peers.  They need everything that we already have, and they are working hard
to get it, so their d$/dt is in good shape, whereas their $, not so much.
Joshua, this is critically important to you and your peers; follow me
closely.

In the current system, the government measures who is rich and who is poor
based entirely on d$/dt, and not at all on its integral over time, $.  So
the young and healthy low $ people will need to subsidize the much higher $
much lower d$/dt older people.  So we get poorer younger people subsidizing
richer, older people.  Even if Jeff and I clearly benefit from that deal, I
do not think it is a damn bit right.  We cannot dump the load on Joshua and
his peers.  I do not see it as workable at all.  I am surprised the young
are not protesting wildly.

That being said, what if the government recognizes this situation as being a
fundamental stumbling block to the individual mandate and health care reform
in general, and consequently decides to try to base one's ability to pay on
$ instead of it's first derivative d$/dt?  What happens then?

First thing, the fed needs to have some mechanism to measure one's $, which
it currently does not have.  As soon as any kind of means testing is even
suggested by any ranking person in government, the price of gold skyrockets,
the banks fail and venture capital markets dry up and blow away like dust in
the wind.  Is it clear to everyone here why that would happen?

spike