header image
The world according to David Graham
David Graham | blog | trains

Topics

acva bili chpc columns committee conferences elections environment essays ethi faae foreign foss guelph hansard highways history indu internet leadership legal military money musings newsletter oggo pacp parlchmbr parlcmte politics presentations proc qp radio reform regs rnnr satire secu smem statements tran transit tributes tv unity

Recent entries

  1. PMO Staff Run Government; Ministers Represent It
  2. On A Mostly Harmless Birthday
  3. The Trouble With Political Communications
  4. Politics: War By Other Means
  5. On the function of Social media
  6. C-18 is an existential threat, not a benefit, to democracy
  7. On Missing A Little More Than A Sub
  8. The Realpolitik Of Open Nomination
  9. What Is An Open Nomination, Really?
  10. Alberta election about identity, not policy
  11. The Trouble With Electoral Reform
  12. Mr. Bains Goes to Rogers
  13. Question Period
  14. Why do lockdowns and pandemic restrictions continue to exist?
  15. Parliamentary privilege: an arcane concept that can prevent coups
  16. It's not over yet
  17. Trump will win in 2020 (and keep an eye on 2024)
  18. A podcast with Michael Geist on technology and politics
  19. Next steps
  20. On what electoral reform reforms
  21. 2019 Fall campaign newsletter / infolettre campagne d'automne 2019
  22. 2019 Summer newsletter / infolettre été 2019
  23. 2019-07-15 SECU 171
  24. 2019-06-20 RNNR 140
  25. 2019-06-17 14:14 House intervention / intervention en chambre
  26. 2019-06-17 SECU 169
  27. 2019-06-13 PROC 162
  28. 2019-06-10 SECU 167
  29. 2019-06-06 PROC 160
  30. 2019-06-06 INDU 167
  31. older entries...

American health insurance

I'm in the States visiting my in-laws. Reading through today's local paper, there is a story about a new law in the neighbouring state of Massachusetts which is being touted as universal healthcare. The idea is simple: everyone must buy health insurance, or face fines.

I don't know of any place in the world other than the United States that forcing people to buy health insurance on pain of fines can possibly be considered universal healthcare. For people who cannot afford healthcare insurance, adding a fine on top of their other expenses is not going to help matters.

For reference, this law is signed by former Mass. Governor and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

Ugh.

Posted at 12:24 on December 26, 2007

This entry has been archived. Comments can no longer be posted.

Greater Toronto Transit Authority -- sorry, Metrolinx -- wants your input | foreign | Highway 6 improvements a waste of money

Donovan Hill (www.lazyeyez.net) writes at Mon Feb 25 19:50:10 EST 2008...

David: I think you can look at our own country. We may not impose fines, but provincial governments will garnishee your wages if you don't pay your MSP premiums and/or send you to collections.

We're not much better off IMO.

(RSS) Website generating code and content © 2001-2020 David Graham <david@davidgraham.ca>, unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. Comments are © their respective authors.