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Obama Wants to Fine YOU for Not Bowing to HIS Wishes

Soon, it could cost you less to beat someone up or drive drunk than not to join Obamacare.

By: Warner Todd Huston (Diary)  |  July 14th, 2009 at 06:31 AM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

So, one of the aspects of Obamacare that is not being talked about too much is the fines Obama will inflict on average, middle class Americans that don’t want to join his nationalized healthcare service.

At this point, Obama favors a $1,000 fine to those of you that don’t want any part of a nationalized system under his control. That’s $1,000 of your hard earned money swiped away from you for not knuckling under to his dictats.

For an interesting exercise, I thought I’d check around the web to see what fines around the country would be for other things, things that are far more egregious of a violation of the law. Things like illegal drug possession, assault, or drunken driving.

I came up with some examples:

  • Under California law, fine for having over 28.5 grams of marijuana on school grounds when school is open is $500
  • First offense for drunk driving in Ohio, $200, second offense $300
  • Fine for a first offense for possession of under an ounce of marijuana in New York State is $100
  • Cruelty to animals in Pennsylvania will bring a $50 to $75 fine
  • The fine for carrying an illegally concealed weapon in Arkansas is $50
  • The fine for assault and battery can be as low as $250 in Michigan

Well, the list of fines lower than $1,000 for breaking laws that could easily kill people is long, indeed. Yet, here we have that all caring god-man, Obama, wanting to fine you more money for not wanting his “insurance” plan than for beating someone up in Michigan or for driving drunk in Ohio!

At this point, it seems more like an extortion plan being promulgated by Obama and his cohorts. One wonders if Obama will be sending Tony Soprano to come collecting if you decide that his plan isn’t for you?

And youse better pay if ya know what’s good for youse.

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COMMENTS

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  • julianusrex

    If you voted for him, I hope you’re happy.

  • julianusrex

    If you voted for him, I hope you’re happy.

  • NeoKong

    Health insurance is compulsory like auto insurance if you own a car.
    You are fined if you do not have health insurance.
    Their state run healthcare is millions in debt btw.

    • mikefisk

      …for the overwhelming majority of health insurance consumers, at least.

      The main rationale for compulsory coverage and pooling risk is to homogenize the process, smoothing out a lot of the variance between individual consumers’ costs. That being said, those who have the highest risk don’t just consume more health care; they consume a LOT more. There is a reason that a small group of people face staggering health insurance premiums (if they are able to get insurance at all), and that’s because the insurance companies know one of two things has to happen; either they charge said individual a rate commensurate with expected costs of coverage, or attempt to pass their costs along to everyone else (who, needless to say, aren’t all that thrilled with the prospect). In the Massachusetts system, not only are the insurers having to take the high-risk people, they can’t pass along their costs to the healthy people beyond a certain point. Hence the losses.

      There are certain things being done in this area to help smooth over that discrepancy (health status insurance, in particular), but a lot of the private-sector solutions are likely to get wiped out if the government has their say.

  • bobojake

    went up another $5.00 a month. obama you haven’t got the foggiest of ideas how the real world works. You can fine all you want but you can’t get blood out of a turnip. i didn’t fall off the turnip truck yesterday obama. Your brain obama has been scrambled or fried by billy ayers the terrorist, frankie the communist and rev wright the I hate America left wing freak and you don’t even thunk straight anymore. I don’t think you ever did.
    We don’t trust you obama when you go overseas and give anti-America flash card readings, I can’t even call them speeches. I’ve been to Cowboy Poetry Shows and they show a 1000 times more reality and better then your foney readings.
    Take your health care obama and shove it where the sun don’t shine, you won’t need your over priced solar panels or windmills there.

  • skey

    I actually wouldn’t have a problem with compulsory catastrophic insurance. Say, a $2500 deductible or something. And assistance for those who couldn’t cover the deductible, or the costs of that policy.

    That would have the benefits of forcing those who just end up running huge debts then filing for bankruptcy, in effect forcing all of us to subsidize it, would at least be funding some of the costs, and it would also not end up covering those folks who run to the doctor for every little sniffle.

  • The_Gadfly

    But compared to what?

    Compared to the premium I pay for my insurance, that’s a fine of about $225. And if I weren’t a thinking man, I’d leave it at that. But I am, and I know that what I pay for my health insurance each year is at best, 30% of what the cost is with my employer paying the rest. And I’m cheap because I’m single and unmarried so they aren’t paying the full load they would be if I had the family plan (which if I had, would make my part something on the order of $3000 per year if I recall correctly). So the real cost of my health care is something on the order of $3200. On a strictly cost basis, an employer would be insane to pass up that kind of opportunity to save money. Which would make dumping the cost on me, and me paying the fine a rational choice.

    Mind you, being on some sort of National Health Care plan is the last thing on this planet I want. I know that ultimately I’m better off trying to wrangle money out of a private sector dweeb trying to protect the company bottom line than I ma trying to wrangle money out of a government dweeb who is only concerned that he manage to end my call in time for him to start an early lunch break.

    What scares me about the Obama plan isn’t the amounts of the fines, its the insidiousness of the whole thing. It makes the fines cost effective solutions to putting people on the dole and the fines have no chance of financing the system. But by the time most people figure that out, the current system will have been burned to the ground in a blaze of bankruptcies and government takeovers because some health care providers are too big to fail/too important to the nation to fail/take your pick of favorite government inanities for actions they want to take that aren’t explicitly enabled by constitutional writ. The whole thing makes Bernie Madoff look like a three card monte scam artist by comparison.

  • Common_Cents

    There are TWO DISTINCT issues regarding health care.

    1. How do we pay for it?

    2. Reducing cost.

    Obamacare is being touted as “making healthcare affordable for everyone” by nationalizing single payer.

    How the heck does that affect cost? That is a way to pay for health care. It has nothing to do with efficiency or cutting any costs.

    As pointed out, when you pay your $29.95 for the buffet you tend to overeat.

  • JHancock

    losing my patient rights. Once I’m in the govt. system, they will tel me what they will and won’t cover. How much you wanna bet that they will cover abortion but not pre-natal care?? how much you wanna bet they won’t pay for babies like Trig to be born, but will pay for kids to get condoms?

  • Brian Johnson

    The only article I could find regarding fines for people and healthcare is http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/07/02/senate-democrats-trim-cost-health-care/ at fox news, and says that they want to fine people who refuse any coverage, not just Obamacare(tm) coverage. While I realize that in the end it ends up being the same and it’s Obama shoehorning everyone onto his plan, when arguing with people who believe in the false premise that there will be a “choice”, it makes a difference. Again, going on the false premise that there will be a choice and you can choose to keep your private insurance, my reading is that’s not a fineable offense.

    I just noticed an interesting phrase, though, in the first paragraph:

    “Americans who refuse to buy affordable medical coverage could be hit with fines of more than $1,000″

    Interesting it didn’t add an “…or go on the public government option” in there….

    So the government is taking over health care, which everyone thinks will mean we get it for free and will end up costing the government trillions it doesn’t have, and we’ll *still* have to buy it?

    Wow, longing for the Reagan/Bush41/Bush43 years is easy, but when I’m thinking that *Clinton* is looking good right about now….I fear that the rope on our handbasket that’s been slowing our descent has just been cut.