House Democrats Plan To Tax The Uninsured Making As Little As $44,000/Year
Which isn’t exactly something you’re going to hear them mention during a speech, and you certainly can’t count on anyone interviewing them to dare ask this question:
As expected, the House bill would mandate that individuals and families have or buy health insurance.
But what if they don’t buy it?
Then Section 401 kicks in. Any individual (or family) that does not have health insurance would have to pay a new tax, roughly equal to the smaller of 2.5% of your income or the cost of a health insurance plan. …
I assume the bill authors would respond, “But why wouldn’t you want insurance? After all, we’re subsidizing it for everyone up to 400% of the poverty line.”
That is true. But if you’re a single person with income of $44,000 or higher, then you’re above 400% of the poverty line. You would not be subsidized, but would face the punitive tax if you didn’t get health insurance. This bill leaves an important gap between the subsidies and the cost of health insurance. CBO says that for about eight million people, that gap is too big to close, and they would get stuck paying higher taxes and still without health insurance.
So if you’re poor and uninsured you get taxpayer subsidized government health care. If you’re rich, you can buy any health care you want. But if you’re not poor and not rich and don’t have insurance, you pay taxes.
Why anyone would think this is an improvement over the current way of doing things, which is admittedly flawed, is beyond me.
