Moderator: Metal Sludge
There is no enforcement mechanism. This video explains why the standard penalties for tax evasion were removed.bane wrote: Interesting. With no penalty, how do they plan to enforce it?
The law requires insurance companies to spend at least 80 percent of the premiums they collect on medical care and quality improvement or return the difference to consumers and employers.NeverSurrender wrote:So, is this going to make health insurance more affordable?
All insurance is based on this. Insurance is lifetime financing for the average cost of your healthcare. People who don't start paying when they are young and healthy are like people who don't start saving to retire until they're 50.bane wrote:The whole thing is predicated on the young and healthy who may otherwise choose to go uninsured, buying insurance. Without them this thing doesn't work, and without any kind of penalty, how many of those people are going to voluntarily write that check? This should be fun.
Excellent first post.johnnycache wrote:All insurance is based on this. Insurance is lifetime financing for the average cost of your healthcare. People who don't start paying when they are young and healthy are like people who don't start saving to retire until they're 50.bane wrote:The whole thing is predicated on the young and healthy who may otherwise choose to go uninsured, buying insurance. Without them this thing doesn't work, and without any kind of penalty, how many of those people are going to voluntarily write that check? This should be fun.
The fact that we have been sold a false mentality where we see insurance as a gambling game and not what it is - financing of a very, very carefully estimated major purchase - is one element of our broken health care system. The "young and healthy" are guaranteed to die and virtually guaranteed to need healthcare in the process (unless they are eaten by bears or shot by Danzig's bodyguards for rushing at him with a pie or something)
If they opt out of that care until they verge on actually needing it, they can't afford it, and you get our current culture of unfunded long term health care for the aging and the chronically sick burdening our private and public finances. If they start making small payments early, and that money is managed well, it can pay for the average person and part of a bell curve bender. Further, if basic care and preventative care are widely available and not fenced off economically, they well be cheaper to care for in the long term.
The fact that most young people aren't logistically capable or financially ready to pay a formal premium is one of many reasons why other nations have adopted varying degrees of public health care.
The further fact that they destroy us in health care outcomes despite spending less per capita means there is at least some wisdom in the approach, although limiting real costs, limiting administrative expense, and more accessible medical schools are the other legs on the table that is healthcare in our socio-economic neighbors, and we aren't making much progress on the other three.
Our healthcare system is crisis-level broken. We should be debating about which European or pacific rim country to steal a whole healthcare system from, rather than debating the constitutional basis of why we are dragging our feet as we are slowly hauled into the 21st century, kicking and screaming like children because someone wants to see us able to enjoy what is considered an basic state service - akin to FD, PD, highways - in other countries.
Hey thanks, guy. /canadianKneelandBobDylan wrote:
Excellent first post.
I agree with all of that, however, it doesn't answer my question. Again, with no penalty or enforcent mechanism, how does this thing work?johnnycache wrote:All insurance is based on this. Insurance is lifetime financing for the average cost of your healthcare. People who don't start paying when they are young and healthy are like people who don't start saving to retire until they're 50.bane wrote:The whole thing is predicated on the young and healthy who may otherwise choose to go uninsured, buying insurance. Without them this thing doesn't work, and without any kind of penalty, how many of those people are going to voluntarily write that check? This should be fun.
The fact that we have been sold a false mentality where we see insurance as a gambling game and not what it is - financing of a very, very carefully estimated major purchase - is one element of our broken health care system. The "young and healthy" are guaranteed to die and virtually guaranteed to need healthcare in the process (unless they are eaten by bears or shot by Danzig's bodyguards for rushing at him with a pie or something)
If they opt out of that care until they verge on actually needing it, they can't afford it, and you get our current culture of unfunded long term health care for the aging and the chronically sick burdening our private and public finances. If they start making small payments early, and that money is managed well, it can pay for the average person and part of a bell curve bender. Further, if basic care and preventative care are widely available and not fenced off economically, they will be cheaper to care for in the long term.
The fact that most young people aren't logistically capable or financially ready to pay a formal premium is one of many reasons why other nations have adopted varying degrees of public health care.
The further fact that they destroy us in health care outcomes despite spending less per capita means there is at least some wisdom in the approach, although limiting real costs, limiting administrative expense, and more accessible medical schools are the other legs on the table that is healthcare in our socio-economic neighbors, and we aren't making much progress on the other three.
Our healthcare system is crisis-level broken. We should be debating about which European or pacific rim country to steal a whole healthcare system from, rather than debating the constitutional basis of why we are dragging our feet as we are slowly hauled into the 21st century, kicking and screaming like children because someone wants to see us able to enjoy what is considered an basic state service - akin to FD, PD, highways - in other countries.
Agreed. When we were debating this a few years ago I said that congress could easily do it if they just made it a tax, which is essentially what the SCOTUS has said, but our politicians are so scared of being linked to a tax increase that they cloak it in the form of a "mandate" with no teeth in it. Without full participation, it's going to be a massive clusterfuck.johnnycache wrote:I honestly think it's a precedent thing, really - they are doing the SCOTUS dance with it now.
The next fight SHOULD, in a perfect world, be over cost controls - without cost controls an individual mandate is just a mincing step forward.
No, it's not going to be a massive clusterfuck.Without full participation, it's going to be a massive clusterfuck.
There are ton of cost controls in the bill.The next fight SHOULD, in a perfect world, be over cost controls - without cost controls an individual mandate is just a mincing step forward.
basically its along the lines of social security. Everyone pays into it to cover those that need it.bane wrote:Its simple math. Without full participation to offset the additional costs of covering higher risk people, you better believe its going to be a clusterfuck. Are insurance companies just going to take the loss? You and I will pay it in the form of higher premiums. This thing works if all the healthy and solvent 20 somethings in the country buy insurance. If they don't, it's a disaster. It's not that hard to fix. Put some teeth in the mandate. I'm floored that they didn't.
exactly, plus a lot of people think absolutely wrong, despite what the supreme court says for the government to force people to do business with private corporations, not to mention that the government itself is a big part of the reason health care is so fucked up. the Medicare and Medicaid programs piss away billions and billions of dollars a year, but the government thinks it knows best when it comes to how we spend out money. And that's after they take their cut of course. I know this law is well intentioned, but this is the government we're talking about, they're gonna find a way to fuck things up piss away even more money while they keep raising taxes and expanding their role in our lives even more.Aquanetsuperhold wrote:I do think a lot of people that have a problem with all this are worried about the govenment getting involved because there is so much govement waste and no real controls over costs in place.
The govement does waste so much of our tax money as it is, to some this is just another program the hacks and special interests groups can leech off of and once again the little people that are actually paying and working hard get the shaft.
Sure, except with no penalties or enforcement mechanism, not everybody is going to pay into it. I'm not really all that opposed to this plan. Im wary of federal involvement, but fundamentally I think it's a good thing for the country. I'm taking issue with the glaring hole in this plan that could be so easily remedied if our politicians weren't such chicken shit spineless jag offs.Aquanetsuperhold wrote:basically its along the lines of social security. Everyone pays into it to cover those that need it.bane wrote:Its simple math. Without full participation to offset the additional costs of covering higher risk people, you better believe its going to be a clusterfuck. Are insurance companies just going to take the loss? You and I will pay it in the form of higher premiums. This thing works if all the healthy and solvent 20 somethings in the country buy insurance. If they don't, it's a disaster. It's not that hard to fix. Put some teeth in the mandate. I'm floored that they didn't.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/art ... fc9e0358bf"There's only one candidate, Gov. Romney, who has committed that he will repeal the Obamney, uh, the Obamacare tax increase," Republican Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said Friday during a conference call organized by the Republican National Committee.
There are many ironies in the furor around the individual mandate. The fact that it was originally a Republican idea tends to get the most attention. But here’s another: There is no better deal in the legislation — and there has perhaps never been a better deal in the individual health-care market — than to go without insurance and pay the mandate’s penalty.
Here’s what happens now if you decide to wait until you’re sick to buy health insurance: Every health insurance company will tell you no, or they’ll charge you an exorbitant rate, or they’ll offer you insurance that will cover everything except your illness. Insurers, quite rightly, do not want to cover preexisting conditions, and there’s little consumers can do to make them change their minds.
Under the Affordable Care Act, here’s what happens if you wait until you’re sick to buy health insurance: You can buy health insurance and no insurer can charge you more for walking into their office with a lump the size of a golf ball. The catch is that between now and getting sick, if you can afford insurance — which the law defines as you have access to insurance that costs less than eight percent of your income — you have to pay a penalty of $695 a year (that’s the 2016 number; after 2016, it rises with inflation) or 2.5 percent of your annual income, whichever is greater.
The fact of the matter is that $695 a year or 2.5 percent of your annual income is likely to be a lot less than a decent insurance policy will cost you. In a way, paying the mandate is like buying an option to purchase insurance at some future date, when you need it more, for a price that you could never have gotten before the mandate.
But let’s say you try to eke out an even better deal than that: Let’s say you don’t buy insurance and you simply refuse to pay the mandate. What can the government do to make you pay?
Well, unlike if you refuse to pay your taxes, it can’t throw you in jail or put a lien on your home or other property (page 336 of the legislation). It can potentially reduce your tax refund, but that’s really it. If you’re not getting a tax refund, you’re free and clear.
Given these specifics, it’s worth asking why anyone thinks the mandate will work at all. And it’s worth saying that some don’t. “Even as it exists today, the individual mandate is weak and still presents problems because the penalty is so low,” Aetna Chief Executive Mark Bertolini told Reuters. “Obamacare individual mandate unlikely to work” wrote Marrill Matthews of the Institute for Policy Innovation, an organization that opposes the Affordable Care Act.
Most analysts are more optimistic, and for two reasons. First, Americans want health insurance, they want access to care before they get sick, and with the subsidies in place, they’re getting help to buy it. Second, Americans tend to follow the rules. In Massachusetts, where the mandate is similarly weak, compliance has been extraordinarily high.
Gotta say, that article didn't do much to boost my confidence on the success of this thing. I'm anticipating a pretty dramatic increase in my premiums, but I guess we 'll see how it works out.KneelandBobDylan wrote:Bane, I hope this helps.
I got laid off a few months ago, and I'm uninsured for the first time in my life. I had major throat surgery before I lost my insurance, and thank god the surgeon and his NP were co-workers who agreed to see me free of charge for my follow-up care.Aquanetsuperhold wrote:Oh brother, people are acting like the skyi s falling. Its not.
I live in MA and its been a good thing here. People who didnt have insurance now have it. People that wouldn't go to the doctor's for preventative stuff now go instead of waiting until they have no choice and end up in the emergency room, costing 10 times as much in the long run and it would be devistating for them finacially or.... that cost would be passed on to everyone else either through higher premiums for those that do buy their own insurance or higher hospital and heathcare cost. The majority is going to pay one way or another. I would rather have people have healthcare.
I was layed off a while ago and it was the first time EVER I didnt have health insurance. It took about a month and a half or so to get on the MA plan and about 4 months later I didnt feel right, something was really wrong. I went to the doctor and they found a 7lb tumor in my abdomen. Shocked and scared the shit out of me. If I didnt have insurance I wouldnt have gone to the doctor's at all. I would have eventually have ended up in the ER, with way more complications and problems, costing much more that the $26,000 it took to treat me. PS _ didnt have an extra $26 grand in my back account and it would have finacially done some serious damage. SO yeah yeah yeah. Republicans can cry about it all they want, and yell its about taxes, but it makes me think do they want to be right more than they want to help the people of this counrty.
If you dont want "obamacare" pay the $75 fee, tax, opt-out charge, whatever you want to call it, but if you ever have to go to the doctors, you should have to prove you can pay for it out of your own pocket before they should have to treat you.
NeverSurrender wrote:So, is this going to make health insurance more affordable?
This question goes out to everybody except rattrules and Death Row Joe.
bane wrote:Gotta say, that article didn't do much to boost my confidence on the success of this thing. I'm anticipating a pretty dramatic increase in my premiums, but I guess we 'll see how it works out.KneelandBobDylan wrote:Bane, I hope this helps.
If you can't afford it then you don't have buy insurance! It only applies to people who can afford it but don't buy it!Winter wrote:Sorry for my ignorance, but what will they do to people who cant afford insurance and never get it? People who are jobless, and simply cannot find a job, really arent going to have the money to afford health insurance.
EXACTLY! Every western nation on earth has universal health care except us!brotherplanet wrote:bane wrote:Gotta say, that article didn't do much to boost my confidence on the success of this thing. I'm anticipating a pretty dramatic increase in my premiums, but I guess we 'll see how it works out.KneelandBobDylan wrote:Bane, I hope this helps.
There are definitely going to be some bumps in the road, but overall it's a good thing this passed. Even in this wretched economy we're still the richest industrialized nation on the Earth and I think we're the only ones who don't have national health care.
Expect stories of woe when it first goes into effect. We'll have some problems in the beginning, but just like when Microsoft beta tests on the general public every time they offer a new version of windows with all the glitches still intact, if our leaders are a little smart, they should fix what eventually shows itself to be wrong with the plan.
bane wrote:Gotta say, that article didn't do much to boost my confidence on the success of this thing. I'm anticipating a pretty dramatic increase in my premiums, but I guess we 'll see how it works out.KneelandBobDylan wrote:Bane, I hope this helps.
Before health care reform, insurance companies routinely spent up to 40% of premiums on overhead and administrative costs. Today, thanks to Obamacare, insurance companies are required to spend at least 80% of your premium on your health care—and if they don’t, you get a rebate. This summer, nearly 12.8 million Americans will start receiving their rebate checks, averaging $151 per household—and totaling more than $1.1 billion.
