Jules Crittenden sends along this sneak peak at our future as wards of the medical collective:
The state’s health insurance connector — the highly touted agency that aims to bring cheap medical care to the masses — has turned into a legal pit bull by aggressively going after a growing number of Bay Staters who say they can’t afford mandated insurance — or the penalties imposed for not having it.
The Commonwealth Health Insurance Connector Authority is cracking down on more than 3,000 residents who are fighting state fines, and has even hired a private law firm to force the health insurance scofflaws to pay penalties of up to $2,000 a year.
All told, more than 7,700 people have appealed state fines for not having health insurance, according to connector spokesman Richard Powers. The agency has hired several private attorneys at $50 an hour to hear many of the appeals, and some 3,150 of them have been denied — and the losers told to pay up.
The connector has also hired the Hub law firm Bowman & Penski — at $125 an hour — to defend itself against 13 lawsuits filed by fed-up taxpayers who insist they can’t afford state required insurance premiums or the escalating fines.
National watchdogs say the Bay State’s battles with cash-strapped taxpayers foreshadow troubles on the horizon for the Obama administration’s health-care plan.
“Every problem that Massachusetts is running into right now, the federal government will confront in 2014,” said Michael Cannon, director of health policy studies at the conservative Cato Institute in Washington, D.C.
“Just as Massachusetts’ residents are having to appeal the extra taxes they are being levied because they can’t afford health insurance — and because Massachusetts residents are having to sue the state because it’s an unfair and abusive law — citizens from every state in the nation will be doing the same thing in 2014, when Obamacare takes effect,” he said.
Bowman & Penski attorney Ginny Sinkel Kremer, who has represented the state in the 13 lawsuits brought by scofflaws, said the commonwealth has no choice but to go after them.
“The Legislature passed health-care reform, and like any other law, its provisions need to be enforced,” said Kremer, “If it’s not enforced, it’s meaningless.”
Bow before the state. Or you will be broken.
For your own good, of course. But still.
This is perhaps the best possible news for the classic liberal position on this issue and all others.
People who grudgingly went along with it or otherwise were silent when this was rammed through are going to be looking at this impostion of the State’s Leviathan footprint on their asses and decided that they are going to vote out whomoever did this to them.
Sad, of course, it came to this.
But pursuing the logical end to this issue has some utility.
“Unless,” he added, “You’re, you know, a union or major campaign contributor and you demand a waiver. Then, all bets are off.”
And in the event it doesn’t work despite it’s being mandatory . . . ?
We hang the imbeciles who’ve imposed it from the nearest lamppost. To be an example to the next geniuses who’ll fix us for us.
I like the quote from the next paragraph.
I suspect it doesn’t work as mandatory either unless the definition of “work” is not the usual one.
Or if you are a secured creditor in bankruptcy. Then, fuck the law. Pay the unions.
heh
How will mandatory and 110+ waivers square up?
I don’t know, but I can assure you the rotting corpse of a politician hanging from a rope will stink to high heaven.
Despite the gains made in the recent election, I think the next two years are going to be very bad in terms of push-back from the un-elected leftist bureaucracy. The TSA, for example. Now the “Commonwealth Health Insurance Connector Authority”. All of them are lining up to do their part and ensure the proles fall in line or else.
Anyone who thinks that “taking back” the federal government is the end of the story is either ignorant or purposefully obtuse.
Through the lubricant effect of corruption I presume.
Amen. I think we should start with the ones that stood in front of the television cameras and lied lied lied lied lied lied lied lied lied lied lied lied about things like “healthcare reform will reduce the deficit” and “if you like your plan, you can keep it” and the rest of those types of lies lies lies lies lies lies lies lies lies lies lies.
#3, 8, 11, will the “death threats” at PW never end?
There’s that qualifier again. Not only unnecessary, but also incorrect. I’d love to know if an editor inserted that. Because of the style-guide or something.
Well, at least they’re not requiring girls what are preggers to look at ultrasounds so there’s that a lot I think.
POKEMONS!
There’s something very very wrong with Mr. Romney thinking himself a viable presidential candidate.
It’s jaw-droppingly self-deluding.
All is proceeding as Bordo has foreseen.
At least until “government minion” replaces “polar bear” on the Endangered Species List.
Here, I agree with you 100%, happyfeet. Romney should excuse himself post haste from the 2012 presidential election. And sdferr, politicians don’t need to be rotting to stink to high heaven, but your point was well taken.
Podesta. He’d make a good beginning.
People who can need to vote with their feet and leave Massachussettes ASAP.
And the rest of us should be prepared to call our Reps/Sens daily and demand that CA,NY,MA,and IL not be bailed out by the taxpayers.
They made their broke-assed socialist beds, now they can lie in them.
If we look at Silver Whistle’s link from this morning Bob, we can even begin to analogize ourselves as the new Huns, saying in the event of any necessary bail-out: either conduct your fiscal affairs as we see fit or threatening the end of the union? How would a state be cut off from the union anyhow? Is there a formula for expulsion (nevermind dissolution) or would we have to make one up?
I saw that sdferr,
I don’t know of any mechanism to expel a state from the union. I suppose though that, comstitutionally via a convention and a “bail out” amendment, one could make the price of any bailout so onerous, such as temprary loss of Congressional voting representation etc., that the people of those individual states would do anything to address the fiscal problems in another fashion.
Perhaps a convention might not be necessary, the same result being accomplished via the usual legislative channels.
It’s going to be a tough nut to crack indeed. My sense is that the insolvencies won’t happen concurrently, but with CA going first, followed closely behind by one of the other three. And the way the event goes down woth the first might bring about action at the state level by the others.
I mean, in terms of the magnitude of dollars we’re talking about, it would be bigger than any FEMA disaster response, that’s for sure.
But at that time I’m certain that in addition to the rending of garments and gnashing of teeth there will be many heated recriminations regarding, and comparisons to, the amount of money spent prosecuting wars or defending the nation in general.
The analog does begin to look an awful lot like the local government’s refusal to timely act as Katrina approached. It’s a problem when the bad decisions of the part threaten to take down into suffering the interests of the whole.
“The Legislature passed health-care reform, and like any other law, its provisions need to be enforced,” said Kremer, “If it’s not enforced, it’s meaningless.”
Preach it.
sdferr, I remember a conversation I had with a number of European colleagues at a symposium in Germany 3 years ago. I was just considering the variation in interest rates in eurozone countries and the pressures on the euro; sovereign debt didn’t really cross my mind, as the depths of the deception practiced by Greece and their “auditors” hadn’t been revealed yet. I had reached the conclusion then that not entering into that maelstrom was the best decision Britain had taken since the war.
Now we have the bailout/no bailout scenario, and the whole mess being mopped up by the only productive economy in the zone. I see some similarities now with potential state defaulters like CA, but I can’t believe the federal government would sit by. Washington would have to play Berlin for the dollar to survive.
SW, the potential dangers would at least seem to warrant Washington to belch forth a stern lecture for the Kings and Queens of California.
I imagine “Get it under control gentlemen and ladies, or we will be there to control it for you. And you may not like the results.”
bh will know the answer. He’s smart with money. I think even the most ardent CA hater would support bailing them out if the dollar itself was at stake.
That’s certainly something to ponder Silver Whistle. Would the financial collapse of CA in-and-of itself effect the value of the dollar? Would it do so if the Feds didn’t bail them out?
On the one hand, I believe they’re one of the top 20 economies on earth in their own right. On the other hand, I’m not certain whether any of their bonds carry the backing of the Federal government, explicitly or implicitly. Perhaps all states issuances do implicitly. That’s a great question.
Considering how much of their paper is spread throughout the US financial system, both in breadth of distribution and magnitude of dollars, there would certainly be a ripple effect throughout the US economy.
I can’t think of a historical perspective for such a bailout, aside from TARP of course. Not even the absoption of the revolutionary war debt is really one-to-one analogous; although it was certainly tha case then that some states expended more than others in fighting a war that was good for the nation as a whole. But in this case the situation is nearly 180° out of phase; with CA leading the way down the road to finacial perdition!
A tough nut indeed. I think a bailout would have to involve some loss of national representation as well as the forced acquiesence to austerity measure…
‘Course, it would help if Washington would make a creditable start on shaping up its own behavior.
It may be moot, Bob, if Kaptain Kickass manages to flush it down the crapper all on his own.
Ha! Shows what you know.
I suppose I’ll punt here and say the devil is in the details. It could be in our national interest to assume their unfunded liabilities if the deal contained draconian austerity measures combined with a guaranteed percentage of their state tax revenue stream.
I sure wish he’d quit trying so hard, SW.
Mama told me not to come.
Frankie says relax.
Hold on
bh,
Wouldn’t that make the Federal Government the National equivalent of the IMF? And then Mr. Geithner could work his special magic once more.
I surrender.
Commonwealth Health Insurance Connector Authority
CHICA? Really?
Ven aca, CHICA; te enseño el significado de “outlaw”.