“I promise a chicken in every pot (chicken not included)”

Tyler Cowen was ‘somewhat surprised‘ to find out that a higher percentage of the uninsured disapprove of Obamacare. I’m not sure whether his surprise was that the disapproval wasn’t higher or lower.

I wasn’t surprised that more disapprove.

As I wrote in my “Wait…What?” post in July of 2012, Obama won votes by promising to solve the problem of the uninsured. Those voters didn’t realize that his solution would be to penalize the uninsured for not buying insurance.

It’s like the old Doctor joke.

Patient: Doc, it hurts when I do this. Can you fix it?

Doc: Yes I can.

Patient: Really? Great! How?

Doc: Stop doing that.

In July 2013, I didn’t think many people had made that connection, yet. I predicted they might when they had to pay the fine. They haven’t paid the fine yet, but are discovering that Obama’s solution was the same as the Doc’s above. Stop not buying insurance.

I offered what I think is a better medical mandate in this post (edited slightly).

If you choose not to purchase insurance and you need medical care, you will be expected to pay for your medical care.

Mine isn’t that much different than Obama’s. But, it doesn’t require government intervention.

Update: James Taranto, at the Wall Street Journal, does a great job of making my first point:

In short, what ObamaCare means to the uninsured who were not uninsurable is higher prices for a product they already were disinclined to buy, along with a punitive tax on not buying it. That seems more like a mugging than a benefit.