Residents in Mass., who refuse to get health insurance will soon face monthly fines of up to $76 , says the AP:
The fines are part of an increasingly aggressive approach written into the health care law designed to pressure Massachusetts residents into getting insurance. The law, intended to create near-universal coverage in the state, was approved by lawmakers and signed by former Gov. Mitt Romney in 2006.It remains unclear how many Massachusetts residents still don’t have insurance, but the number could be in the hundreds of thousands.
The penalties, which vary with age and income, are based on half the lowest cost plans available through the Health Care Connector. They accrue each month an individual remains uninsured and will be due as part of tax returns filed early in 2009.
The penalties apply only to adults deemed able to afford health insurance by the Health Insurance Connector Authority, which oversees the health care law. People can apply for hardship appeals.
The highest fine of $76 a month — or $912 a year — will be levied against those over the age of 27 making more than three times the federal poverty level of $30,636 for an individual.
Married couples who are both uninsured will have to pay fines individually. A couple earning more than $41,076 would have to pay $1,824 in penalties for the year.
The fines drop for younger adults and fall even lower for those making less than three times the poverty level. There are no fines for individuals earning less than $15,325 a year.
The fines will accrue for every month that a person “who can afford” insurance goes without it, and will come due at the end of the tax year.
What do people in Mass. think of this? The government says it has prompted 300,000 uninsured people to get coverage.
No health care? Higher fines in Mass. [BusinessWeek]
(Photo:Getty)
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@TomK: what you said…
This makes me sick. If I don’t want health coverage then I don’t want it and I won’t pay for it. Who says I don’t have enough in the bank to fund it myself?
Who are they to play God with my health and my life and my pocket book.
This really makes me sick. No wonder the rest of the planet hates us.
I think it would make sense if healthcare was affordable. If we’re going to go down this road though we should just have standardized healthcare.
Hello…Massachusetts? An individual making $30,000 a year or a couple making $40,000 isn’t exactly living the high life (especially anywhere within a 75 mile radius of Boston, where the cost of living is 2 or 3 times higher than almost anywhere except the Bay Area).
Yeah..fine ‘em and make ‘em pay money they already don’t have because they can barely afford to make ends meet now.
That’ll show ‘em!
@mgyqmb: $30k a year doesn’t go very far when you have a mortgage and taxes to pay.
It’s amazing how every problem like this boils down to corruption and greed.
The insurance companies want unlimited profits. The AMA wants doctors to remain a semi-godlike profession. The ambulance-chasing lawyers want to retire rich because someone didn’t clean a needle properly. The OHRP doesn’t want to rock the boat with standardized checklists for doctors, because they have gubbermint jobs. The pharma companies want to lock everyone into protected drugs forever.
Forget healthcare laws, mortgage laws, privacy laws… come on people, lets fix US first. You know, you and me who will take advantage of anyone and everyone to get ahead a little more in the next 30 seconds. What in the world is going on? Was “Idiocracy” really that correct?
Once we stop looking around every corner for scammers I think all of this stuff should get a lot easier. Is that possible or will human nature mean everyone must be forever nannied in every little thing?
@mgyqmb: No, it’s triple the poverty level.
Hoorah for legalized gambling!
Another reason to vote for Ron Paul.
This is one of the big differences between Hillary’s plan and Obama’s — the former requires folks to buy insurance even if they don’t want it, while Obama’s plan offers low-cost, high-quality (government-sponsored) options, but doesn’t use force of law to force folks who don’t want to to sign on.
Given the general consensus of .ma.us residents in this forum, I think Obama’s plan is much more likely to go over well with the public as a whole.
@johnva: I’m aware of how SS works, but it doesn’t mean its not a scam on the people of this country. Basically it “insures” the stupid and ignorant against their own poor decisions…ie., not putting a dime away for retirement and/or treating whatever retirement savings they have as a way of paying off debt for crap they don’t NEED.
If it really is a “pay as you go” system, then I want to stop paying. Give me MY money (it doesn’t belong to someone else, it sure of hell doesn’t belong to the government) and let me decide what to do with it and I’ll forgo whatever pittance I’ll receive at retirement based on what I’ve paid in now. Of course a politician can’t control the votes on the aforementioned irresponsible people in this country if they don’t confiscate my money.
@mgyqmb: No, because the government still considers you dependent on your parents. Even IF you don’t trully get much from your parents (ie., you’re on scholarship and paying for everything else out of your own pocket) the government doesn’t give a crap. The sooner you learn that the government isn’t your friend if you work and are productive, the better.
Why doesn’t Mass just give them health insurance?
Well, Mitt Romney won’t be getting my vote. He’s no different than the Democrats. They all believe in government-controlled Socialized medicine.
If people want to spend their money on cell phones, iPods, HDTVs, luxury cars, “bling”, etc., instead of health insurance, then I say let them pay the penalty when they get sick. Before I had an employer-sponsored health insurance, I purchased my own health insurance in case something really bad happened.
Of course, charging people for insurance when they can’t afford insurance sounds a lot like credit card companies charging overlimit and late fees to people who can’t afford their bills.
If you don’t qualify as “poor” and you choose not to buy insurance, you should have to pay MSRP like everyone else. Granted, MSRP looks grossly inflated to me, but hospitals have to recoup their costs from caring for “poor” people somehow.
@DojiStar: Well-said.
I wonder if MA is taking steps to deal with the insurance company side of things as well – the need for change on their part is high to say the least. The value of health care is somewhat reduced when the primary goal of your insurance company is to limit the treatment you can receive as much as possible.
And don’t get me started on the need in this country to start focusing on preventative medicine . . . I don’t want to think about how much money is being spent on adult onset diabetes brought on by obesity.
MA has always had free care. I work in a hospital and see it every day. It’s called the “emergency room”. Every hospital has one and it doesn’t matter if you are an illegal immigrant, have no insurance or or don’t feel the need to pay for it.
Read up before you comment. The insurance and benefits sponsored by MA are better then what I get from my employer. [www.mass.gov]
It’s about time small businesses are forced to provide health insurance. Too many people on 1099 without health insurance.
What do the people of Massachusetts think up Chapter 58? We think that it is a huge sell out to the greedy insurance industry and that our legislature is a wholly own subsidary of the same! We think that Mitt Romney is a flaming idiot. We think that a lot of state politicians will be out of work come November 2008. I work for the Commonwealth, but they classify me as a freelance consultant and provide me (and thousands of others) with no benefits. So, the state won’t give us insurance as a perk of emplyment, but they will mandate that we buy it or be fined. Perhaps these idiots can try to cure homelessness next year by fining the indigent half the rent for the lowest priced apartment in their area.
The whole thing is totally unsustainable since the price of coverage will be whatever insurers say it is and hundreds of thousands of citizens will bail on the system again. We will never solve the problem of health care access until we get the parasitic insurance companies out of the equation. The rest of the civilized world has found a way to provide access to all citizens. Are we stupid or just stubborn?
Insurance companies “must meet certain standards.” That sounds all warm and fuzzy, but what happens when they don’t?
In Texas, as in most states, there are Departments of Insurance that oversee the insurance companies. The DOI usually assesses fines to non-compliant insurance companies, right? Well, isn’t it interesting that these insurance companies continually break laws and fail to meet the standards regardless of getting fined over and over. The fines are not enough to deter them from unethical behavior because they’ve got an assload of money to pay these fines. It’s more profitable to screw policyholders and doctors and pay the fines than to conduct business ethically and within the law. I truly believe the state DOI’s WANT the insurance companies to “slip up” because it’s a cash cow in fines for them. That is prolly where the “fines” in MA will end up, in some half-ass regulatory department slapping band-aids on everything to appear to be performing a function.
I, too, worked in healthcare and think most folks can truly grasp just how corrupt insurance companies are. MA requiring residents to throw more money at them is just sickening.
Uninsured people ARE funded by Insured people, no doubt. Illegal immigrants will clearly still get their free healthcare that you and I will have to pay for regardless. Even the copays and deductibles insured people are supposed to pay VERY OFTEN do not get paid. Nobody cares because the insurance company already got their money. Mark my words, the cost of insurance will not go down because “the risk is spread.” They will find a way to screw you.
I agree that Medicare is the most efficient insurance “company” I’ve ever dealt with. Go figure. That type of deal would be my recommendation. Then if you want supplemental, go get it from a private company.
The biggest problem I have with this idea is that it forces EVERY citizen to give money to private companies. Considering 30-40% of the healthcare costs in this country are to handle medical billing / insurance reimbursement overhead, I have a serious problem with this so-called plan.
I have friends who work on both sides of the issue (hospital billing/collections and insurance company approval/reimbursement depts) and the stories I hear are enough to make a sane man cry in rage. The current healthcare system w//private insurance companies *IS* the problem. Forcing everyone to be a part of it isn’t even close to a solution, isn’t even a band-aid approach.
As to what needs to be done… We need to literally throw out the existing system and start over. As much as I believe in preventative care and that access to health care is a fundamental right and obligation of a country/common human decency, I don’t want to see universal healthcare in this country. If the current system is corrupt beyond belief (including politicians who got bought off, incl. Romney), can you imagine how corrupt a 100% political/gov’t system would be?
I don’t have any easy answers. Doctors in this country get paid far too much for how poorly their patients’ outcomes are (I say that being a med student), and the expenses incurred in healthcare are too high. Everything from the insurance overhead to malpractice insurance, to the cost of pharmaceuticals.
I fear, ultimately, that the current healthcare system will never be fixed. They’ll just keep trying to patch the system, but no one has the cajones and teeth needed to truly overhaul the system.
@lesbiansayswhat:
It’s not about whether healthcare is “good” or “bad” for you. Of course it’s good for everyone to have good primary care, prevention, and disease management. But that’s not the point.
It’s about the fact that people who don’t buy health insurance and don’t have the money to pay for treatment expect their hospital to treat them for free. If you call 911 with ten cents in your bank account and no insurance, the ambulance is required by law to take you to a hospital, and the ER is required to treat you.
Who do you think pays for that? If you don’t want insurance, you ought to waive your right to free treatment. Save up for emergencies, or pay your insurance to do it for you — just take some responsibility for your own health.