Penalties for those lacking health insurance

[dogday]

WHO IS THIS ASSHOLE/

Massachusetts residents who choose not to obtain health insurance would face tax penalties and even the garnishing of their wages under a proposal Governor Mitt Romney unveiled yesterday.

Romney says the ''individual mandate" he is proposing, part of his broader plan to cover the roughly 500,000 people who are uninsured, would not cost the state any money. But some healthcare specialists say the approach might cost hundreds of millions of dollars more than state taxpayers currently provide for government health coverage.

Romney's plan would require all residents in Massachusetts to have some form of health insurance or agree to pay their medical bills out of their own pockets. No other state has such a requirement, and if Romney manages to make it law, it would be a compelling accomplishment he could point to if he runs for president.

Currently, people without health insurance often go to hospitals and receive care they never pay for, because the hospital and the state pick up the tab. Under Romney's proposal, uninsured Massachusetts residents would be asked to enroll in a plan when they seek care.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2005/06/22/romney_eyes_penalties_for_those_lacking_insurance?mode=PF

[killbotfactory]

1. Way to stick it to the working poor

Asshole

[cynatnite]

2. How much more does the poor have to be penalized for being poor? n/t

[wakeme2008]

3. And if you are out of work or work at WALMART at WALMART wages

what do you do.

[realFedUp]

11. Yeah, Wal-Mart should pick up the health costs of their employees

instead of making them buy into a plan.

[moondust]

22. Wal-Mart lets taxpayers pay.

Thousands of Wal-Mart employees across the country are forced to rely on Medicaid despite the fact that their employer makes billions in profits.

It's a perfect example of the despicable capitalist abuse known as "Socializing the costs, privatizing the profits."

[philosophie_en_rose]

4. How would this work? Under what plan?

The only people to benefit from this is the insurance companies. They don't pay hospitals the full cost of care either.

Also, if it's a crime to not have a plan or to not pay the fines for not having a plan, the state pays for jail healthcare anyway.

This stinks of insurance company lobbyists.

[CrispyQ]

5. What part of

'you can't get blood from a turnip' do these assholes not understand?

[KarenInMA]

6. Hello

He is planning on running for president, he announced yesterday.

Which is funny, because we all hate him...

[CitrusLib]

7. Oh, this is part of that compassionate conservatism, right?

:eyes:

Mit Romney is a schmuck.

[rodeodance]

8. he leaned to penalized people from Bush!!--

[HeeBGBz]

9. Geez, this country is starting to suck like an old Hoover

Where are all these fucking lizards coming from?

[Auntie Bush]

17. Wrong!

Old Hoovers don't have much suction!

He sucks like a brand new Hoover! (Plenty of sucksion)

[unhappycamper]

10. THAT'S OUR ASSHOLE. You want 'em? He's yours. n/t

[Saphire]

12. the one and only time I took one of my uninsured children to

the county hospital here in San Antonio, I got billed for the whole $2000.00. The only help the county gave me was letting me pay in installments. No free health care here! No insurance, your screwed. Next time,if there is one, I will go to the hospital closest to home, and not have to wait for 20 hours. The cost will be the same.

[Kolesar]

14. Are you saying you did not get "network negotiated" reduced charges..?

...since you were not in a "health plan". I am aware that happens.
BTW, welcome to our message board!

[Strawman]

13. I knew this would be their approach to health care.

As if it's "rich" people "choosing" not to buy insurance that are responsible for driving up health care costs in this country. How can these people face the public and be so intellectually dishonest? How?

[MsUSA]

15. Sounds a awful lot like the bankruptcy bill doesn't it?? Can't pay

they'll make you find a way. Gawd, I'm starting to think more about moving to Canada. *sigh* Where is the moral value in this system. It's just sick.

[damntexdem]

16. How redundant:

they're already paying big penalties, whenever they get ill, or whenever preventive health could keep them from getting ill.

[depakid]

18. People like this are out of touch with reality

proposals like this that seek to expand the risk pools look nice and neat on paper and have all sorts of pretty graphs proving how they'd work, but frequently lack any application to real life situations.

The underlying concepts are sound- but Republicans are simply too stupid or cowardly to accept rational economics the way it actually works. They cling to ideology like babies to blankets and are afraid to make the tough choices required to make programs work- which invariably involve cutting the parasites out of the healthcare system.

Simply coercing people to purchase insurance without setting affordable rates does little to add value back into the system- it simply increases the share of waste that insurers spend on administrative costs (or executive perks) and 'recouping costs' from tax returns reduces disposable income that would be used to buy goods and services in other parts of the local communities- degrading the multiplier effects that go along with money changing hands.

It's a net loser in the end- and it doesn't take a genius to see it....

[newswolf56]

19. As I said on the first thread about this, we are already...

...afflicted nationally by such a penalize-the-poor plan: the BushCo Medicare Prescription Drug Lord Benefit Plan, which fines you one percent of your pension for every month you refuse to participate.

The reason BushCo imposed this compulsory measure is that the Medicare Prescription Drug Lord Benefit Plan will double or triple the prescription drug costs of a great many seniors. The money will be funneled directly to the prescription drug lords, obscenely inflating their already pornographic profits.

Thus a lot of folks angrily oppose it -- can't afford it -- but are being viciously bullied by the government into signing on. (Indeed I am one of these people: the BushCo Medicare Prescription Drug Lord Benefit Plan will nearly double my annual prescription costs.)

Adding to the outrage, this is what the Greedy Old Plutocrats (GOP) call "voluntary."

Once again, we see how the GOP will do absolutely everything in their (ever increasing) power to maliciously worsen the lot of working families and lower income folks.

[kcass1954]

20. Romney, like most repugs, misses one very important point...

Most people do not choose to not have health insurance, much like they do not choose to be jobless, homeless, hungry, etc. If there was any way that they could get insurance, and if they could possibly afford to pay the premiums, they would already have it!

[KansDem]

21. They did it with auto insurance...

By law you have to have it or face serious consequences. Now they're going to do it with health insurance...

Just think how much money you'd have right now if there was a law requiring everyone to buy your product.