Why penalize the uninsured when there are so many that are currently unemployed?
May 19th, 2010 | 
Author: Although I believe that everybody should have access to medical coverage, I noticed that in the specifics, it stipulates that the uninsured will be subject to a 2.5% tax on their income as a penalty for not having health insurance. The unemployed are having a hard enough time paying their bills, many could never afford the added cost of health insurance.
My husband belongs to a labor union and is required to work a mininum number of hours every month to be eligible for health insurance. During the winter months we often find ourselves without health insurance because his job is primarily seasonal. That hasn’t been a problem, we just schedule our annual check-ups during the months that he is working. We have had one emergency arise in the past 8 years that required a visit to the emergency room when he was uninsured. We happily paid for this bill, yes it was expensive, but no where near what it would have cost for us to carry private insurance or pay for COBRA over the course of 8 years.
Our children are covered during the winter months through a subsidy insurance plan provided by our state that covers all children whose parents make less than $65k/year. The premium is $15 a month. However, this plan doesn’t cover adults, and our annual income also puts us just above the maximum income that is eligible for medicaid.
Specifically, my question is: won’t this policy put quite a few people in a more difficult situation than they already find themselves in?
I should have specified that I am referring to the 2.5% tax on income for the uninsured in the proposed federal health care reform bill.
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Because they can. Nobody is holding their elected officials accountable for this crap they are pushing through. They are not reading any of it and they keeping adding to it and adding to it until it has become this big ugly monster that will terrorize a nation already under so much stress. They are idiots and they need to find the unemployment line.
You didn’t specify what tax or what state this is in. Either way you should get behind Obama’s health care reform plan which includes a public option. call and write to your representatives.
Unfortunately, society has to absorb the costs of those who will not pay for their own health care. While I applaud you for happily paying your emergency bill, that often is not what happens. Too many people just walk out on their responsibility for hospital bills. It hurts us all in the form of higher costs.
If this plan works like it’s supposed to, and I’m not saying that it will, our shared burden will be lower. That would mean hospital bills would go down, so next time you have an emergency and don’t have insurance, it won’t be so painful, at least financially.
There will be subsidies and income limits to keep the working poor from financial disaster. The bill is a long way from passed and will certainly be watered down, so there’s no real way to know who will be affected and how.
I suppose that to answer your specific question, it depends on how many you consider quite a few. From where you sit, this plan could turn out to be a tax. From where I sit, nearing the end of my COBRA eligibility and with a pre-existing condition, this plan could be a godsend.
becuase the government knows there are people out there who are uninsured on purpose…and they cant resist jabbing us for that 2.5%..
Health insurance is bull crap…it is designed to just take your money…my employer offered blue cross blue sheild insurance for a single person for $125.00 per month,,which included vision and dental.
which sounds very good,,until you look at the deductibles and co-pays
which were $10 co-pay for meds,$25 co-pay for doctor visits,and a yearly $500 deductible for lab tests,emergency room,and hospitalization and outpatient services.
so basicly I would end up paying $1500 in premiums plus$500 in deductibles every year….for total of $2000 per year…
when I only see a doctor twice a year for a physical which without insurance still only costs me $150 for each physical exam and it includes blood work and chest xray.
If I get sick without insurance I pay $40 for an office visit and get wal mart perscriptions for $4 so why pay $2000 per year for insurance
when I very rarely ever get sick enough to see a doctor?
As for major medical I decided upon paying a private insurance company $475 per year for a $25,000 policy,so if something major happens they pay the medical bills upto $25,000
So I decided to take that $1525.00 in yearly premiums and bank it just like I was actually paying premiums,..That was 14 years ago and there is now over $21,000 in that account,,not counting proceeds from the CD’s I have been turning over every 2 years,,,the total cash worth of that account is about $36,000 bucks….
So if I have no kids or wife and rarely ever got sick,or needed meds,and never needed dental work or eyeglasses for the last 14 years why should I waste $21000 on health insurance I never used?
So if I can make it another 11 years till I turn 50yo without any major problems that exceed my $25k per year accident insurance,and keep turning over larger CD’s I will be able to sink close to $75,000 into a personal retirement account…and then it can start building profit and I can start to draw on it at 62…at 50yo I will have to take the companies health insurance anyway so I can qualify for retirement healthcare benefits along with a company pension at age 62….
then I only have to wait 3 years untill I am 65 to collect social security and qualify for medicare/medicaid..
And just think of all the money I would have wasted if I was say 20yo and started paying for health insurance I never really needed in the first place…given the inflation rates I would have wasted over $75,000 in cash premiums for 42 years which could have been used to make me close to $180,000
But of course not everyone is so lucky health wise,,but it sure does pay off when you are!!!