Reproduce or Pay a Tax: The Next ObamaCare
By Jonathan Bean • Wednesday March 28, 2012 8:24 PM PDT • 7 Comments
ObamaCare is about correcting for the “problem” that some people are not buying insurance. Rather than identify needy individuals and pay for their insurance, the bill mandates that everyone buy insurance that meets the prescription of government health czars (not too much, not too little, but “just right”). The government argues the following: by failing to buy insurance, the uninsured shift costs to others who must support the federal-state scheme to cover all health care costs, including uncompensated losses.
Thought experiment:
Here is a much bigger problem with social insurance that could lead to its collapse across the Western world: some young people are not having children. True, children are not a market in the plain meaning of the word but the government can create a “market” out of something that does not exist. The Solicitor General (the government’s top lawyer) will argue that there really is a baby market with adoptions. That market is so pressing that people are forced to go overseas for babies.
But the real problem is that low birth rates (below replacement level) mean fewer and fewer workers paying for those on Social Security and Medicare. Solution: penalize those of childbearing age (men and women) who have fewer than 2.1 children (replacement level). Fine them each and every year so that the aggregate makes up for their indirect effect on the taxes of working Americans who must pay more in Social Security and Medicare taxes because of the children never born.
This time be careful: write into the bill “tax,” “general welfare,” and “indirect effect on interstate commerce” to get the job done. The Court will surely split the non-existent baby in half (4-4) with one wobbly Justice upholding the law as a “matter of degree” in the attenuation of the Commerce Clause.
HHS Slogan: “reproductive rights come with reproductive obligations.”
It doesn’t take a law degree to head where this republican experiment of ours is headed.
Tags: Budget and Tax Policy, Family, Healthcare, Regulation, Social Security 
How is Obamacare a “Republican experiment”?
Clara Madison | Mar 29, 2012 | Reply
Oh, I see what you mean.
I think you’re making several premature predictions here (from someone in law school).
1. The IM or the ACA has not been struck down yet.
2. It’s too early to suggest proposals of what a Republican president will or will not do in terms of health care.
Clara Madison | Mar 29, 2012 | Reply
If you read the post, I don’t make ANY predictions about the outcome. Rather, I present the government’s reasoning and then develop a Swiftian hypothetical based on the reasoning.
As for “republican,” I meant “lower case” republicanism, not Republican Party!
Jonathan Bean | Mar 29, 2012 | Reply
The libertarian position on the health care act is underrepresented (ugh, two party system). I’ve setup a BroadCause campaign to gather public support for us, please STAND WITH US to keep the pressure up: http://www.broadcause.com/campaigns/campaign.php?id=52
Lauren Cola | Mar 30, 2012 | Reply
“And we shall call it the bumpin-uglies mandate.” /snark
The thought experiment you present reinforces the perverse notion of inaction being problematic and therefore the federal government must take action to ‘mitigate’ the inaction (whatever the ‘not doing something’ happens to be).
Good gravy, we are in for a treat come June.
Brett McCormick | Apr 3, 2012 | Reply
While it was a chuckle (a little one), Obama liberation theology which believes Christianity gets in the way of his building his dominion brand of neo-socialism is at issue. What is your solution to this over-reach, humor...while I believe seriousness laced with humor is necessary you have to end your humor with a pointed solution to bring it home. Good try...
Stephen J. Higgins | Apr 3, 2012 | Reply
The short-term solution would be repeal of the law known as ObamaCare but the problem is the reasoning that so often passes court muster: that if something indirectly influence something else (and what doesn’t?), then the government can do whatever it wants. The real solution would be a return to the _Schechter_ doctrine that preceded the New Deal Court Revolution but no one on the Court favors such a move, least of all the so-called conservatives.
And the presidential candidate for the opposition is a man who first got the mandate passed in Mass.
So, little hope in Congress, no hope under our oligarchic Court, and presidential elections with Tweedledum and Tweedledee.
Good luck!
Jonathan Bean | Apr 3, 2012 | Reply