Again Dana, you start off reasonable, but then...
...as you frequently seem to do, you have to resort to extremes as
answers to any debate.
Your original post is far more reasoned than most I see regarding
this debate. You are amongst the few who seem to actually understand
that what most Americans think of as "health insurance" is actually a
"payment plan". Insurance is a hedge against lesser-likely but
catastrophic events. However, 60-years of corporate custom abetted
by the tax code has seen to it that most people think of insurance as
something an employer takes responsibility for with $20 co-pays and
real costs that they never ever see, or realize even exist.
My favorite example is: How expensive would your auto insurance have
to be if it also covered oil changes, tune-ups, and replacement
tires? And how much would consumers care about the actual cost of
oil changes, tune-ups, and replacement tires if all they had to pay
to get them whenever they wanted them was $20?
But the unfortunately, your "wellness tax" is simply a blank check in
a nation where few understand, and fewer can even define in finite
terms what all "health care", is, or should be, especially when most
of those clamoring for it expect that it will be paid for by someone
other than themselves.
Add to that the idea that somehow a hopelessly corrupt congress can
develop a plan that was not riddled with special and self interest,
and then stand behind and defend what they write before the people
instead of relying on code and procedural gimmicks to get it passed
into law. And this is all done in the shadow of the explicit goal of
implementing a Soviet-style single-payer system the second their
flawed system predictably fails. Any discussions of "freedom" will
be long since mute at that point; we'll all be slaves to the state.
