“I remember that fiasco very well, Magnetron.”
Was that the one where we each got a check for $100 and told to go out and shop?
“You are familiar with the definition of incentive, right?”
I’m not understanding you. One cannot wait until they are sick to sign up for coverage. If you don’t sign up during open enrollment you are SOL if you become ill after that. You will have to pay for all your medical treatment until the next open enrollment when you can purchase insurance. That insurance will not retroactively pay your bills from when you were without insurance.
There is no incentive to wait until you are sick or injured because unless you have insurance your bills will not be covered until after the next open enrollment period (which is only a few weeks in most states from late Nov into December) for insurance to commence the following month.
The individual mandate will be gone. Insurers will still not be able to charge higher prices to, or fail to sell to, people with pre-existing conditions. People will still only be able to buy health insurance during the enrollment period (which, by the way, is still going on for about half the country.)
Increasing competition in health care means cracking down on insurer monopolies and hospital/provider monopolies. Neither party has shown the slightest interest in doing so.
If everyone was (a) smart (i.e., well-informed), and (b) managed their money well, the individual mandate would not be needed as an incentive to buy health insurance. It is a no-brainer to figure out that that an uninsured person who gets sick or injured in January after close of enrollment is in deep trouble.
But (a) and (b) don’t apply. Some people don’t understand that they aren’t going to be able to buy insurance in March or May or September and get the insurance to pay all of their accumulated medical bills from whenever, and then just drop in and out being insured whenever they want to. Some people simply live in denial of the possiblity that they could ever get sick or injured …that’s something that happens to other people, not them-- especially easy for young people and even older, athletic people to fall into that mindset.
So at least some of those people bought insurance because they thought they had to. (Though obviously the cost of insurance is higher than the tax penalty).
I’d note that the tax bill leaves the individual mandate in place for 2018 – removing it only in 2019 – so there might be quite a few low-information uninsured citizens who will be in for something of a surprise when tax time rolls around in April, 2019 (but fortunately for the GOP, comfortably beyond the midterm elections in Nov. 2018)
On the positive side, if the new regulations permitting associations to offer group (self) insurance, many of those affected by the mandate will be able to afford health care. Future reform should be concentrated on reducing costs and improving service, not on insurance.
How is longterm capital gains taxed under the new plan?
One of the justifications for the individual mandate in ACA was getting healthy people to sign up for coverage (or at least pay the tax/fine) which was necessary with the removal of preexisting conditions. There are a lot of young/healthy people who go 10-15 years or more with zero medical costs. They could save their premiums and bridge any gap in coverage before the next enrollment period begins (or their next QLE). Would everyone do that? No. But the incentive is still there. More so than exists today.
The American Hospital Association agreed to charge Medicare less in exchange for the individual mandate so they wouldn’t be on the hook for so many uninsured people showing up in their ERs. Will they want their money back? Or will they just negotiate a much pricier deal next time? Their deal was for 10 years, I think, so it will be time to renegotiate in 2-3 years.
I think it’s somewhat funny that the senate parliamentarian put the kibosh on 529s being used for homeschooling.
Not so much, for people in the 55+ age group, which describes a lot of parents here. More than a third of us would be declined.
Who says nobody gets a big tax cut in this bill? Why, plenty of people get a nice Christmas present:
Goldman Sachs, $6 billion
GE, $16 billion
Citigroup, $9 billion
Microsoft, $28 billion
Exxon, $11 billion
Pfizer, $39 billion
Many other big corporations similarly getting billion dollar payoffs.
If you could (possibly with subsidies) afford insurance and choose not to have it, you should have to face the consequences of that choice should they arise.
We’re “forced” to purchase other things we might not want to purchase either.
Everybody thinks that, but nobody thinks it when it’s someone they love. And nobody wants people to bleed to death in the street. So we have EMTALA, so anyone who shows up at the hospital in labor or needing emergency care will get it.
I think that it interesting that many people find it unamerican to require the purchase of health insurance but have no problem with the requirement to purchase auto insurance.
And we will probably all agree that health care costs are rising too quickly. But, as predicted, costs have increased at a slower rate since the implementation of the ACA than before. And if the mandate were maintained, costs would be growing more slowly.
That’s just because no one wants to have to pay public servants to clean up the bloody streets. Believe me, there are plenty of people who have no problem with people bleeding to death, as it were. Even members of my in-law family have openly said so.
Probably not a good example Dave. Thousands of folks who are required to have auto insurance don;t have it. If I recall, an article in the LATimes (years ago) claimed that a third of drivers in SoCal were uncovered. Of course, if they do get into an accident, their car is not covered, nor is the other guy/gal. (Uninsured motorists coverage then picks up and is mandatory in California.)
@saillakeerie, agreed that are many incentives for offshoring.
But the point that I see in this bill is that to manage a corporation’s total tax liability, I should relocate US profits and the assets and expenses that produce to a foreign country to “shield” the low/no tax income from the low/zero tax zone.
And this occurs in clause of the Bill that purports to do the opposite.
It’s not really comparable:
- while you might be required to, the gov't isn't using the tax system to make sure you get it. You can quite easily go without it in most places, just don't get pulled over.
- the lowest level of car insurance you are legally allowed to buy (at least in my state) is pretty cheap because it doesn't cover much. That's not an option with health insurance, which is required to cover a whole laundry list of items whether you want them or not.
Prehaps, but perhaps if there were, say, a penalty for not purchasing insurance, compliance would be higher.
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And it adds to the cost of coverage for those who do buy insurance. Probably increases the cost to society for insurance.
“So why then are you doing it? Why do you prattle about who will get tax cuts, when trying to predict the future is a dubious business?”
Because you can determine who will get tax cuts fairly easily by running the numbers. What is impossible to determine is the ultimate result to the economy and government revenue/spending. Look at history. They government agencies, think tanks, economists, media, etc. are always wrong.