After shooting themselves in the foot by foolishly demanding that Obamacare be defunded or they would shutdown the government, the more level-headed Republicans switched to a more sensible bargaining position, one part of which was that Obamacare’s individual mandate be delayed by one year.  After all, since Obama arbitrarily (and unconstitutionally) delayed the employer mandate by a year, why not the little guy — the individual policy holder?

President Obama responded, “Hell no.”  And for good reason.  Without the individual mandate, which targets our nation’s young, Obamacare is doomed.  Obamacare needs young, healthy people paying into the system to counterbalance the older, more health-challenged people who will dominate the system, and who will cost Obamacare far more than they will pay into it.  That is why Obamacare mandates that individuals — mostly young people — join it, or pay a fine.

But if I was in my twenties and entering the workforce, I would still seriously consider paying the fine rather than joining the health care exchanges.  Why?  Because as currently set up, if I don’t join Obamacare, I pay a fine equal to 1 percent of my salary, so, if I’m a job market newbie making $30,000 a year, my annual fine is $300.  But if I join an exchange, my annual cost will be, at minimum , around $1,200, and that doesn’t include deductibles or co-pays.  So, annually, it’s $300 if I don’t join and, at minimum, $1,200 if I do — a $900-plus difference.

But, you’re thinking, I am young and healthy now, but what if I get sick later on and I don’t have health insurance?  The answer is:  THEN join Obamacare!   There are no pre-existing condition clauses, meaning that even if you get cancer, you can subsequently join Obamacare and be covered for it.  It’s like totaling your car, subsequently buying auto insurance, and being covered for that car crash!   The pre-existing condition waiver, while well-intentioned, was always the Achilles Heel of Obamacare.  If healthy people don’t join it until they get sick, then only sick people will join the plan, and a health insurance program dominated by sick people is financially unsustainable.

That is why Obamacare mandates that our nation’s young and healthy join.  They are needed because they will pay far more into it than they will get out of it.

In effect, they are subsidizing the seniors in the plan, just as they subsidize seniors through the payroll taxes they pay to fund Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and many other entitlements enjoyed by our senior citizens.  Which only seems fair.  After all, the average net worth per household of our senior citizens is approximately $170,000, which is more than 50 times the average net worth of our nation’s young.

“We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what’s in it.” - Rep. Nancy Pelosi on the Affordable Care Act

Love him or hate him, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) has introduced an amendment to the Constitution that every member of Congress, Democrat or Republican, should support.  It reads: “Congress shall make no law applicable to a citizen of the United States that is not equally applicable to Congress.”

His intent is to end the practice of Congress exempting itself from the laws and regulations it passes that govern the rest of us, which — and this will no doubt surprise many Americans — Congress does all the time.  Among those exemptions are, believe it or not, civil rights laws and workplace safety regulations.

And also Obamacare, which was the impetus for Senator Paul’s amendment.  Congress, having passed the 2,000 page Obamacare bill (without a single Republican vote), never found the time to read it (Hey, it was 2,000 pages long!) until, apparently, recently when its members discovered to their horror that they and their staffs were also subject to Obamacare’s mandatory health care exchanges, meaning they would have to give up their Cadillac health plans and join Obamacare.   Outraged, they demanded that President Obama either exempt them from the requirement or financially subsidize their Obamacare coverage.  Obama acquiesced to the latter, which means that all members of Congress and their staffs will receive an Obamacare financial subsidy, paid for by U.S. taxpayers, that those same taxpayers do not receive.  This so outraged many Republicans that they demanded the removal of this preferential treatment for Congress as one of their negotiating positions over ending the government shutdown.

Rand has also proposed a Senate resolution that would forbid the Senate from voting for or against legislation until its members have actually had the time to read that legislation.  He asks that all legislation be posted online and that the Senate is in session for at least one day for every 20 pages included in the legislation.  So, for example, if the bill is 100 pages long, the Senate must be in session for five days.  Pace Nancy Pelosi, the whole idea is for our legislators to actually understand what is in the bills before they vote on them.   Paul can’t offer that resolution in the House of Representatives — he’s not a member — but if it catches on in the Senate, hopefully the House will follow suit.

Granted, many bills coming out of Congress today are thousands of pages long, meaning our legislators would have to be in session for months, even years, to fulfill Paul’s resolution.

Or, as Senator Paul no doubt intends, Congress could start writing shorter, less complicated laws.

Thinking Out Loud:  A Letter From HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius

“Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold.”  – W.B. Yeats

“This is the issue … Whether we believe in our capacity for self government or whether we abandon the American Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them for ourselves.”  - Ronald Reagan

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Middle Class:

This is a follow-up letter to the one you recently received from your health insurance provider informing you that, in accordance with the Affordable Care Act, your current health insurance plan will be cancelled on January 1, 2014.

As the head of Health and Human Services, I have learned that millions of Americans are surprised and angered at these cancellation notices because, they complain, Our Dear Leader, His Most Omniscient President Obama, repeatedly claimed that, “If you like your current health insurance, you can keep your current health insurance, period.”  How, you are wondering, does that square with the fact that you two, and tens of millions of other Americans who like their current plan, cannot keep it under the ACA?

The answer is very simple.  You don’t like your current plan.  You just don’t know that yet.

Hence this letter.  Your current plan, as I and Our Dear Leader have pointed out, is “substandard.”   There are several reasons why you are not aware of this, starting with the fact that you are out in the hinterland going about your lives, ignorant of the finer points of health care, while 10 million experts under my command — all with Doctorates from Ivy League schools — have been examining every facet of health care, running data through ultra-sophisticated computers, cross-checking binary codes, plotting matrixes (whatever they are), analyzing, writing reports and drawing conclusions.  These are people a lot smarter than you and me (especially you).

And what they have concluded is that your current coverage does not meet several criteria that were inserted into the ACA when nobody was looking.  For example, our records show that you are both in your late fifties and have three children ages 27, 29, and 32.  Yet your current insurance plan does not include maternity benefits or pediatric dental care.  (Thanks to the NSA, our records also show that you both belong to a political action group that has the words “Liberty” and “American Eagle” in it; expect a visit from the I.R.S. very soon).

This is why your current coverage has been cancelled.  As to why your new coverage will be less comprehensive and five times as expensive — I will explain that in a follow-up letter.

Sincerely, Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary HHS

P.S. Be sure to vote Democratic in the 2014 Mid-term Elections!