Fined / Jailed for not having insurance: are they insane?

[swords]

I was all for the option of everyone having insurance, either a public option or forcing companies to allow anyone to sign up IF THEY WANT TO. But now the maniacs on capital hill have decided they want to create an individual mandate to fine people who end up getting laid off and not having money to buy insurance. Or if you are employed they want you to spend 13% of your wages on insurance. I can't pay that much. Of course if you can't pay the premiums or the fine then you'll wind up in jail.

I don't think even George Orwell could have predicted jailing sick poor people.

Yes we can - kill the poor!

Absolutely unbelievable.

 

[rattler]

granted he is from Montana but please keep in mind i didnt vote for the guy.....he torqued me off his last run through.....

 

[mabudon]

[sarcasm] people who don't want to pay for their health don't deserve to live, Josh, you know this[/sarcasm]

 

[swords]

It isn't just Bacchus' bill, I found out last night that all 5 or 6 of them have these "individual mandate" fines hidden in them. I'm all for people having the option but being forced into it or be fined/jailed is a whole other matter.

There's gotta be some member here from MA where this insanity has already been in operation. I'd like to hear from them what that's like in this economy. I suppose there's not many poor people in MA anymore eh? I wonder where we'll all go when it becomes federal law... running the border into mexico? At least it's probably warm there!

I'm the only employed person out of my immediate 4 neighbors and I just escaped the layoffs at my job last month but we've got at least a 2 year wage freeze.

Hey Mabudon, you know I voted for this guy cos he said he would never impose an individual mandate but he's totally has dropped the headstone on the poor with this one. I knew America was in bed with big business but this is totally ridiculous!

 

[Nepenthes101]

Looks like I'm going to Jail then. I dont have insurance. Looks like I'll have to stay under the Radar.

Is this only in MA?

 

[swords]

So far I've heard that only MA has an individual state mandate going. They are calling that "reform". It'll reform America all right! America will truly be the richest country in the world cos no poor/uninsured people will even be able to exist in the country legally. No matter where you were born.

 

[Not a Number]

Seems to me you're getting your undershorts in a wad for the wrong reasons. Yes, it is a bad idea but this proposal and many others are not even in the bill stage yet.

And despite what the previous administration and some of the Federalists on the Supreme Court may think the Executive Branch does not make laws.

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[dashman]

Wow! I hadn't heard of this. I wonder what the motive is. It certainly isn't freedom they are describing here. It sounds like a well layed out plan in which seems harmless at the time. The problem is when big business decides to stop offering benefits such as healthcare, you will be left with only one choice which is state run healthcare. Either that or be considered a criminal.

Isn't statism grand!

 

[Tropics]

The individual mandate is being considered only because the powerful insurance companies have been able to take the single payer idea off the table, even though it's the alternative that makes the most sense.

 

[F R e N c H 3 z]

Seems to me you're getting your undershorts in a wad

My thoughts exactly. People will revolt before this law gets anywhere near the books. Heck I know I will!

These guys just keep finding dumber and dumber things to vote on... Can they get any lower

 

[seedjar]

I don't know about this particular bill, but I have some school friends from Massachusetts and they all tell me how they can't wait to move back and go to their old doctors/insurers again.
This does seem rather odd to me. Jail time? Don't we already have enough stupid nonviolent "crimes" for filling our jails? A fine makes sense; if you're going to go around uninsured and risk incurring costs that the public or health care providers might have to pay, I think a monetary penalty is in order to offset the potential costs. But jail time just costs more public money.
Besides, if you're not able to afford insurance for yourself (which shouldn't be a problem if reform gets costs down or a public option available) isn't going to jail just going to make matters much worse? Last time I looked, not many people in jail are collecting paychecks.
Ultimately, though, I think it comes down to how accessible insurance is. In the current climate, with private insurance dominating, jail time or even fines would be mostly or entirely counterproductive. But if a public option were available to all citizens, at a price that was affordable even for those under the poverty line, I could see jail time being an effective deterrent in moderation.
Some people just don't want to take responsibility. At my old apartment complex, little kids would come around begging for food from total strangers because their parents just wouldn't bother to feed them. Washington state is pretty good so far as food and low-income benefits go; it wasn't that these people couldn't feed their children, it was just that they were too lazy to take the bus over to the Social Security office or the food bank. The problem is that there's little impetus to change the parents' behavior. Child Services doesn't have the manpower to send deadbeat parents to jail; they're already overburdened just trying to place mistreated children in safe homes. I hate to think of all the needless hunger and sickness those kids are made to suffer.
Fortunately, there's at least a system in place to try and catch that kind of stuff (and sometimes it even works.) Health care is just as important as basic nutrition - or at least, they're both at the very top of the list. There should be some sort of laws in place to make sure that people don't fall through the cracks, whether it's the fault of the institution or the individual. If this were something non-critical, like owning a car, I would say that the government should stay out of it. But the uninsured make health care more expensive for the rest of us, and I don't think that's OK.
~Joe

 

[rattler]

as i have stated in other threads bout this subject matter we have some other issues that need to be addressed first before taking on national health care, if we dont national health care will be a horrible money pit.....we should prolly secure our borders and deal with the illegal immigration issues first since they are currently a major drain on our health care system as well as in other areas.....

 

[seedjar]

Don't you think that a more effective insurance program would insulate the general public against those costs, though, rattler? I'm on state co-op healthcare right now, and it's actually better in many respects than when I was covered on TriCare, the military's insurance program. (Which, despite all of its shortcomings, is worlds better than most private insurers.) If my income were just a little bit higher, or the premiums a little bit lower, I could buy a policy from the co-op itself instead of through the state, and then my coverage would be undeniably better. (The state formulary doesn't cover the $700-per-month prescription that I need, as it's a patented drug with no generic alternative.)
Illegal immigrants make up less than 7% of the population, according to last year's census and immigrationcounters.com (a glaringly anti-immigration page who's estimate of the illegal immigrant population is about twice the size of any other figure I found.) On the other hand, as of a 2005 study by the federal Health and Human Services department, found that 16% of the populace is uninsured. I believe that figure includes illegal residents, but even if it does, that means that more than half the uninsured are legal citizens. (Otherwise, the ratio jumps up to more than two thirds.)
I agree that illegal immigration causes a lot of financial troubles, but I certainly don't think it's the lion's share of the problem when it comes to health insurance. I don't see any reason to believe that immigration must be tackled first before taking on health care; it sounds like a tea-bagger talking point to me. Immigration reform is going to cost a ton of money and the benefits for your average citizen will be neither immediate nor direct. Accessible health insurance will improve my quality of life, and my work prospects, as soon as it happens, and I think the same is true for a vast majority of uninsured Americans. Getting citizens working and out of poverty is much more important (not to mention productive,) from my perspective, than driving out illegals that are just going to come back anyways because corporate America wants their cheap labor.
~Joe

 

[rattler]

given most members of congress couldnt be trusted to balance my checkbook, no as a matter of fact i do not think they are capable of coming up with a realistic national health care program......i want to see them actually handle smaller stuff first.....these are the same ppl that gave money to a large portion of the groups that got us into the financial mess in the first place....

 

[cp-connection]

I don't understand any of the proposed health care reform but I am not worried about going to jail because I have health insurance.

 

[seedjar]

While I'll agree with you on the first point, I don't think your conclusion follows. Members of Congress are supposed to be our representatives, but I'm sure you'll agree that the majority of Americans put very little effort into being represented. While I in no way mean to condone the shady things politicians do, I believe a big part of it comes from the ignorance of the people who elected them. People don't pay attention to what politicians are doing unless there's an election or something's already gone horribly wrong. I think that if we, as a nation, take the time to oversee what our representatives are doing, we can come up with some really good results. (It just hardly ever happens.)
But healthcare is of dire importance to a lot of people, and I think we have a chance of doing a good job on it. I haven't finished it yet, but I'm reading Congress' bill, and I plan to write my representatives about it when I'm done, after which I'll move on to the House's and do the same. They're not as hard to read as the network news people want you to believe. Cross-referencing some of the terms from other bills is a bit of a chore, though.
~Joe

 

[rattler]

they have not been our representatives for a very long time....they cant run a balanced budget to save their rear.....balance the budget than ill be interested in looking at health care reform......

DC has been worthless since they discovered they can vote for their own pay raises and can make a career out of being a politician....hell Montana had a budget surplus last year...one of TWO states to have such...and we have some medical programs for those that cant afford insurance.....we also have term limits that make it difficult to make a career out of being a "representative" of the ppl....what we have in DC is just like what California has.....and the only reason the Feds aint paying bills with IOU's is cause they have the keys to the building where you print the money....

 

[dashman]

Illegal immigrants make up less than 7% of the population.

That is a huge number and should be considered unacceptable. It is estimated that 1/2 of illegal immigrants originating from Mexico are in California. If you want to see a snapshot of what will happen if we continue to allow this to occur just take a look at California's balance sheet.

A state run healthcare isn't fixing the issue, it is hiding and distributing the cost of why healthcare is so high in the first place. The issue is that so many people get it for free. The healthcare industry in this free market system is simply trying to recoup it's losses by charging more to the paying consumer which is not fair no matter who collects and distributes the money whether it be a private insurer or the government.

I do agree that immigration policy is a seperate topic, although directly related to the cost of healtcare. However, we do need to toughen our immigration policies and secure our borders. That's change I can believe in.

 

[Tropics]

Death panels. Subsidized insurance for illegal immigrants. Jail time for the uninsured. The conservative talk show and Fox "News" ranters have succeeded in limbaugh-tomizing their loyal, unquestioning followers into believing in their alternative universe, where the truth of what someone says doesn't matter as much as how loud they are saying it.

In the real world, 45,000 Americans are dying annually because they don't have health care insurance, and the percentage of Americans who don't have health care insurance is rising. Furthermore, based on historical figures, health care insurance premiums are expected to double in 10 years to about $25,000 a year for a family of 4. What we have is an inhumane system that is becoming less and less viable. And the teabaggers oppose a change.

A few Republican Senators were waving a Republican bill in the air when Obama addressed the joint session of Congress recently. It was their version of health care reform. It was silly. I almost felt sorry for them for making fools of themselves because the bill does very little to change anything.

The opponents of real health care reform have loud voices, but they are relatively few in number, and they are concentrated in the South. Most of the rest of the country wants health care reform.

Opponents may be able to influence what ultimately gets passed, but they can't stop health care reform. Some kind of health care reform will be passed, and the U.S. will be the better for it.

 

[seedjar]

...and the only reason the Feds aint paying bills with IOU's is cause they have the keys to the building where you print the money....

I'm not happy about inflation either, but it's not like the Feds came up with inflation just to screw us over. Big industry has been doing that since the early 1900s.

A state run healthcare isn't fixing the issue, it is hiding and distributing the cost of why healthcare is so high in the first place.

That's not entirely true. It does distribute costs, yes, but in doing so it actually lowers the overall cost; that's what insurance is, by definition.

The issue is that so many people get it for free.

Is it that the uninsured are getting it for free, or that the uninsured often wait until they need to be hospitalized because routine care is not available? I don't have the numbers handy, but I know that there are orders of magnitude between the true costs associated with outpatient and inpatient care. That argument doesn't really stand up so far as I can tell.

The healthcare industry in this free market system is simply trying to recoup it's losses by charging more to the paying consumer which is not fair no matter who collects and distributes the money whether it be a private insurer or the government.

That's laughable. I need a prescription that costs me more a month than my rental house, simply because a pharmaceutical company holds a monopoly on it and it's used to treat a series of exceedingly rare and debilitating disorders. They aren't trying to recoup their costs on it; development was supported by a number of private and military interests, as are many of their studies. Commercial healthcare is shamelessly exploitative and their lobbyists have a vicegrip on regulation, at both the state and federal level. They aren't taking losses on the displacement of costs at all; they're raking it in. The consumer is the only one getting shafted here. I, for one, want better options, and I know I'm not going to get them by begging sympathy from a bunch of Wall Street bigwigs. Government intervention is rarely as good as one would hope, but it's my only option.
If you were cornered by a bear and all you had was a rifle that kicked too hard, would you hesitate to shoot? A broken collarbone is better than being mauled.
~Joe