How can anyone justify charging this much money as a penalty for not buying health insurance?

[quote]The penalty for 2017 is the greater of:

* $695 for each adult and $347.50 for each child, but no more than $2,085 per family, OR

* 2.5% of your family yearly taxable income, but no more than the national average annual premium for a bronze plan sold through the Marketplace[/quote]
http://www.webmd.com/health-insurance/tax-penalties-aag

A typical nuclear family with two parents and two kids would have to pay $2085 per year or more if they earn enough. Uninsured people have to pay this tax and they get [i]literally nothing[/i] in return. Is this insane or am I insane?

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SW-User

Former tax preparer here. This tax will be offset for the majority of poor people with the income credits they get. They will rarely ever have to pay anything out of pocket.

The fact is that one of the biggest contributors to high healthcare costs before the ACA was the emergency care given to uninsured patients. Everyone else receiving medical care had to pay for them. By insuring them, that helps to mitigate those added costs. Not as much as a universal healthcare system would, but it's the compromise we decided on.

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jackjjackson · 61-69, M

@HalfCactus:

Of course. My point is that it's free for the uninsured and that the insured pay for them.

SW-User

@Jackjjacksonjr: The uninsured will only have access to emergency care

jackjjackson · 61-69, M

@HalfCactus:

We all know who pays for THAT.

Burnley123 · 41-45, M

Its necessary to have a pool for Obamacare to work. The alternatives are the old system which left many uninsured and was a disaster, or Trumpcare which is likewise.

Single payer would be better and more affordable to more people. Europeans and Canadians pay half as much per capita for their health and the big pharma are the only beneficiary of the Us system.

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jackjjackson · 61-69, M

@Burnley123:

Agreed. Eliminating the for profit rip off insurance companies help the patients to be.

Angelly · F

@Invisible: oh well, tried to give some insight on this subject, but your response sheds light on your unwillingness to grasp.😏

jackjjackson · 61-69, M

@Angelly:

Excellent points!

katielass · F

What most seem unable to comprehend is that the younger and/or healthy people not buying insurance is the biggest reason for the skyrocketing costs for obamacare policies. The penalty was too low. This law could have worked had the penalties been high enough to be a no brainer....buy the insurance or pay an enormous penalty. But the very ones who were the loudest mouths in getting this law passed decided they didn't want to share in the risk when they found out how insurance works. Hello, shared risk. It's the same with auto and homeowners and any other kind of insurance. shared risk. Who doesn't know that! and the penalty was set low because the law was never intended to work. the architect, that Emmanuel character admitted what some of us already knew 7 years ago, it was designed to fail so hillary (yes, they were so sure) could usher in single payer. You don't think the hailstorm of idiocy against trump is really about him, do you. Nooooo, it's about showing you people that they are going to run your lives whether you like it or not. And if you think the intent is not to ration healthcare you'd better think again because "they" have every intention of deciding every last detail of your lives. Wait and see.

Invisible · 26-30, M

If the penalty was made higher than the cost of insurance, then you would be forcing people to buy insurance. At that point, why even have for-profit insurance companies instead of state sponsored universal healthcare? Even that, which I generally oppose, is a much more viable solution. It seems like we're supporting a bunch of leeches with the current system. And there's not even an incentive to buy insurance at this point when deductibles are so high and hospitals are starting to offer massive discounts to people who pay out of pocket without insurance.

katielass · F

@Invisible: Well yes, you would be forcing people to buy but the court already ruled that constitutional. I didn't like it myself but since the court made their ruling, I had to accept it. So, with the mandate constitutional if everyone over age 26 who wasn't covered by an employer had signed up the cost right there would have necessarily been lower. Then with a few tweaks like buying across state lines, the cost could have been further reduced. The subsidies would still be in place to help the lower income people and Medicaid would be left alone. They could also pass a law that forces insurance companies to offer plans in states where they offer other types of policies. In other words, since Aetna offers group plans for employers in my state they should be forced to offer Obamacare policies. They pulled out and have left some of us holding the bag. I still have thousands of doctor bills pending that they never paid from any aneurysm. Now those charges will come out of my pocket. I can afford to pay it rather than ruin my credit but what if I couldn't. I can't be the only one who was left with unpaid bills.

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levana

I just think it's time for America to get a proper working Public Healthcare system like almost every industrialized country has. It just seem like barbarism to have this much prosperity in one country but not use this prosperity to provide the people with free healthcare. What's worse is that the whole system, without free healthcare, is inneficient compared to system's that offer free healthcare to it's citizens.

jackjjackson · 61-69, M

Well it's not free lol. However universal health care we all pay for would be cheaper and hopefully simpler as a consumer,ER than dealing with rip off insurance companies.

xSharp · 31-35, M

welcome to canada! enjoy the waiting room as you bleed to death while a retarded unemployed gang banger gets patched up for free after shooting 2 cops or an innocent child because they are to stupid to take a second to aim..

jackjjackson · 61-69, M

Do you have any stats re how much is collected?

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jackjjackson · 61-69, M

@Invisible:

Even last years would be very interesting.

Invisible · 26-30, M

IIRC the fees were substantially lower in 2016, even lower in 2015, etc...

jackjjackson · 61-69, M

@Invisible:

Even still virtually no ine paid the, and it will likely me the same this time around. All nonsense.

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