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Politics : A US National Health Care System? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RetiredNow who wrote (15934)	4/1/2010 6:27:03 PM
From: TimF	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42652

Of course, my opinion is backed by CBO scoring. Which in this context is essentially the same as "someone else agrees with me". The CBO is not an authority on how people will react to such complex changes in incentives. That's not an attack on the CBO, no one is a good authority on such matters. The idea that you can actually have a specific score that will bear any relation to future reality except by chance is a rather silly one. Its better look at the different factors and consider how each one might affect the cost in relatively general terms, than to think anyone can provide a real score. While you rely on arguments from authority, I've actually developed some real points. Mainly that coverage requirements increase cost. Mandates for buying coverage, might decrease costs per person covered, but will likely increase the total cost. And that coverage for preexisting conditions will likely cause many people to wait on buying a policy until they need one. The penalty would mitigate against that but how well its will be enforced is uncertain (the CBO has to assume solid enforcement, but there is no reason for us to make that assumption). Even if its enforced the cost of the penalty is lower than the cost of insurance for most people, and for many it will be lower even with the subsidies reducing the price of the insurance. Do you have any counter arguments, either your own, or from the CBO, or from any other source? Or are you just trying to assert that anything the CBO says should automatically trump any other points, despite the CBO's lousy record in this area?