Watching Obama on Snuffleupagus today dodging around the question of whether individual mandates are a tax or not had me squirming in my seat.
The whole idea of a mandate seems to me like political suicide. Regardless of whether it is or not, wingnuts will jump on it (Snuffles took his cue and ran with it) as a huge new tax increase, and the media (as it always does) will dutifully "report" on mandates under the right wing framing. The "public option" story is now buried under the woodshed, and the new 24 hour focus will be on mandates.
I understand the theory behind the shared risk pool, but the argument seems to fly in the face of logic, especially when Obama clumsily tries to compare it to auto insurance, a "mandate" that can be simply avoided by not owning a car. You can't simply choose to not get sick.
People in this country rebel against the idea of being "required" to do anything, much less spend money, even if it is shown to be good for them. A mandate will be political suicide among the "independents", whose support Obama badly needs to get reform passed.
If you think the furor over the public option was bad, it will be a whisper compared to the coming outrage over the indiviudal mandate.
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