Criminalizing Poverty

Via the AP, we get more details about the Max Baucus health care "plan" that his Gang of Six have been working on.

"Just as auto coverage is now mandatory in nearly all states, Baucus would require that all Americans get health insurance once the system is overhauled to make premiums more stable and affordable. Penalties for failing to do so would start at $750 a year for individuals and $1,500 for families. Households making more than three times the federal poverty level — about $66,000 for a family of four — would face the maximum fines. For families, it would be $3,800, and for individuals, $950."

How exactly is this supposed to work? If I can't afford health insurance I'll be expected to pay $750 a year just for the privilege of having no health care at all? And how will they enforce this, by bringing legal action against people too broke to afford this poor tax? Will there be more fines, court costs, arrests? Will we put people in prison for declining to contribute to the profits of private insurance?

This is a truly twisted version of what the individual mandate was supposed to be. It should have been a promise by the government that everyone no matter how poor could gain access to health care (not health insurance!). In the absence of a public option, the individual mandate becomes a sick joke that Baucus and his cronies are trying to play on the poorest Americans. If this is the bill that ends up getting passed and signed then I won't ever again support any politician who had anything to do with it.

Tomorrow night is Obama's much-anticipated speech on health care reform. I sincerely hope, for the sake of everyone who has or may have trouble getting access to health care, that he does the right thing. If he doesn't, it will undermine the confidence the American people have in this administration and the liberal base's support for the Democratic party.