If you get a $4000.00 fine for not having health insurance?
Lets say you use the emergency room at the cost of $2,000.00 (kidney stone). You then get a $4,000.00 fine added to the cost, because you didn't have national health care.
Lets say you could fit the $2,000.00 on your credit cards. But the $4,000.00 is unobtainable. So soon, you end up in jail unable to pay the ticket.
Being in jail, lets say your employer gets rid of you, or you miss work. Not only do you need to bail yourself out (thousands more), but you now owe $4,000.00 fine, and then must pay to get insurance up and running, on top of the now comparably small $2,000.00 medical bill.
Are people prepared for this situation? I am sure plenty of us wont want to waste 10 hours signing up for the national health care, the the rest wont want to get insurance if we are fine with paying the occasional medical bill.
Are you able and willing to pay a $4,000.00 fine if you decide not to get insurance? Is it fair? Would you do it voluntarily?
Update:Oohhbother, is the IRS better? The IRS will raid your home also and take everything you own!
Answers & Comments
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Sounds like it would be smarter to just get insurance.
The same thing happens in mandatory insurance auto accidents - you owe the fine and the damages - and then you know better.
And since the fine is added to income tax bill by the IRS - good luck with that non-payment idea...uh huh.
Ok I dont work for Walmart and I am employed and no small employers do not offer insurance so some of you need to step into reality. I do not make enough to afford health care and what the powers that be call affordable,I could never afford. So I won't at this rate ever be able to afford health insurance and no one can seem to understand that.Im sick of hearing about the stupid middle class people,they don't rule the world. I want to hear about the poor people who struggle to make ends meet.Im not some uneducated fool.There are no jobs and im lucky to have what I have.So I will be one of those people fined.I want to know what idiot thinks that fining all the poor people is going to accomplish. I don't qualify for any type of government help even though I do have a chronic condition since age 11.Its not my fault I have it.It happens.So it also excludes me from insurance.The governement can fine me till the cows come home but if I don't have the money to pay it ,I can't pay it and im simply not going to commit a crime to come up with it.
I'll keep what I have now, which is major medical coverage with a health savings account to pay for routine care. If they try to tell me I must have more coverage, that will be the point at which I tell them to kiss my @ss. I spend $1460/year now between my major medical policy and out of pocket for routine care. I've got a good thing going. I have no intention of spending more, and I know I'm covered with what I have.
@ nug - Yes, people do go to jail for not paying their debts to the IRS. If they attach this as a tax payable through the IRS (as has been suggested) then people most definitely can be put in prison for not paying it. Tax evasion is a felony.
The fine seems to target people living on the edge already. This has been going on for some time now but this is the cherry on top. Those that try to make lemonade out of the lemons they've been handed, and do the right things, are being attacked. This causes hopelessness and despair and makes it that much harder to get a piece of the pie. It's almost just easier for some people to just stay in bed because the outcome is the same anyway. The dems need people to be in this state of mind or their whole agenda crumbles.
If everyone simply refuses to pay the extortion, the corporate/governmental healthcare cartel will go bankrupt trying to collect.
And sooner or later, the police and military will turn against their own superiors, because they will get tired of risking being shot for kicking down the doors of honest Americans who refuse consent to fascism.
All we need to do is call their bluff, and they will back off.
But if we cower and submit, or waste our energy fighting amongst ourselves, then the crime syndicate has already won.
$2000 per house hold member plus the money the levy off your account from the year not covered. So about $5000 a year per member of your house hold! I read the bill and the only STRAW MAN IS AT 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. That is right for the first time in my life I am ashamed to be democrat. I voted in my first election for JFK!
The police do not have jurisdiction to enforce an IRS action.
The IRS will seize your assets and property, including your homestead, to satisfy your ANNUAL $3800 fine EVERY YEAR.
Remember that eminenet domain case in Connecticut that went to the Supreme Court before somebody applied some common sense and said they can't just violate your property rights arbitrarily?
Well, now they can.
They win. They have found the way to both bankrupt every household and seize their property.
The government takes it all.
Say hello to the new feudalism, serf.
Bow down.
Hail Obama!
How about "let's say" NO to health care reform and put an end to it.
Like it or not, you gunna pay one way or the other!!
Um, what if we keep the same system, and your kidney stone happens to cost $6000? Same thing.
PS - people don't go to prison for being unable to pay debts.