By the time you read this article the Supreme Court will have conducted the hearings on the Individual Mandate of the Affordable Health Care Act of 2010. This coming after recent financial estimates from the CBO (Congressional Budgeting Office) reporting that the law may cost twice as much as was originally offered by the administration when presenting the act to Americans. The reason for this was that the first 4 years of the law were all taxes or income to the Act due to the delayed 2014 implementation, and then the next 6 of the Act were both costs and taxes. This lowered the first 10 year estimates significantly. Now the CBO, an impartial cost estimator for Congress, is looking at the first full 10 year period of taxes and expenses after 2014, and suggests that the Act could cost American taxpayers over $2 Trillion dollars over the first 15 years of implementation. It will cost even more if you add just one more year (16 years) to the calculation. The Washington Post poll below tells the story quite clearly, that this law is not the solution to health care that most Americans imagined. In fact, if projections are accurate, Affordable will need to be stricken from its name. Hopefully, we will know by our July 1st issue of “Insider”, as to what the Supreme Court ruling will be. More to come.
Posted at 07:00 AM ET, 03/19/2012TheWashingtonPost
Toss individual health insurance mandate, poll says...
By Scott Clement
Most Americans want the Supreme Court to invalidate at least part of the landmark healthcare law that was passed in 2010, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
The law’s individual mandate remains a key sticking point, with one in four hoping the court will strike down the provision but leave the rest of the law intact.
More than four in 10 — 42 percent — want the high court to throw out the entire law, 25 percent want to do away with the mandate alone and a similar proportion wants the justices to uphold the entire law.
Just over half the public thinks the mandate is unconstitutional (51 percent), according to a Kaiser Family Foundation poll released last week. In that survey, fewer than three in 10 (28 percent) said they think the mandate is constitutional. Nearly as many were unsure. Previous Kaiser polls found the mandate to be the least popular provision in the law; majorities supported all other components tested.
But the fate of the mandate and the overall law may be joined at the hip, because healthcare costs could skyrocket without the prospect of more universal insurance coverage. And from a public-opinion standpoint, in the Post-ABC poll, 52 percent of those who would opt to toss the mandate alone, would prefer the court get rid of the entire law if that’s what it would take to remove the requirement. Fewer, 44 percent, would opt to keep the entire law in that case.
Seven in 10 report recently hearing more about the law’s drawbacks. Republicans perceive a much more downbeat discussion than others, but even among Democrats, 53 percent report hearing mostly negative things, while 34 percent report hearing mostly positive.
In a basic assessment, 41 percent of Americans support the health-care law, while 52 percent are opposed. The measure has never scored majority support in Post-ABC polls.
Republicans are more united in opposing the law than Democrats are in favoring it. Among independents, 51 percent oppose and 43 percent support, a margin that is not statistically significant.
