And Now the Wait Begins (an excerpt) | Eastern North Carolina Now | Oral arguments have ended before the Supreme Court regarding Obamacare. Perhaps significantly, Justice Kennedy, the Court's notorious swing vote, appeared to be very concerned about the status of young people with respect to the healthcare bill.

   Publisher's note: This excerpt is the forerunner of Diane Rufino's well developed opinion of the Obama Administration's "day in court."

    Oral arguments have ended before the Supreme Court regarding Obamacare. Perhaps significantly, Justice Kennedy, the Court's notorious swing vote, appeared to be very concerned about the status of young people with respect to the healthcare bill. He noted that the government hasn't exactly been honest about its intentions with the bill, which was to offset the burden that uninsured individuals place on healthcare.

    If the administration was really interested in preventing young people (many who are uninsured) from being such a burden, the healthcare plan would allow them to buy only catastrophic health insurance (instead of the plan that includes well visits, preventative care). Catastrophic health insurance is all that 20-30 year-olds really need; It's the only product that makes any economic sense for them. But Obamacare doesn't allow that. So, as Kennedy emphasized, we see what the healthcare bill is really all about. It's about using 20-30 year-olds to subsidize the plan, to subsidize insurance for those who can't afford it. It's about using young healthy people to fund the program. It's about a social scheme.

    As we all know, the government's plan is to subsidize health insurance for everyone, especially those who are uninsured and sick (approximately 20% of all uninsured). The plan forces insurance companies to cover the sick. But it doesn't want to use the typical means to pay for this - such as tax subsidies. Instead, the government wants to reach OUTSIDE the market and COMPEL a whole bunch of healthy people into that market so they can be used to subsidize the program and help bring healthcare premiums down. In fact, this was the finding by Congress: that bringing young healthy people into the market will bring down the health insurance premium by about 15% for everyone. Unfortunately, it will force them to buy something they don't need or want.

    Diane Rufino has her own blog For Love of God and Country. Come and visit her. She'd love your company.