Dependency Nation — Millions of Americans to Score Free Healthcare Under #ObamaCare

From yesterday's New York Times, "Under Health Care Act, Millions Eligible for Free Policies":

The analysis [by McKinsey and Co.] found that five million to six million people who are uninsured will qualify for subsidies that will be greater than the cost of the cheapest bronze or silver plan. A million more people with individual insurance could also be eligible, according to McKinsey, although estimates of the size of the market for private individual insurance vary widely. None of the people in the analysis qualify for Medicaid.

The availability of zero-premium plans may make the deal especially enticing to the healthy young people the marketplace needs to succeed, said Mark V. Pauly, a professor of health care management at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. “This is such a good deal that you’d have to believe you were immortal not to really pick it up,” he said.

Yeah, so taxpayers will be picking up the health insurance tabs of people like the "Elisabeth and Mark Horst, artists in Albuquerque who earn $24,000 a year between them, qualified for a zero-premium plan." These are Ph.D. holding "artistes" living the sweet life in the American Southwest.

William Jacobson has that, "Congrats America, you are subsidizing health insurance for Ivy League Ph.D’s who choose to paint":

I have nothing against the Horsts. Living and painting in Albuquerque is a dream for many people.

But why should the taxpayers have to subsidize what clearly is a lifestyle choice? The Horsts are not exactly uneducated or without choices in their lives.

Here’s a part of Mark Horst’s bio at his art website:

Mark Horst grew up in small town Minnesota. He studied pottery and printmaking in high school and college, but his encounter with Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker led to years of very different work. After earning a Ph.D. in theology from Yale University, he spent time teaching and working toward neighborhood renewal in south Minneapolis. He pursued the craft of painting and drawing at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and the New York Studio School. He lives in Albuquerque.

If paint were a means of freezing time and protecting us from the dangerous life of the spirit, I would put down my brushes. But, for me, painting is a way of breaking time’s grip and setting loose something wild and strong.

Elizabeth also is highly educated and closed her psychology practice to paint:

I studied philosophy at Yale, psychology at the University of Minnesota, and in addition have trained in Reiki, yoga instruction, and shiatsu. As for art… I taught myself to knit at the age of seven, designed and made my own clothes in high school, stitched a quilt while writing my senior essay in college. Fiber art has always been what I do when I am not required to be doing something else (and sometimes when I am). I began to sell my handwoven scarves at art fairs and farmers markets in 2002, and in 2003 closed my psychology practice to make art full time.

More power to the Horsts. But don’t ask me to subsidize their lifestyle choice.

And don't forget, these provisions of the law are a huge incentive for people not to work. That way, they'll lower their annual income and qualify for subsidies.

From the San Francisco Chronicle last month, "Lower 2014 income can net huge health care subsidy."

Behold "dependency nation" expanding exponentially before your very eyes --- just what Democrats have planned all along, to create a nation of welfare queen zombies sucking the vitality from the American economy.

Yep, congratulations Americans, you're digging your own graves.