That’s Ezekiel Emanuel, the doctor–not Rahm, current Chicago mayor and White House Chief of Staff when Obamacare was rammed through Congress.
Suddenly, Dr. Emanuel has decided to draw attention to the major flaws in Obamacare–principally that it creates strong incentives for young people to pay the fine tax “fine under taxing power” rather than buying insurance through the state exchanges. (The fine is $695 per year; the insurance will cost about $3000.)
Dr. Emanuel tacitly admits what Obamacare’s supporters (including Dr. Emanuel himself, who gave a lecture just last year entitled “How Obamacare Will Save American Healthcare”) have been reluctant to acknowledge–that the policy is a massive tax on the young in order to pay for new insurance that most don’t actually need.
He also admits that young people are likely to opt out. So, he says, we’ll have to pressure them to do it.
In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, the good Doctor prescribes three ways in which this could be accomplished:
1. President Obama and his appointees need to give speeches to young people about signing up for Obamacare. (“Every commencement address by an administration official should encourage young graduates to get health insurance.”) Because if there’s one thing young people respond well to, it’s lectures from older people.
2. We need to attack, ostracize, and humiliate the “free riders” who don’t buy insurance until they are sick. (“Second, we need to make clear as a society that buying insurance is part of individual responsibility.”)
3. We need to spend more public money on advertising the Obamacare exchanges on television and at sporting events so that young people are made aware of “affordable policies available.” Any $695 policies on offer?
This is a classic statist propaganda strategy, worthy of the socialist banana republics we used to mock–and which, if the Emanuels and their friends have their way, we will soon be on our way to becoming.
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