Yeah, and from what I heard, the fine will be so close to the cost of the insurance itself that it would be stupid not to get it. Still, how do I budget for
another massive expense when I have nothing to spare as it is? Do I have to run the credit cards, which I've worked so hard on paying down, up even higher
and pay a ridiculous interest rate on my health insurance?
The economy still sucks!
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 CLOUDBOND007 |
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Posts: 215 (09/11/09 16:10:00) |
CB007's Review & GPT Archive
"My name is Ultima... I am power both ancient and unrivaled... I do not bleed, for I am but strength given form... Feeble creatures of flesh... Your time is nigh!" |
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 Crawl and 1OOO |
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Posts: 445 (09/12/09 07:52:09) |
It's preposterous. It's almost like a 100% tax increase. Or as though you had to pay rent twice. For a lot of people, $300/month is a huge amount of
money to find in a budget or to subtract from discretionary income.
There will be subsidizes for those with low income. Whatever that means. As a graduate student, I made $18,000/year, which is basically slave wages, yet I still lost 20% of that to taxes. The people who are poorest yet not quite so poor to qualify for the subsidy will be hit the hardest, since $300/month per person (independent of income) is highly regressive. According to the IRS You stop being eligible for the EITC once you make $13,450/year. So, apparently, $13,450 is more than moderate income. "Of the three ways in which men think that they acquire a knowledge of things--authority, reasoning, and experience--only the last is effective and able to bring peace to the intellect." -Roger Bacon |
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Crawl and 1OOO |
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Posts: 446 (09/12/09 09:17:18) |
One article said there could be a sliding scale all the way up to incomes of $100,000. But it's hard to find any information on how much this is expected
to cost people.
"Of the three ways in which men think that they acquire a knowledge of things--authority, reasoning, and experience--only the last is effective and able to bring peace to the intellect." -Roger Bacon |
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James FP |
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Posts: 575 (09/13/09 05:13:32) |
The thing that pisses me off the most about the supporters of this plan is how they all whine that their tax dollars pay for it when someone gets hurt or sick
and doesn't have health insurance when even if this plan goes through, I can guarantee your taxes won't decrease in any way.
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Agisuro |
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Posts: 60 (09/13/09 05:18:11) |
It seems to me like the government should be focusing more on the bad economy and creating jobs. How are laid-off workers supposed to afford $300 a month for
health insurance? Tack an extra $300 to the unemployment compensation amount? Which puts it right back to being paid for by the taxes.
----- There is no spoon! |
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James FP |
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Posts: 577 (09/13/09 05:29:49) |
Exactly, Agisuro. It's like if Johnny Asshole down the street gets in a motorcycle accident, these people are acting like more money will come out of their
pocket that month if he doesn't have insurance and less will if he does, when the reality is, it won't change a damn thing for them.
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Crawl and 1OOO |
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Posts: 447 (09/13/09 11:26:57) |
I was wonder if my thinking about this could be unreasonable. I did a little more reading so far.
The New York Times has a "debate page" where they talk about this issue. It doesn't seem to me like any of the people who write for that said, "Yes, mandatory health insurance would be great." The second guy said Obama needs to define the "hardship waiver". The NYT piece was written about 3 months ago, and I don't think any more information has been forthcoming since then. The third person's (Marcia Angell) opinion seems most closely aligned with my own. Mandatory insurance is regressive and there's still no guarantee that you'd actually get anything for what you pay. Many people can't afford the premiums for the best plans, and so have to choose bare-bones, low-premium plans with high deductibles and co-payments. They are then left with insurance that they might not be able to afford to use, but have to purchase anyway.I'm also a bit iffy on the economics of the mandatory insurance plan. I understand the basic idea, that an increased pool of customers should mean lower costs. Well, no, not really; it means without having to raise prices, the insurance companies will make more profits; that's the correct statement. Supposedly, because they would have more money coming in, they could lower costs to keep the same profits, hence costs go down. EXCEPT by making insurance mandatory, they'd be driving the Elasticity of Demand to zero!! They could charge whatever they want and there'd be nothing a customer could do about it. I was thinking that gas has a fairly inelastic demand -- no matter what, you have to drive to work every day. And so when gas prices went up last year, I wondered how they could ever go down. But there is a little bit of elasticity. Sure, you have to drive to work every day, but you don't have to drive the family to vacation at the Grand Canyon. Or even Cedar Point. Or even the movie theater. You could just stay home a hell of a lot more. And when gas went over $4/gallon, I took my bike to work. Beyond individuals, if people are buying less, freight companies might only have to send out half as many trucks. So, there was at least enough elasticity to expose the gas price situation as a bubble, and prices went back down. I found that NYT thing from three months ago, but news sites currently seem curiously silent about how the health care debate is going now. Especially contrasted with the "death panel" uproar from a few weeks ago. "Of the three ways in which men think that they acquire a knowledge of things--authority, reasoning, and experience--only the last is effective and able to bring peace to the intellect." -Roger Bacon |
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James FP |
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Posts: 578 (10/25/09 03:28:06) |
Some "experts" are now saying this world economic recession is going to turn into a full-blown depression and yet I keep hearing about how the
economy is recovering. I really don't know who to believe. But as long as we both stay employed I'll ride it out either way.
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Crawl and 1OOO |
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Posts: 450 (11/01/09 12:38:00) |
My brother and I were arguing about public health care today.
He said he didn't want to pay for insurance that might help a fat person who didn't bother exercising. Never mind that not all health problems people have are due to weight. Or that people who don't want to pay into health insurance when they're not unhealthy are the ones really trying to be free loaders on the system. I went more after the "libertarian" ideas. I said, "Hey, maybe some people don't want to pay for taxes to pay for cops. If I'm poor, why should I care if someone steals something from YOU? You should pay to get it back. Maybe I'm so poor I don't have anything worth stealing and don't care about the police. And the police probably don't care about helping poor people recover stolen property anyway. "Or what if I was rich? Then I'd just pay for my own home security. I still wouldn't want to pay for there to be police to help you." Other bonus: He's trying to start chewing tobacco. |
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Flying Omelette |
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Posts: 1295 (11/10/09 03:16:36) PRANCE, TWIRL, JUMP!
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Well, it looks like it passed. I was hoping to hold off getting health insurance for now because I need every penny I earn to help pay down the credit card
debt I accrued when the glass company screwed me over, but I have no choice now. I only hope it's not too late to enroll because the paperwork I have says
you must enroll within 90 days of the first day you worked for the company or else wait until the next open enrollment period, and I'm not sure how long I
worked there. I'll have to find out today.
Edit - Okay, I used a date calculator and it's been 86 days. So I have four days left to enroll. You have to do it on a website so I'll check it out on my lunch break today. The thing that pisses me off about this, though, is that I only received that health insurance information packet a few weeks ago. I really should have gotten it within a week of working like I did with another temp agency.
Last Edited By: Flying Omelette
11/10/09 03:22:44.
Edited 1 times.
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CLOUDBOND007 |
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Posts: 217 (11/10/09 06:04:48) |
Well, it hasn't passed the Senate yet. And even if it becomes law, I'm not sure if the fine for not getting insurance will even start the first year.
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Crawl and 1OOO |
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Posts: 451 (11/16/09 11:35:32) |
Supposedly, the United States already pays more taxes towards health care than other countries, including countries
which have free universal health care.
"Of the three ways in which men think that they acquire a knowledge of things--authority, reasoning, and experience--only the last is effective and able to bring peace to the intellect." -Roger Bacon |
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Flying Omelette |
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Posts: 1297 (11/26/09 09:27:09) PRANCE, TWIRL, JUMP!
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I guess my mother is really upset about the fines that will be imposed on people for not having healthcare. She said that she watched a speech from Obama where
he compared it to not having car insurance. He said that you get fined for not having car insurance, so it should be the same for health insurance.
The thing is, though, if you don't want to pay car insurance, you can just choose not to drive. But you can't just choose not to live. |
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Crawl and 1OOO |
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Posts: 454 (11/27/09 14:42:12) |
I think it might be an income tax surcharge, so it's at least possible you might not have to pay it if you have no income.
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