$3,800 Fine If You Don’t Get Health Insurance
by Big Dog on Sep 9, 2009 at 05:07 Political
The newest version of the health care takeover bill making its way around has a provision to fine families up to $3,800 for not obtaining health insurance. The geniuses working on this plan figure that they can solve the problem of people not being able to afford health insurance by fining them. This is like a bank charging you $35 for an overdraft check. They fine you what they know you don’t have. For those who can afford it and choose not to get it, power to them.
There are plenty of things wrong with this whole idea. The first is the idea that you can be forced to buy health insurance.
The plan from Democratic Sen. Max Baucus of Montana would make health insurance mandatory, just like auto coverage.
Auto insurance is only mandatory if you decide to get a vehicle. If you do not want to pay for car insurance you have the option to not get a car. In other words, you have the freedom to choose whether or not you want to incur this expense. Health insurance is quite different because you have no choice in the matter. You can opt out of car insurance by not driving. The only way to opt out of health insurance is to stop living. While that might make the government happy, it will not be good for you. While we are on the comparison to auto insurance perhaps we could make health insurance like auto insurance in that you have to pay for routine check ups. You have car insurance but it does not cover new tires and oil changes. When you go to the doctor you should have to pay for the routine stuff. That would lower the cost of premiums.
I also note that even with the mandatory requirement for auto insurance (if you have a car) there are still plenty of people driving around without insurance. A huge number of them are ILLEGAL aliens and they have a lot of accidents. Perhaps if they wanted to charge fines for not having insurance they could do it in the auto insurance arena. That would be much more productive.
Another issue here deals with our basic freedoms. We have the freedom to choose (just ask any pro abortion zealot) and should have that freedom when it comes to health insurance. You have every right NOT to buy insurance. My only thing in that regard is, if you get hurt then you pay the bill out of pocket or over time but you have to pay it. If you don’t then they get to come take your stuff to satisfy the bill. I really don’t care if you lose all your worldly possessions because you decided not to get health insurance but I will fight to my death defending your right to take that decision.
The last thing here is the heavy handed approach the government is taking. What it is basically saying is; “Either you will do exactly what we want and buy something that we say you have to have or we will heavily fine you.”
I have stated many times that this is about control. The health care bill is not about health and it is not about care, it is about government control over your life. They will make a rule that you have to buy insurance or you will be fined. Later on they can say that if you don’t have a certain kind of insurance you will be fined. Then they can change some other rule under the threat of a fine.
What next? Will they fine you if your Body Mass Index (BMI) is too high? Will they fine you if your cholesterol is elevated? Will they decide that every American must join a gym and attend three times a week or be fined?
Where does it end?
Can someone explain why we allow the government to do this? Why do they have a say in how we live our lives? Why are so many willing to let them have near total control over their lives?
I would also like to know how it is that a woman cannot be denied an abortion. States keep working on anti abortion laws but liberals are against all that. They are even against parental notification. It is not the role of government, they say, to impose these things on women thus denying them their right to choose. So what gives government the right to choose for the rest of us? What gives it the right to take decisions on our behalf and to force us to do things we might not want to.
Where is our right to choose?
We need to defeat this health care bill completely. They need to start from scratch and keep it simple by fixing what is broken and leaving the rest alone.
They also need to stop attempting to violate our rights by fining us for choosing how we live our lives and what we do and do not buy.
Vote them all out in 2010. We must end the redundancy of incumbency.
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Tags: 3800, fines, freedom, health care, Obama, rights
This is just another in a long line of deal breakers in this FUBAR of a bill. How anyone who can’t afford health insurance could afford the fine, is beyond me.
So what does the govt. do? Does it repo their car, or their house to pay the fine? Does it make them poorer in order that the government get their “pound of flesh?”
Auto insurance is only required if you drive a car, health insurance is only required if you are alive. You don’t have to get health insurance, you can just kill yourself, before November preferably.
Seriously though, there is a summary of the plan and it details all the ways you can be exempt from the requirement. There is a lot more to the plan than simply making it a requirement so I’d suggest reading some of the summary before you dial the outrage back up.
Health insurance is NOT required. Where is there some health insurance requirement. Are you telling me Bill gates should be required to have it when he can buy a hospital?
The exemptions are few though i will have to get my American Indian certification soon. The real issue is a complete overhaul of a system that has some problems that need to be fixed. If Obama is so worried about this why did he vote against all those health care reform bills when he was a Senator and why no tort reform?
It really is an amazing idea. Crazy amazing. I thought about the analogy made to auto insurance too, any your point about those not needing auto insurance because they don’t have a car. Totally valid. But the argument they will return with is that everyone has life so needs health insurance.
Of course what that implies is that they are now going to regulate life.
And that is a scary proposition and one that flies in the face of the Declaration of Independence but it is in my opinion where we find ourselves today.
Well, yes- if they have their way, they will regulate everything they can- your life, your liberty, AND your happiness.
I am unclear as to what we as Republicans want when it comes to healthcare reform. Are we for continuing healthcare as it is currently handled in America today? Or, are we for revising healthcare in some form or fashion? And if we are for revising the healthcare system, can someone point me to our position paper or policy satement regarding our stance on health care reform?
Jesse, we want to have reform that fixes what is broken while leaving what works alone. Here is a list of 7 bills that were introduced that would have reformed health care.
Obama voted against all of them.
Heck Jesse- tort reform alone would help lower costs, and if the insurance co. would set up a risk pool, and the Pharma kicked in, we cold afford the care we need, and government would not have to intervene- but for them, it is all about the control over your lives- that’s truly the bottom line- they couldn’t care less if you lived or died- just so you can CONTRIBUTE. That is the essential phrase, or word- Zeke Emanuel (one of Hussein’s “advisors”) even has a graph, on which he can record your estimated worth to society, and at what point you will be denied care, because you do not count anymore.
Health Insurance for me is $2,400.00 a month or about 90% of my gross pay. How do you suggest I buy health insurance and say food or shelter? At least the $3,800.00 (I assume a year)fine is only about $380.00 a month so I’d only have to give up my car (the only way I can get to work), electricity (in Phoenix AZ)and telephone. And I wonder what the Government would use the $380.00 a month for? Most likely funding the system that collects the $3,800.00 in the first place.
Why on Earth are you paying over 28 thousand dollars a year for insurance?
And either you are affording it right now or doing without right now. Or you are already in a program provided by the government which means we already have you covered.
The issue is for the 8% of the population that does not have insurance and for those who do not wish to purchase it.
How many ways can the old steal from the young? They want healthy 20 year olds to purchase health insurance to pay for all their tests & medications, so they can continue their lavish retirement lifestyles. They took part in the greatest housing scam in history making themselves as land owners wealthy behond their dreams, all on the backs of the young!
It is not really the fault of the elderly. First of all we should never have had Social Security. If they were going to force us to give up our money it should have been invested privately. When SS first started it took in more than it paid out and the rest went to government. It was supposed to be saved but they spent it. SS still takes in more than it pays but not by much and, as has always been the case, those working now are paying the current SS benefits.
The elderly have paid into Medicare, another program that is poorly run and should have never been allowed, so they are entitled to their health care.
If we were to turn it around we might ask how long are those of us with insurance and with jobs going to pay for the young who do not buy health insurance? They cost us a fortune when they get hurt. I have no problem with someone not getting insurance as long as the burden for any debt falls on them and not the rest of us.
How about ILLEGALS? How long are we going to blow health care dollars on them?
So don’t point to the elderly. It all starts with personal responsibility.
If I would have been required to purchase health insurace all those years I would be in even more debt today. I’ve been poor for 15 years due to being a debt slave to sallie mae,because old professors have to make millions in retirement, while most young Americans don’t even have a 401KW.ages keep going down, while people I compete for jobs with get more & more government cheese that old politicians give away bringing wages down even further for the rest of us.
The elderly bought into Social Security, and Medicare, two government-run programs that should point out just exactly WHY we can’t have another- both of these programs were front-loaded with debt from the start, and so were doomed, because if you have people pulling money out even before it can be fully funded PLUS the politicians stealing from the fund, and replacing the money with worthless IOUs the chances that that program will succeed is absolutely ZERO.