From Ed Morrisey - There's a youtube clip too.
It’s very fair to send people who disregard the federal mandate to buy health insurance to prison, Nancy Pelosi says, because otherwise they’ll assault citizens … with a bill for medical services … or something.
Stone: Do you think it’s fair to send people to jail who don’t buy health insurance?
Pelosi: … The legislation is very fair in this respect.
Morrisey comments
Of course, the other option is to make people responsible for paying their own bills. Nothing requires us to pick up the tab for people in clinics or emergency rooms, especially those who can afford to pay their way. This is the point that Pelosi and her statist colleagues seem to forget
This most of all is why I oppose the so called reform. This is why I oppose insurance requirements by law of any sort whatsoever, including auto insurance. At least no auto insurance is only a ticket if you drive. If you don't do things the government way here, you get a gun pointed at your head, handcuffed, and sent to club fed.
If you don't like Morrisey's source, The Hill reports the same thing.
he nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation reported that the House version of the healthcare bill specifies that those who don’t buy health insurance and do not pay the fine of about 2.5 percent of their income for failing to do so can face a penalty of up to five years in prison!
The bill describes the penalties as follows:
• Section 7203 — misdemeanor willful failure to pay is punishable by a fine of up to $25,000 and/or imprisonment of up to one year.
• Section 7201 — felony willful evasion is punishable by a fine of up to $250,000 and/or imprisonment of up to five years.” [page 3]
That anyone should face prison for not buying health insurance is simply incredible.
And how much will the stay-out-of-jail insurance cost? The Joint Committee noted that “according to a recent analysis by the Congressional Budget Office, the lowest-cost family non-group plan under HR 3862 [the Pelosi bill] would cost $15,000 by 2016.”
Obama’s bill only provides subsidies to help pay this enormous sum after families making about $45,000 have paid 8 percent of their income for insurance and after those earning a household income of about $65,000 have kicked in 12 percent.
Five years in prison by the feds. Five years for not complying with this. People who don't pay for the stay out of jail insurance are so much of a threat to society that they need to be locked up for five years in club fed next to murderers, rapists, and child molesters. What the hell is going on here? I can shoot someone in the leg and get far less jailtime than that. Felonious assault is 4 years. I know of rapists who get less than 5 years.
The only winners from this piece of trash house bill is the insurance industry whose coffers swell, government for their ability to increase control, and the prison building industry, to deal with all the new threats to society. We already have over 7 million people in the corrections systems of this country, why not add more? I'm sure the democrats AG candidate Gretchen Whitmer who is a Blue Cross heir, loves this legislation.
This bill needs to die, fast.
