OBAMACARE AND THATCHER'S POLL TAX

                                       by Hugh Murray  
      I think there is a comparison to be made between Obamacare, the "Affordable Health Care Act," and the poll tax levied by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government in the UK some years ago.  We normally do not compare Thatcher and Obama, but in this case, it may be apropos.  Obamacare mandates that all Americans purchase insurance.  If they do not, the fines for the first year are small, but they rise to become quite heavy fines after a few years.  When Obamacare was challenged in court, going all the way to the US Supreme Court, the American high court ruled in 2012 that Obamacare was legal, it was simply another tax.  In reality, it is another poll tax.
     Thatcher's tax was the product of the British Tories, and the Labour Party and the Left responeded with massive riots.  Implementation of the act was also very difficult to enforce, with local councils unable to be certain who was staying in the government houses, and if they were students, employed, unemployed, and therefore what rate of the tax they must pay.  Needless to say, Obamacare is off to a slow start.
     Thatcher's poll tax was to take effect in 1990, but riots, its unpopularity, its difficulty in implementing, all weakened her leadership.  She also had other rivals in the Tory Party who disagreed with her opposition to closer relations with "Europe," the expanding Common Market.  While on a visit by P. M. Thatcher to Europe, her Tory opponents led a coup inside the Conservative Party, and deposed her.  Margaret Thatcher was no longer Tory leader; no longer Prime Minister.  Her Conservative successor, John Major, scrapped the poll tax.
    Obamacare will raise the insurance rates on most middle-class Americans.  For some, the rates will rise sharply, AND the co-pay may now be thousands of dollars instead of the previous $50 or so.  Worse, with millions more in the pool, and the same number, OR FEWER DOCTORS WILLING TO PARTAKE IN THE NEW PLANS, it may take far longer to visit a doctor.  In effect, Obamacare, with new delays, will probably institute death panels, even if there are no panels - just millions of more patients with fewer doctors.
     Will there be riots against the new American poll tax?  Will Obama fall like Thatcher?  We shall see.