Impeding changes to our Health Care system

[Lamplighter]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Ibs, just to be the devil's advocate:

When you are no longer covered by your parents, and the hardware store doesn't cover you, what will happen?

A) You'll be covered under Medicare and while you won't get routine maintenance, the govt plan will pay the expenses if you get hit by a bus

B) You'll personally buy the lowest possible level of insurance out of your own pocket; if you don't or can't, you'll pay penalties and fines, and you'll remain uninsured

C) You'll be put into a pool of uncovered individuals and your "premiums" will be paid by taxpayers

Here is a clip from Merc's link to the Cato Institute
Up to the age of 26, children can be added to their parents insurance.
After 26, they would be considered adults for health insurance purposes.
Essentially, a single male would be paying (only) $695 per year, but even that amount would be offset if the person's income were less than 133% of the poverty rate (~$14,000)


http://www.cato.org/pubs/wtpapers/BadMedicineWP.pdf

Bad Medicine
A Guide to the Real Costs and Consequences of the New Health Care Law
(Updated and Revised for 2011)
Michael D Tanner
CATO Institute
2011


Page 3

Under the law, beginning in 2014, those
who failed to obtain insurance would be
subject to a tax penalty. That penalty would
be quite mild at first, either $95 or one per-
cent of annual income in 2014, whichever is
greater.23 But it ramps up quickly after that,
the greater of $325 or 2 percent of annual
income in 2015, and the greater of $695 or
2.5 percent of annual income after that. In
calculating the total penalty for an unin-
sured family, children count as half an adult,
which means that in 2016 an uninsured
family of four would face a minimum penal-
ty of $2,085 ($695+$695+$347.50+$347.50),
pro-rated on the basis of the number of
months that the person was uninsured over
the course of the year.24 Individuals will be
exempt from the penalties if they earn less
than an income threshold to be determined
by the secretary of Health and Human Ser-
vices (but presumed to be roughly the pov-
erty level), or if they are unable to obtain
insurance that costs less than 8 percent of
their gross incomes.25
According to the CBO, roughly four mil-
lion Americans will be hit by penalties in
2016, with the penalties averaging slightly
more than $1,000.26 In fact, the federal gov-
ernment expects to raise $17 billion from
penalties by 2019.27