Health Care, Section 7203 and 7201 problem

[ThomCat]

Why is it that our representatives are being so much more hostile to Citizens than to the insurance companies, assuming that people will be the ones abusing the system, and need to be criminalized harshly?

If you can't afford to buy health insurance (minimum cost is $5,300 per year per person) you get taxed instead. If you can't afford that tax, you go to jail for a up to year and get fined up to $100,000.

:wtf:

If you are still poor and can't afford health insurance a second time, it is 2 years and $500,000.

But in comparison, if the insurance company abuses you by continuing to cancel your insurance or by denying you care the only options offered to you is to appeal to an federal agency that can choose whether or not to investigate. The investigation is not mandated. If they choose to investigate and then decide that the insurance company did anything wrong they can Recommend to the state enforcement agency that they do something about it. The federal agency is hobbled from doing anything directly.

If the State agency isn't controlled by the insurance companies and chooses to investigate on their own too, and also finds any wrongdoing, then they can choose to impose a fine and/or order service to be continued.

The fines for the insurance company aren't mandated to be large, and there are no big onerous penalties comparable in any way to being put in jail. The goal is assumed to be to correct the situation, not to criminalize anyone.

Why are "We the people" criminalized, fined huge amounts and threatened with jail for denying companies money, but if we can get though this huge bureaucratic process to prove we were abused they are merely corrected and slapped on the wrist for threatening our lives and well being?

Our reps are writing this bill with the built in assumption that people need to be treated like criminals all the time, and corporations are the victims that need to be protected.

Just like when they wrote the "bankruptcy reform" laws, we are the bad guys doing wrong and corporations are the victims who need relief.

:grr:

[dflprincess]

1. Because we aren't able to match what the insurance companies pay in "campaign contributions"

and they figure at election time we have no choice but to vote for the Democrats no matter how badly they've abused us.

[ThomCat]

4. I think it is far more than that, and far deeper.

It really looks like a cultural issue. The culture in DC seems to think that citizens are criminals and corporations are trustworthy.

The assumption seems to be that the only honest citizens are the ones who choose to be nothing more than quiet and compliant consumers. If you aren't just a consumer, willingly, then you need to be harshly treated and forced to be a consumer against your will.

:(

[tridim]

2. You mean Section 7203 and 7201 of the US Tax Code.

Those sections aren't in the HCR bill.

[ThomCat]

3. Yes, I know.

I refer to them this as the "Section 7203 and 7201 problem." I didn't mean to imply that those sections are in the health care bill. Those are the sections in the tax code that enforce the problems in the health care bill.

[regnaD kciN]

5. ...or from any other refusal to pay your taxes.

Here's a question: the penalty for not obtaining health insurance is a 2.5% surtax. If, as part of health-care reform package, everyone's taxes went up 2.5% (say, to help pay for subsidies) but no one was forced to obtain insurance, would you still be complaining as much?

[villager]

6. but that's not what's in the bill, is it? instead, it's a direct pipeline of taxes= profits

...for the insurance leeches.

We're not paying extra for direct care, a la single payer...

[dflprincess]

7. Exactly

really, the bill uses the IRS to punish you for not contributing to a private company's profits.

I thought one excuse for not even considering single payer was the tax increase. At least with a tax supported single payer system we might have access to care and not just "coverage".

[ThomCat]

8. That depends, but probably not.

A flat tax is always regressive. It means that poor people pay a much greater portion of their non-discretionary income (income needed for necessary daily existence) than rich people pay. That just isn't fair.

I certainly would not support that.

I also will not support that these people will be charged this tax, and will not get the Public Option for it. They will only get to use Public Emergency Rooms, for which they will then get charged the maximum possible rates. So they will be taxed and then still be in the same positions they are in now. How is that an improvement over today?

But, if everyone paid a tax and for that tax everyone got real universal health care, not just a mandate to buy insurance policies, then real universal health care is a goal so valuable it would probably be worth putting up with a regressive tax. At least until we could fix that regressive tax.

[Laelth]

9. I very much hope this bill fails.

The Party and the people will regret it if this thing becomes law.

:dem:

-Laelth

[ThomCat]

11. A whole lot of people will.

I don't know that our party will care. They will get a winfall of donations from the insurance and pharma industries. :(

[ProdigalJunkMail]

10. wow...$5300 per person per year...minimum

didn't realize it was that high. my insurance costs should go to about 10 times what I pay now for so-called 'cadillac' coverage.

sP

[redqueen]

12. Where did you get the $5300/year minimum from? (nt)

[ThomCat]

13. The original text of the bill that was posted here a while ago

and summaries that are referenced in a bunch of posts.

[subterranean]

14. No one will go to jail because they can't afford to pay the fine.

Anyone who can't afford the fine probably has a low enough income that subsidies will cover most or all of the cost of their health insurance. The only way I can see anyone going to jail over this is if they simply refuse to pay the fine out of principle.

[ThomCat]

15. I hope you are right.

Delivery of subsidies to the insurance companies are important enough to be in the bill already. Delivery of subsidies to the poor are so low priority that they are being kept very vague and will be worked out sometime between now and 2013, if they survive.

Punishments are already described in detail, but subsidies and help aren't. That's a very bad sign, and not one that doesn't inspires confidence.

I agree that our party doesn't want to see people go to jail over this. It would make the party look bad. But at the same time the threat of going to jail is always very useful for coercing people and our party is not above using that deliberately.

The fact that penalties are written first makes me think our party really wants to force compliance with any shit they end up passing regardless of what people think about it, and they anticipate that the public will hate this when they figure out what they are getting.