Obamacare: Consequences...

One of the “features” of Obamacare is an absolutely enormous transfer of wealth from the young (through their mandate to purchase health insurance) to the old (the dominant consumer of health care, and therefore dominant cause of health care expenses).  In other words, Obamacare purports to solve the problem of healthcare expenses for the elderly by making the younger folks pay for it.

Many opponents of Obamacare imagine that in the long run this theft of young people's money will drive young people away from the Democratic party.  Since this is one of the Democrats' key constituencies, this possibility is seen with some glee by the Republicans (the likely beneficiary of youth disenchantment with Democrats).  This would then give the Republicans the legislative and executive authority to repeal Obamacare.

Personally, I think it's more likely that if the Republicans ever gain the political power to repeal Obamacare, they won't (all their campaign promises notwithstanding).  Instead, I suspect they'll modify Obamacare in ways that retain the popular part, make some nominal (but electorate appeasing) adjustments to the wealth transfer aspects, and keep every bit of the opportunity for regulation and exception carve-outs – so they can keep the lobbyists coming, cash in hand.

But something I hadn't considered before is that there is a completely different solution to the wealth transfer problem.  Think about this from a younger person's perspective.  They're getting taxed, heavily, to pay for older people's health care.  Why not just get rid of the older people?  No old people, no healthcare expenses to pay for.  Problem solved!  And apparently, there's solid support for this idea:


I think I'll do a little preliminary research on other countries Debbie and I could live in...