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Will Obama's health insurance mandate cause minority parents to lose their kids to foster care?

lambert's picture
Sun, 07/26/2009 - 10:14am — lambert

Check out this exchange on the mandate at OpenLeft:

Roughly twenty years ago
The US forced po folk to buy liability auto insurance.

It did get most folks coverage, but it costs 400 to 700 percent more for the folks who can least afford it. Even with perfect driving records. I have never heard of a credible fight to rectify this over twenty years. Courts and local jails are filled with po folks who miss a payment etc. Often the fines are as costly as the insurance... except that triggers insurance rates to double or triple.

It's debtors prison and indentured servitude of the worst western order.

Considering everything you know about private health insurance in the US... it should not be difficult to imagine just how awful it will be for the least informed, lowest income folks when being forced to deal with them.

by: Eureka Springs AR @
Sun Jul 26, 2009 at 00:54

It will certainly be a trigger
to put lots of minority kids into foster care...

miss that insurance payment and you are an abusive and neglectful parent.

by: bruce.dixon @
Sun Jul 26, 2009 at 02:08

RL calls, and I don't have the hours to pile through the 1000 pages of HR3200. Could any "progressive" exincrementalists who are reading this and really know the detail address the issue? Or start whipping to make sure it doesn't happen?

NOTE Of course, with single payer, poor parents wouldn't have to worry.

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OT--but why are so many posts coming up w/out comments?

By jawbone on Sun, 07/26/2009 - 2:19pm

Is there a button somewhere which when hit by mistake shuts off comments?

MsExPat's most recent above has no comments.

How's that happen -- so we can avoid it if we WANT comments? Thnx!

»
lambert's picture

The most likely scenario is that nobody commented

By lambert on Sun, 07/26/2009 - 3:29pm

Comments are on by default. If you don't know how to turn them off, you probably haven't.

First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Mahatma Gandhi

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There was no comment box when I asked the question. Just...

By jawbone on Sun, 07/26/2009 - 5:43pm

nothing. Honest.

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Sarah's picture

I've noticed that I have to double-check and turn comments ON

By Sarah on Sun, 07/26/2009 - 8:17pm

lately. Just sayin'.


We can admit that we’re killers … but we’re not going to kill today. That’s all it takes! ~ Captain James T. Kirk, Stardate 3193.0

1 John 4:18

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i searched the pdf for

By hipparchia on Sun, 07/26/2009 - 6:20pm

parent, child, and a couple of other terms i can't remember now.

i didn't find anything that specifically addresses either taking kids away from parents/guardians, or protecting parents/guardians from having their kids taken away, due to inability to comply with the requirements of the bill.

that said, if inability to comply with auto insurance laws is allowing authorities to endanger kids by jailing their parents or guardians for said noncompliance, then this could probably be used that way too.

i didn't know all that about the auto insurance laws and their consequences. thanks for bringing it up.

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