Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Yes, Individual Health Policies Will Go Away

But who cares? Actually, quite a few people care.

Most insured Americans get their health coverage through an employer. But a minority of about 6 to 8 percent -- mostly the self-employed, students, and others who lack a generous employee benefits package -- carry individual policies.

Besides the people who purchase those policies, there's the large Milwaukee-based company which ISSUES them, along with its several hundred jobs. But that's OK. There's always the several million "stimulus" jobs that they can get. Like pouring and finishing concrete. Or driving spikes into Doyle's choochoo train-rails.

In the Senate Democrats' bill, individual policyholders can keep their coverage, but they will be penalized under the individual mandate as though they did not have any coverage at all.

Very nice.

House Democrats' bill, on the other hand, would grandfather individual policy-holders. They could keep their coverage and even add dependents over time. But no new individual policies could be sold as of the first year ObamaCare begins.

Don't be stupid enough to think that makes any difference.

Under the best-case scenario, grandfathered individual policies would continue to exist until all of their holders die. But in all likelihood, economic and regulatory forces would conspire against them.

ObamaRegulation--the next best thing to just blowing off the policies.

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