MANDATORY HEALTH INSURANCE... Does That Sound "American" To You?

Our left-wing D.C. legislature has modified the Obama-Care bill to include one particularly interesting feature. If you fail to purchase health insurance, at a cost of up to $1,900 annually, you will qualify for a "penalty" of up to $25,000 or imprisonment for up to one year.

Here's what leapt immediately into my mind... if you can't afford the "up to $1,900" for "government approved health insurance", your ass is going to jail! Why? If you had $25,000 lying around to play with, you'd probably have bought the health insurance to begin with. Yep - you just can't buy any health insurance you want... no, no, no! It must be "government approved"!

Great... so now we have an annual increase in our prison population of (just a conservative guess) 500,000 per year. That's another half-million people that are now tax supported instead of tax paying - and they're now getting their medical treatment for free! Another clever move by our government officials...

Now throw in the loophole designed to cover the insurance companies - which goes something like this:
If they elect not to cover you for certain contractually obligated treatments... THAT'S OKAY!
The latest version of the universal health care bill stipulates that the insurance companies will not be held liable in those instances. Sweet deal for them, eh? Collect those premiums, and then tell you to 'go pack sand' when it's their turn to shell out some money. Unbelievably, this is considered acceptable behavior by our legislators. Do you think that maybe.... just maybe...the majority of our elected Dumocratic representatives are in bed with the insurance industry?

At the other end of the spectrum we have those folks in the rarefied atmosphere of multi-whatevers - multi-millions, multi-billions, etc. They can afford not to pay for health insurance, and may choose to bet on the fact that they will stay relatively healthy for a very long time. If and when they do need health care, they can easily afford to be "self-insurers". Will Bill Gates, Tiger Woods or Warren Buffett go to prison for not anteing up? Not a snowball's chance... $25,000 is lunch money to them. Therefore, the specified penalty of 1 year in jail for not having health insurance is designed to be, and is de facto punishment for being poor. Congratulations! Being poor is now a crime, and you are now a criminal!

2010 is an election year for Governors and Congressional reps. The smart thing for Americans to do is throw all the incumbents out... but, most Americans didn't do the smart thing in the last election, so why would we expect a different behavior this time? Replacing them all will serve three purposes - (1) It will be a sort of "revenge" for them screwing us over for decades, (2) it may even gain the attention of those who are chosen to replace them... a "wake-up call", if you will, and (3) it will remind them that they serve "We the People", and "We the People" are not happy with their performance.