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Also, if you read the news, hundreds of business are going to lay off employees. There are tons of restaurants and business with 60 or 70 people who are laying them off to get under 50 employees. Otherwise they have to buy health insurance for all of their employees. One company said that they have so many employees it is going to cost $100 million to insure everyone (it's a big company) so they are going to have MASSIVE lay offs to help save the $100 million that they now have to pay.
This is going to lead to tens of thousands of lost jobs. Companies that are barely scraping buy have a huge new expense. Every company in the country with over 50 employees must provide insurance.
Even if someone has insurance. Case in point, my husband is covered by my insurance and has declined insurance from his employers in the past in exchange for a better pay rate. Now they will be forced to buy him insurance.
The law states if the employer does not provide health insurance, the business will have to pay a tax of $750 for each full-time employee.
So that company you are talking about should have around 133000 employees to come up with that number. So essentially, this is a company that is so large that it has 133000 employees, but cannot afford insurance for its employees? So what are these employees doing now? Using emergency rooms when needed, essentially shifting the costs to people who have insurance? They are on Medicaid? Medicare? Again shifting the cost to others? Why should we subsidize this company get so large to hire 133000 workers but shift all the health care costs to others who have insurance? What makes this company so special that deserves our subsidies?
I think you fail to realize as many others is that uninsured folks are paid within the system somehow. It is sometimes through emergency rooms that they visit when they get sick, it is sometimes delaying treatment as long as possible and ending up being on disability, or if possible further to retirement where we pay through the medicare. Obviously, some become collateral damage on the way, I believe 45000 per year dying due to lack of appropriate care.
If you are really consistent on your beliefs, your suggestion should be to get rid of medicare, medicaid, any type of government provided care, the right to emergency rooms etc. If you believe those should exist, then we need the reform because the system does not work as it is.
What is to stop me from saving money by paying the $700 fine each year, and then just waiting until I have a million dollar illness and signing up for health care at that point. They can't refuse me. I'll just wait to pay premiums until I am sick, and when I get better, I'll stop.
It's kinda like if my house burned down yesterday, and today I call for fire insurance and then they have to fix my house.
I won't pay them for years, and then they'll have to pay for all my medical treatment, and then I won't pay them again. This will be totally legal under the new laws. I'll just pay like a month or two of premiums and the insurance company can pay for my major surgeries and hospital stay, and I'll cancel again. This is genius! Free enterprise at it's greatest!
How will insurance companies stay in business?
Or is that the plan? They all go out of business and then we all have not choice but to actually all fall under government run health care?
And for those of you that think this will actually make it easier and cheaper for you to have health care, you realize that there is nothing that limits what the insurance companies can charge. They will just charge you more to make up for my lack of premiums and really expensive illness. They can charge you $5000 a month, and by law, you would be required to pay it.
What am I missing here? How is this a positive thing?
Seems like in this world there is always those who are looking for a easy way to make a dollar, legal or otherwise. Whether or not you know it, there are provisions in this bill for 16,500 new IRS agents to enforce the law. You will be required to buy health insurance and keep it in force, and if you don't you will face a stiff fine and jail time. You see, someone smarter than you has already thought of all the loopholes foolish people might try. When it's over and done with, you are going to think you're a little bit smarter and not any richer. On the other hand, that's not going to happen at all. It appears you don't think now and probably won't start thinking in the future.
Last edited by Nite Ryder; 03-26-2010 at 12:14 PM..
Reason: spelling
What is to stop me from saving money by paying the $700 fine each year, and then just waiting until I have a million dollar illness and signing up for health care at that point. They can't refuse me. I'll just wait to pay premiums until I am sick, and when I get better, I'll stop.
What am I missing here? How is this a positive thing?
The thing that you are missing is that the idea for the insurance reform goes beyond the typical easy to diagnose and treat sicknesses. Its focus is on those million dollars plus illnesses like cancer, etc. True you could "save" yourself lots of money by simply paying the fine and then buying insurance when you're in dire straits of the expensive illnesses, but it is you and your life that would ultimately lose out. By the time you actually go to a hospital and is diagnosed with the million dollar illness like cancer, you may already be in the terminal stages of cancer where it has metastasized and spread. Thus, you would be on your deathbed in a hospital counting down to the day you die. The concept of the reform is to give people a chance to catch these potential illnesses early to try to prevent them from becoming million dollars illnesses.
Sure, you can play your game of paying the penalty only, what happens when you have to pay $10,000+ in diagnostic testings out of your pockets PRIOR to being diagnosed with a million+ disease? I'm sure there will be a waiting period between buying the new insurance and the onset of coverage.
It's penny wise, pound foolish to play the game you suggested.
What is to stop me from saving money by paying the $700 fine each year, and then just waiting until I have a million dollar illness and signing up for health care at that point. They can't refuse me. I'll just wait to pay premiums until I am sick, and when I get better, I'll stop.
Read the bill
Its x dollars per OR - OR - OR 2% of your income - whichever is HIGHEST...
you are being FORCED to buy a product from companies that PROFIT!!! or pay a fine to the government..
Most Americans have no idea what they are talking about. Health is not business and you guys can't understand that unless you have lived in Europe.
I haven't lived in Europe and i certainly understand that it shouldn't be a business in the way that it is here!
It's disgusting!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Deplorable.
And most everyone has been rendered powerless by the dominant, media / consumer driven culture.
It's shameful.
Last edited by coyoteskye; 03-27-2010 at 05:39 PM..
Its x dollars per OR - OR - OR 2% of your income - whichever is HIGHEST...
you are being FORCED to buy a product from companies that PROFIT!!! or pay a fine to the government..
How does that work for families? My husband works, I stay home with my daughter. Would 2% of his income provide health insurance coverage for our whole family or just him???
Here is another thing people just don't get. In order to start financial health you have to cut the cost right? So being that the #1 reason people go bankrupt and don't pay bills is healthcare bills. And they may die after they run up these bills....You don't think all these unpaid bills are going to have an effect on the economy? You don't think that is going to trickle down to your employment? Because it does.
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D- it depends on your income. The state exchanges start in 2014. You can shop then or stay with your premium provider with all expenses disclosed and they won't be able to charge your hubby more for insurance because of you. (which yes...insurance practices charge women more as standard)
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How the new health care...
