Comments on: Max Baucus says buy health insurance or pay a fine

By: How good is unaffordable health care insurance? | LD Jackson | Political Realities

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 11:35:28 +0000

[...] and the penalties for failing to purchase a policy have already been the subject of two articles, here and here. Let me spell it out just a bit more. We are being told that having everyone in the [...]

By: Slashingtonguedotcom

Slashingtonguedotcom — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 17:58:10 +0000

There are several aspects that we are not seeing here.

1) Illegals would not want to buy healthcare. For one, usually they are too poor to afford one. Secondly, having insurance means that the government would have an additional measure to catch the illegal immigrant. Hence they are not covered. This can be shown from the 9 million illegals that are not covered by any insurance.

2) We already have a measure now that would require proof of citizenship to get coverage in the current form of the Baucus bill; added recently. Initially there was unanimous agreement in amongst both parties that this should not be so as the added bureaucracy which would drive up cost. You cannot go and ask for citizenship without verification measures. Those cost money which we would end up paying for. This would be worse as it would be redundant as per point 1).

3) When illegals do not get coverage, who do you think pays the price when they go and see the doctor? So they are ultimately getting free health care. By any angle no one has been able to come out with a better solution to deal with them.

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By: President Obama speaks to Congress about health care reform | My Take

President Obama speaks to Congress about health care reform | My Take — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 02:07:46 +0000

[...] that all Americans purchase health care insurance, but nothing was mentioned about the fines Democratic Senator Max Baucus has proposed. He has made his opposition to those fines known before and I hope he will stand by [...]

By: Laurie. Oregon

Laurie. Oregon — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 18:04:16 +0000

Messy, messy messy! Obama is on record as saying that he is against punitive measures that make health insurance mandatory, but also tells us that the only way to begin to control costs is to have everyone insured, The “affordability” question is extremely subjective, and still leaves many financially vulnerable to a large health event that could send them into bankruptcy…Something we all get to pay for.

I am more an more skeptical that any sort of effective health care reform will come from all the pain. we’ve entered the “silly season”- too close to the 2010 elections. Anything written now is likely to tip toward special interests and probably won’t mean a lot besides higher taxes.

By: Dominique

Dominique — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 15:54:13 +0000

Let me clarify what I meant to say. We will now have waivers in place for those who can't afford healthcare insurance. Politics as usual if you ask me because I see people other than the poor taking advantage of those tax waivers. Why can't we just put together small, simple, sane changes.... BTW, did you realize that the healthcare plan will not go into affect until 2013, however, the taxes for it will go into affect on January 2010. .-= Dominique´s last blog ..the GOVERNMENT can. =-.

By: Dominique

Dominique — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 15:51:20 +0000

Actually I understand that there will be waivers for those who can't afford the premiums. But again, I have a problem with that. Look at our tax system. How many loopholes have the rich, the "Rangels" of the world walk through to avoid paying taxes. Now we will have them in place for the poor? Sounds too much like politics as usual to me! .-= Dominique´s last blog ..the GOVERNMENT can. =-.

By: Mike

Mike — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 15:36:05 +0000

Baucus’ proposal is really a headscratcher. I understand the need for an individual mandate — if there’s a guarantee of no denial for prexisting conditions then there is no incentive to buy insurance until you get sick. So there needs to be a mechanism to cover everybody and make it mandatory and affordable — no easy task. But imposing a penalty on people who barely make ends meet strikes me as another bad idea. There are ways to do this but he seems to have chosen a path that can lead nowhere.

By: Larry

Larry — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 10:51:55 +0000

I still can not believe he is seriously considering this proposal as part of a health care reform package. How they can justify punishing those Americans who can not afford health care insurance by fining them is beyond my comprehension.

By: Dominique

Dominique — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 04:42:04 +0000

I agree with you Larry. I reacted the same way. In fact, I had to re-read it because I thought I had mis-read the actual amount of the fine. This is insane. I wonder if these elected officials think about how they would feel if they were the ones being burdened with the ridiculous taxes, mandates and so on. Sometimes my head just hurts from all this craziness....Where exactly did America go? .-= Dominique´s last blog ..the GOVERNMENT can. =-.