I just HAVE to vent!!

[Mel46]

We just came from the free tax filing service at our local library, and for the first time since I retired we own taxes. Why we own taxes is what is pissing me off. We don't make much money, so little in fact that my wife can not afford the new government required health insurance, which would have premiums of $650 per month after government assistance. So, to make sure everyone buys PRIVATE health insurance from a private insurance company, there is a $95 PER MONTH tax if you don't or can't afford to buy health insurance. First of all let me clarify, for those in countries that have public health coverage. The United States of America does NOT have free public health coverage . So, what I am trying to say is that our government has now delved into funding private industry, and if we don't want to go along with them, then our gracious government will tax it out of us. Now here is something to think about. If this withstands the courts, our government will be free to use the same plan to force us to buy anything they want....or should i say anything the lobbiests want. Imagine a timeshare developer getting the government to pass a law that would require everyone to buy into a timeshare or be taxed. Or maybe the American auto manufacturers are hurting. So the government requires everyone to buy an American car or pay a tax. Or maybe Harley Davison will make a scooter and we will all be required to buy their scooters or be taxed.
I could go on, but i think i am about to run out of steam. Sorry, but i just had to vent. We are all (Americans that is) screwed into buying what we can not afford now. For those who thought it was just a $95 total penalty, nope. It is $95 for every month after required sign up that you don't buy health insurance, even if you can't afford the monthly premiums....it is either that or pay the government $95 per month at the end of the year...only $313 this year.... $1,140 next year. What a nice choice.

[NMpdx13]

Are you sure that they were correct about that? That's not what this says: https://www.healthcare.gov/fees-exempti ... g-covered/


The fee for not having coverage in 2014

If you didn’t have coverage in 2014, you’ll pay the higher of these two amounts when you file your 2014 federal tax return:
---1% of your yearly household income. (Only the amount of income above the tax filing threshold, about $10,000 for an individual, is used to calculate the penalty.) The maximum penalty is the national average premium for a bronze plan.
---$95 per person for the year ($47.50 per child under 18). The maximum penalty per family using this method is $285.


There are also some exemptions too: https://www.healthcare.gov/fees-exempti ... m-the-fee/

[you you]

We just came from the free tax filing service at our local library, and for the first time since I retired we own taxes. Why we own taxes is what is pissing me off. We don't make much money, so little in fact that my wife can not afford the new government required health insurance, which would have premiums of $650 per month after government assistance. So, to make sure everyone buys PRIVATE health insurance from a private insurance company, there is a $95 PER MONTH tax if you don't or can't afford to buy health insurance. First of all let me clarify, for those in countries that have public health coverage. The United States of America does NOT have free public health coverage . So, what I am trying to say is that our government has now delved into funding private industry, and if we don't want to go along with them, then our gracious government will tax it out of us. Now here is something to think about. If this withstands the courts, our government will be free to use the same plan to force us to buy anything they want....or should i say anything the lobbiests want. Imagine a timeshare developer getting the government to pass a law that would require everyone to buy into a timeshare or be taxed. Or maybe the American auto manufacturers are hurting. So the government requires everyone to buy an American car or pay a tax. Or maybe Harley Davison will make a scooter and we will all be required to buy their scooters or be taxed.
I could go on, but i think i am about to run out of steam. Sorry, but i just had to vent. We are all (Americans that is) screwed into buying what we can not afford now. For those who thought it was just a $95 total penalty, nope. It is $95 for every month after required sign up that you don't buy health insurance, even if you can't afford the monthly premiums....it is either that or pay the government $95 per month at the end of the year...only $313 this year.... $1,140 next year. What a nice choice.

Are you arguing about contributing or the amount you have to contribute?

[NMpdx13]

So, I did more poking around, and I found the IRS Form with the Worksheet to calculate the penalty for not being insured. I filed it out and pretended that I was filing Married/Jointly, where both me and my spouse did not have health insurance for the whole year, and our total combined AGI income was about $75,000. This is what I found:

The penalty for this example would be $547, which is 1% of the AGI minus the "filing threshold" they give you.

Next year, say your income states exactly the same, and you still don't get insurance. According to the link I gave you earlier, instead of 1%, the penalty will be the HIGHER OF either 2% of the AGI after the "filing threshold", or a flat $325 per person. So 2% of the AGI after the "filing threshold" will be $1,094, and $325 times 2 people is $650. The higher of that is $1,094, so that would be your penalty. That comes out to about $91.17 per month, which is way cheaper than getting $650/month (WHAT?) health insurance.

So I don't know if the person who was doing your taxes told you wrong, or what? But these are my example calculations below. But, it is silly though, to force us to get health insurance but also to make us pay for it or pay a penalty for not having it...

[kcpcx]

It's frustrating. I don't mean to get you upset about it, since it sucks and I feel for you in your situation. Here is how I see it...

The difference in your Harley or Timeshare examples and health insurance is this:

If I buy refuse to buy a Harley or a Timeshare, that decision doesn't directly affect the rest of you. My lack of owning a Harley does not cost you money in the immediate term. In other words, you don't pay more for your Harley because I refuse to buy one, and your Timeshare is not more expensive because I don't own one. I bought a Honda, so if the Harley factory loses my order, the Honda factory gains an order -- you could work there instead. However, if I fail to have insurance it puts an additional burden on the rest of you in the immediate term...you pay for my care, basically, and I'm not paying into the system. I see where you're going with this, but it's not really a direct analogy.

The reason they are requiring everyone to participate is this--insurance is a giant pool, really. The pool can only afford to pay out money in claims if everyone is paying money in via premiums. On a macro level, without getting into the weeds, this is basically how it works. You can't run the system efficiently if some people are allowed to be exempt. Pretty soon all the healthy young folks decide it's a poor return on investment and opt out. Eventually, the only people left in the pool are the minority who are a net resource drain, i.e. they consume a lot more services than they contribute. Car insurance is similar. Everyone is required to pay in, and this spreads out the risk of catastrophic loss to any one person. If you allowed half the people to be uninsured, premiums go up drastically for those who are left. You can't really compare a risk pool to a material good like a toaster or scooter. If I fail to buy a toaster, someone else isn't on the hook for $50,000. If I crash my car with no car insurance, and then I visit the ER and have a huge bill but I have no insurance, I'm immediately costing someone else a lot of cash because I chose not to pay into the pool. What they are attempting to do is to make it painful financially to not have insurance, as an incentive to join the pool.

The bottom line in the end is that just about every other industrialized nation on earth spends drastically less per capita on health care than we do in in the USA. Many of these countries that spend a lot less money rank far higher than we do on many health metrics. So those people are healthier and a lot less money is spent to get there. Our system provides quality care if you have unlimited money, but on the whole it's terribly inefficient when you look at results per dollar spent.

I work in health care. I hear your frustration. Only when I got into a health care field did I realize how truly broken our system is. One thing all this O care mandate is doing is making it apparent to everyone how much money is really being spent on health care in this country. It's astounding.

You might enjoy a show I saw a while back. Sick Around The World on PBS Frontline. You can stream it free from the Frontline web site. It's a very interesting look around the world at how health care is run in various places. Of course, we'll never adopt best practices from elsewhere here in the States, because there are too many special interests who will lobby to make sure the system stays dysfunctional.

[NMpdx13]

To add to the original post: I "guess" when someone files their 2015 taxes next year, depending on what someone's income is, it could possibly come out to be $95/month like you said, but their "AGI income after the filing threshold" would have to equal $57,000 (which would be a regular AGI of $77,300 if you're married and filing a joint return). 2% of that is $1,140 which is equal to $95/month. But the penalty is just a percentage of your income, unless your "AGI income after the filing threshold" is under $32,500 (which would be a regular AGI of probably $52,800 if you're married and filing a joint return), then the most you will pay is a $650 flat penalty.

[gn2]

there are too many special interests who will lobby to make sure the system stays dysfunctional.

Never mind. all will be well so long as you maintain your right to keep emergency rooms topped up with gunshot victims.

[kcpcx]

there are too many special interests who will lobby to make sure the system stays dysfunctional.

Never mind. all will be well so long as you maintain your right to keep emergency rooms topped up with gunshot victims.

lol


The hospital where I work is a fairly large one in a metro area. Quite rare to see a gunshot victim come in. But I get your point.

Actually, our problem is the opposite end of the spectrum. The ERs are clogged with trivial complaints, non emergencies, because there are so many uninsured people who have no primary care doctor. The vast majority of our cases are routine things like sore throat, earache, toothache, Gi bug, etc. You might as well take the word Emergency off the sign for the most part.

In the 1980s here in the USA they passed a law called EMTALA. Basically, this states that an emergency department can't turn you away regardless of your ability to pay. Technically, it just means you have to have a medical screening, but in the real world where everyone is afraid of lawsuits, it means in practice that you get a hugely complex and expensive workup for minor complaints, as CYA. I know of one case where a person has presented to our ER over 1,000 times in the past 9 years for non emergent issues. None of these visits paid for. I recently saw an audit by one of the Kansas City ambulance services. The top 100 users (people who called the most) racked up over 12 million dollars in unpaid ambulance rides to area hospitals. 99% of these rides were not paid for, and absorbed by the city budget. Again, the vast majority of these rides for routine complaints. If I recall, the #1 abuser of the system had called 200 times in one year, and the ambulance has to drive that person to the ER each time. 200 unreimbursed ambulance rides, 200 ER visits.

I have spoken to some docs who were around pre and post EMTALA. They told me it didn't take long for people to figure out they could use the Emergency system routinely without payment, and with no penalty.

[Mel46]

First of all, thank you for the clarification about the cost of this "Tax". My problem is not so much with it if there were a way to make sure the tax went into the insurance fund to be used by all. However, the 2,000 page document for this health care program was not written yet when the "O" care was voted on, so no one knew anything for certain when they were voting. It is my understanding now that the taxes from this will now go into the general fund, not a special fund to help the insurance. This supposedly came out after all was said and done, which is one reason for the lawsuits.

Next, my wife quit her job when I was diagnosed with leukemia. Aside from that I have had 6 back surgeries, brought on because of an accident while I was in the military. We are not required to join the military, but I would not have given up my time in service for anything. I was in Coast Guard aviation search and rescue. Aside from flying around in C-130s, I also jumped out of helicopters to save lives. Injuries do happen. That is part of saving lives.
Back on point. Between my Social Security and a small pension, there isn't a lot left so Every year end is important because we use any tax refund to pay medical bills we haven't been able to up to that point. Keep in mind that my leukemia medication costs $8,000 per month, of which insurance does not pick up all of the costs. Thus, having to pay a tax on something we can't afford to buy is extremely upsetting.

And last, we have several hospitals here in our local area that have closed their emergency rooms permanently because of the huge influx of illegal aliens who use the emergency rooms like a free clinic. Obama just gave another 8 million illegal aliens amnesty. That is about 20 million during his two terms in office. Do you think this health insurance is going to solve anything? I don't.
My biggest beef though is the fact that this health insurance is really not government run. It is a private industry. So, how do you NOT see it as an impropriety that the government is forcing us to buy into a private program that does not give equal treatment to all? Before you decide, consider how many more Americans have now LOST previous insurance coverage because of this. Statistically there were only 15% of the population that did not have health insurance. Now, with government required health coverage, and the fact that insurance companies are quickly dropping coverage for small businesses, the percentage has just gone up to 20%. Yet, we get a penalty (tax) if we can't afford what we couldn't afford before and still can't afford. So the only thing that has happened is that we are being taxed because we are poor, but not so poor that we get free anything.

[Valiant]

I wonder when people will catch on that it'll probably be cheaper to pay the penalty, and then when something happens you can buy insurance after the fact, because you cannot be denied or charged higher due to preexisting conditions.

[homie]

Pay unto Caesars what is Caesars
Mel you know how this works, we don't let the world pull us under with todays attack for more that a second or two. Then we get down on knees and fight back. Beat the crap out of whatever pisses you off with prayer brother. But I'm sure you already know this from reading between the lines of your articles. So vent away to the forum members if it makes you feel better, but I don't think satisfaction is found in here for that.

I'm going for a second stent before the house burns down. To bad you have to be 75% blocked before you can get more stents, been shoveling hotdogs to beat the healthcare crash but I just don't think I can make it happen fast enough.

[kramnala58]

Not to rain on the parade ... but shouldn't this be filed under Add-Ons - Off-topic

[Mel46]

Yes, probably... I just had to vent. Now I just accept it and move on. Things are getting out of hand in our government but there isn't much we can do about it, so I just vent and move on. I just know that eventually what goes around, comes back around. If politicians enjoy being greedy, they can explain it to the Judge. It is our place to try to do the right things in life. If they can't or won't then they can deal with the consequences.

Meanwhile, Spring is coming. We took the bikes out for a short 40 mile ride a few days ago. It just reminded us of what we are waiting for. We have relatives up in the cold Northeast who are snowed in still. That makes us the lucky ones, because we were able to take the bikes out and they can't. Just keep telling yourself that Spring is coming.

[you you]

Yes, probably... I just had to vent. Now I just accept it and move on. Things are getting out of hand in our government but there isn't much we can do about it, so I just vent and move on. I just know that eventually what goes around, comes back around. If politicians enjoy being greedy, they can explain it to the Judge. It is our place to try to do the right things in life. If they can't or won't then they can deal with the consequences.

Meanwhile, Spring is coming. We took the bikes out for a short 40 mile ride a few days ago. It just reminded us of what we are waiting for. We have relatives up in the cold Northeast who are snowed in still. That makes us the lucky ones, because we were able to take the bikes out and they can't. Just keep telling yourself that Spring is coming.

Most of us probably feel the same as you. I suspect that you've probably got more reasons to vent than most.

However we all have another bike season to look forward to f%ck it all

[Steph]

Use to get money back. We had to pay last year for the first time. The Tax Lady said it was because of obama care. No B.S.

[gn2]

Stop bloody moaning, millions of people who have a far shittier existence want to live where you are now.
I can only imagine that's because US forces tend not to bomb, shell and generally destroy civilian infrastructure in the USA.

[chucktuna]

Try being a small (to medium) sized business owner and having to deal with all this BS... One more year and I'm out.

[tbln930]

Most folks will forget what caused this come 2016 or make more excuses for it and repeat their mistake.

[Steph]

@tbln930 - 2016 will be interesting. This will be the deciding factor.

[kcpcx]

Seems pretty simple to me, in theory. Look around the planet, look at how everyone is handling health care, emulate the most efficient systems. Right now, we're spending far more per capita on health care than the average, and our outcomes are certainly not commensurate with the vast amount we're spending.

Regarding illegals...not sure about elsewhere, but as a percentage of the uninsured who we see in my ER, they are small. The vast majority of the folks who consume services without payment where I work are not illegals by any stretch. I can only speak for what I see in Kansas City.

You could write a master's thesis on why health care is so expensive in the USA. It's multifactorial. Some of the factors, in no particular order of magnitude:

People making poor diet and exercise choices = more chronic conditions
Pharma costs compared to rest of world
CYA medicine
Physician salaries compared to rest of world
Administrative inefficiencies of multiple payers vs single payer
People use ERs as primary care. ER is the least efficient way to seek non emergent care.
Too many established interests ($$$) to be able to effect any substantial changes to the system.
Politics/marketing. Anything other than our current system has been labeled "Socialism". People think black and white: it's either our current inefficient system or death panels and grandma eating cat food.



None of these are the whole reason, but are all contributors to one extent or the other.

All I know is that if you look at the metrics, as far as I can tell, Canada has roughly similar outcomes as we do, and they spend about half what we do on health care per capita. So we're spending twice the money they are for the same level of health.


Oh, by the way, great point here:

"Thus, having to pay a tax on something we can't afford to buy is extremely upsetting."


Yeah, I can see that. ^^