A question about mandates:

If there were a mandate that everyone have health insurance, there would HAVE to be a set of subsidies beyond tax incentives for people making less than XX dollars a year......

I don't know where the subsidies would begin....

SO:

You have to have health insurance. If you cannot afford it, the Fed will subsidize your health care.

And you cannot be dropped or denied treatment.

This sounds vaguely like what a public option would try to accomplish.

Doesn't it??

So it is
NOT the same as a Public Option.
No PO no bill
Mandate with no PO no bill

Fuck that Single Payer NOW

the mandate to have insurance without SOME relief for the lower middle class beyond tax breaks.

I refuse to believe it.

....maybe. I can't afford to purchase insurance and get the subsidy next year in my tax refund.....

My wife needs access to health care NOW.....Under the current reality she really cannot get health insurance.....

It will become obvious that we have the party of xenophobic religionist uber right wingers, and the other party, the neoliberal corporatists.

The purpose of the individual mandate is to assure "near-universal" coverage and to make sure that "everyone pays into the system" (i.e. to criminalize the uninsured and to make sure they pick up the majority of the cost of the insurance that they will be forced to buy so that Democrats will be able to claim that they are fiscally conservative).

:dem:

-Laelth

But that doesn't seem to be stopping anyone. It should.

:dem:

-Laelth

The insurance companies will still be charging whatever premium they want (within some guidelines that are not certain to bring their price down). People at 300-400% of the FPL will get a subsidy from the government to keep the cost of their premium at or below 12% of their income. People with incomes above that level will pay the full price of the premium without help. The lack of a public option will leave them with no more affordable option than whatever the hell the private insurance company wants to charge. Taxpayers will be buying their own and their taxes will go to the insurance companies to pay for subsidies for lower income citizens.

Whereas even were there subsidies, a plan without a public option would result in public monies being paid to private insurance plans. However, I'm not at all sure that there will be subsidies.