Can someone answer these questionsfor me about Krugman, Obama, and mandates?

[geek tragedy]

Krugman claims that Obama is caving to Republicans and prematurely compromising by failing to include mandates in his health care reform plan.

However, it is insurance companies that are the most likely to demand mandates--in exchange for being required to carry people despite pre-existing conditions.

So, questions:

1) Are Hillary Clinton and John Edwards prematurely compromising with insurance companies and thus caving on the issue of mandates?

2) Why shoud Obama include mandates in his plan if he doesn't think they're a good idea?

3) Isn't Krugman just being circular and incoherent?

[rinsd]

1. Obama does include mandates. They are for children.

So apparently mandates are not bad when they can be packaged right.

[geek tragedy]

2. Children don't have the ability to make that choice

for themselves.

[rinsd]

3. Most parents don't choose to go w/out health coverage for their children.

And "healthy" young people who forgo insurance because they don't need it then use emergency facilities when they do get ill or injured cost us a shitload.

Prevention is a huge part of each of the big 3's health plans. People with insurance will get checkups more often than those without.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

4. If There Aren't Mandates People Can Wait To They Get Really Sick To Buy Insurance

The more healthy people in the pool of insured the lower the cost...Allowing people to get insurance when they get sick defeats that purpose...

[ClarkUSA]

5. Robert Reich has something to say about this very topic...

See my OP: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x3864760

[Stop Cornyn]

6. 1) Edwards' plan creates non-profit health care markets where private insurers would bid against

a government-run plan similar to Medicare or Canada’s single-payer system to offer coverage. Unless the for-profit health insurance providers can compete economically with the non-profit government run program (and most analysts predict they won't be able to), the government-run program will win out. Insurance companies most assuredly won't be thrilled to compete with a government-run program so Edwards' plan is clearly not compromising with the insurance companies. Hillary's plan does not include the non-profit health market feature of Edwards' plan.

2) Without the mandates, the plan isn't universal. Many people who "go naked" with respect to health insurance become a burden on the public health care system when they suffer a major illness or injury and obtain their medical care from the emergency room under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act. The mandates in Hillary's and Edwards' plans re-allocate these burdens. Where people get their health care coverage from their employers, the employers get tax incentives to ameliorate that burden; where people buy their own insurance, they get it at a reduced cost and they get tax incentives to defray the cost; where people cannot afford to buy insurance and don't get it though their employer, they become eligible for government-provided coverage. If car insurance was like health insurance under Obama's plan (i.e., it was not mandated), people would elect not to have car insurance because they couldn't afford it. Under this system, those uninsured drivers (or people without health insurance under Obama's health insurance plan) are a burden on the system because the damage they cause doesn't vanish just because they are uninsured -- instead, the costs to the system from the uninsured raise the costs for the insured. In the car insurance context, this mis-allocated cost is properly re-allocated to the greatest extent possible by making insurance mandatory. It would have the same effect under the mandates set out in Edwards' and Hillary's plans. Whether or not Obama thinks mandates "are a good idea," mandates are the only way to ensure that coverage is truly universal, the only way to ensure that the mis-allocated burden on the system from the uninsured is properly re-allocated as nearly as possible, and the only way to stop the inevitable situation under Obama's plan that the uninsured will be the working poor. If Obama thinks this is a bad idea, that's an excellent reason to support another candidate.

3) Well, you're the expert on being circular and incoherent, so I may have to defer to you for elaboration on this point except to say "no."

[DemocratSinceBirth]

7. See My Post

I cited #2 but not as eloquently...

[rinsd]

8. Nicely done.

[Stop Cornyn]

9. I'll assume that this answered your questions.

[killbotfactory]

10. Mandates are a poison pill that will kill reform efforts

People don't like it when the government forces them to pay for things they can't afford.