If your income is large enough to trigger the tax penalty for not buying the minimum insurance, then if you don't pay it is likely that the tax will be taken by wage or asset garnishment. You'd have to do something fairly arcane, e.g. actively hide virtually all your assets, to wind up in prison over such a small amount.Quote from HeSaidSheSaid:
yet if you average Joe can't find the money to pay for the healthcare tax, then you will be fined or even imprisoned!
Quote from loufah:
You guess wrong. He was awarded the prize for his efforts in international relations, specifically for nuclear disarmament.
Quote from brokerboy:
i don't recall seeing anything about prison and i don't get how he is picking the pocket of the average guy. isn't it in the same spirit of medicare and social security? its even odder that the very same guy who invented it is running against him and against it. he also was for abortion and now isn't.
Quote from loufah:
I find it detestable that there is a law that calls for someone to give money to a private company just by dint of being alive, but it is somewhat made up for by the fact that insurers must accept anyone.
Quote from MKTrader:
Uh, no. Something totally unconstitutional and against the principles of a free society (i.e., forcing people to buy health insurance) isn't made up for by forcing insurers to cover everyone. Two wrongs don't make a right.
The private insurers will, of course, if allowed, game this system by siphoning off the young and healthy with lower rates than medicare and boosting rates above medicare for the old, but this can be prevented by not guaranteeing, after a specified, relatively young age, the option of switching carriers from private to medicare, or vice versa. Both Medicare and private insurers should be required to publish and honor their current age-indexed rates and coverage details. Any one who for any reason can not afford their health premium and must fall back on public welfare must have the option of picking their previous coverage back up at the same rate they would have paid had there been no interruption.Quote from piezoe:
It's taken me a long time to realize this, but medical care is not a good fit to the capitalist mold. The way to fix medicare is to extend it, by choice, to everyone regardless of age, making it a pay as you go government system, and force the private insurers to compete. They won't be able to, of course. Private medical insurers are subsidized by all of us tax payers because they insure the healthy young population, and medicare takes on the medical costs of the older population. That's utter nonsense. Medicare can bury private insurers with efficiency if allowed to by collecting premium from both the healthy younger population and the older, sicker population. Give everyone the option at any age of paying into medicare or selecting a for profit insurer and let the better, more efficient competitor capture the market. This will solve the problem of medicare paying out more in benefits than it collects in premiums and end the taxpayer subsidy of both medicare and for profit insurers.
I believe in free enterprise, meaning free competition. If for profit insurers can't compete, let them die a well deserved death. End the current taxpayer subsidy of medicare and of the for profit insurers by extending the option to sign up for medicare to everyone. Everyone should have the choice to be covered by medicare or by private insurance. And insist on medicare being revenue neutral, no taxpayer subsidy.
Bring back the public option. Stop subsidizing for profit, and phoney non-profit insurers such as the Blues, with the tax payer's money. We need the "public option".
Quote from MKTrader:
A lack of competition is the key. And that will only get worse under Obamacare. Before it became law, I thought HSA-type plans might grow enough to foster more competition. Hundreds of thousands of people "shopping around" with limited savings accounts was just what the proverbial doctor ordered. That was about the only trend that offered a glimmer of hope.
Despite myriad regulations and rampant crony capitalism, there are still a few places that actually compete on price and quality. The second link (their blog) is quite good.
http://www.surgerycenterok.com/
http://surgerycenterofoklahoma.tumblr.com/